I need not Aquaint Your _Majesty_, how many _Millions_ of _Timber-Trees_ (beside infinite _others_) have been _Propagated_ and _Planted_ throughout Your vast _Dominions_, at the _Instigation_, and by the sole _Direction_ of this _Work_; because Your _Gracious Majesty_, has been pleas’d to _own_ it _Publickly_, for my _Encouragement_, who, in all that I here pretend to say, deliver only those _Precepts_ which Your _Majesty_ has put into _Practice_; as having (like another _Cyrus_) by Your own _Royal Example_, exceeded all your _Predecessors_ in the _Plantations_ You have made, beyond (I dare assert it) all the _Monarchs_ of this _Nation_, since the _Conquest_ of it. And, indeed what more _August_, what more _Worthy_ Your _Majesty_, or more becoming our _Imitation?_ than whilst You are thus solicitous for the _Publick Good_, we pursue Your _Majesty’s_ Great _Example_; and by cultivating our decaying _Woods_, contribute to Your _Power_, as to Your greatest _Wealth_ and _Safety_; since whilst Your _Majesty_ is furnish’d to send forth those _Argo’s_ and _Trojan Horses_,{lxxvi:1} about this Happy _Island_, we are to fear nothing from _without it_; and whilst we remain _Obedient_ to Your just _Commands_, nothing from _within_ it. ’Tis now some _Years_ past that Your _Majesty_ was pleas’d to declare Your Favourable Acceptance of a _Treatise_ of _Architecture_ which I then presented to _You_, with many _Gracious Expressions_, and that it was a most _useful_ Piece. _Sir_, that _Encouragement_ (together with the _Success_ of the _Book_ it self, and of the former _Editions_ of _this_) has animated me still to continue my _Oblation_ to Your _Majesty_ of these _Improvements_: Nor was it certainly without some _Provident_ Conduct, that we have been thus solicitous to begin, as it were, with _Materials_ for Building, and _Directions_ to _Builders_; if due Reflection be made on that Deplorable _Calamity_, the _Conflagration_ of Your _Imperial City_; which nevertheless, by the Blessing of _God_, and Your _Majesty’s_ Gracious _Influence_, we have seen _Rise_ again, a _New_, and much more _Glorious_ PHOENIX. This TRIBUTE I now once more lay at the _Feet_ of our ROYAL FOUNDER. May Your _Majesty_ be pleas’d to be Invok’d by that no _Inglorious_ TITLE, in the profoundest _Submission_ of Gracious Sir, Your _Majesty’s_ Ever _Loyal_, most _Obedient_ and _Faithful Subject_ and _Servant_, J. EVELYN. _Sayes-Court, 5 Decemb. 1678._ FOOTNOTES: {lxxv:1} Cato _de R. R. cap. 73._ Aurel. Vict. Class. Phil. apud. Tranquill. _And so_ Nemestinus Deus Nemorum. _Arnob. l. 4._ {lxxvi:1} Argon, _lib._ 1. That Famous Ship built of the _Dodonaean_ Oak. TO THE READER.