Produced by Chris Curnow, Joseph Cooper, Moti Ben-Ari and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net [Illustration: Cover] THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY JOHN EVELYN THE HISTORY OF SABATAI SEVI, _The Suppos'd Messiah_ OF THE JEWS. (1669) _Introduction by_ CHRISTOPHER W. GROSE PUBLICATION NUMBER 131 WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES 1968 GENERAL EDITORS George Robert Guffey, _University of California, Los Angeles_ Maximillian E. Novak, _University of California, Los Angeles_ Robert Vosper, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_ ADVISORY EDITORS Richard C. Boys, _University of Michigan_ James L. Clifford, _Columbia University_ Ralph Cohen, _University of Virginia_ Vinton A. Dearing, _University of California, Los Angeles_ Arthur Friedman, _University of Chicago_ Louis A. Landa, _Princeton University_ Earl Miner, _University of California, Los Angeles_ Samuel H. Monk, _University of Minnesota_ Everett T. Moore, _University of California, Los Angeles_ Lawrence Clark Powell, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_ James Sutherland, _University College, London_ H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., _University of California, Los Angeles_ CORRESPONDING SECRETARY Edna C. Davis, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_ INTRODUCTION _And you should if you please refuse Till the conversion of the Jews._ The reader of John Evelyn's _History of Sabatai Sevi, The Pretended Messiah of the Jewes_ or of the _History of the Three Late Famous Impostors_ (1669) in which it is the most significant part, discovers a fascinating, if unoriginal, addition to the work of the great diarist and dilettante, the amateur student of engraving and trees--and smoke. Evelyn's work was almost totally derived from the account of Sir Paul Rycaut, who was from 1661 secretary (and later consul) for the Levant mercantile company in Smyrna. Rycaut was in fact responsible for what first-hand reporting there is in the _History_, and Evelyn's book preceded by only eleven years Rycaut's _History of the Turkish Empire 1623-1677_, where the story first appeared under the author's own name.