BOUT four years ago we made arrangements for the publication of a library edition of Evelyn's Diary and Correspondence which should be uniform with

our edition of Pepys's Diary and Correspondence, by the Rev. Mynors Bright, and we then requested Mr. Henry B. Wheatley to undertake the preparation of this edition. Mr. Wheatley at once placed himself in communication with Mr. W. J. Evelyn, F.S.A., the present possessor of the Evelyn property (through a common friend), and requested Mr. Evelyn to allow him access to the original manuscript, so that the new edition might be thoroughly revised. Mr. Evelyn was unable at the time to allow of any such use being made of the MS., and, although on subsequent applications he did not definitely refuse his assistance, he postponed the consideration of the matter to a future time.

In the early part of the present year we felt that the time had come when we must put the work in hand, and we therefore wrote ourselves to Mr. Evelyn on the subject. In the answer which we received (dated 25 April, 1879), Mr. Evelyn wrote: "Colburn's third edition of the Diary was very correctly printed

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from the MS., and may be relied on as giving an accurate text." Upon receiving this letter we came to the conclusion that the best course would be to reprint the scarce library edition of 1827 (5 vols. 8vo., Colburn's third edition referred to) exactly as it stands, but, in order to give a special feature to our edition, Mr. Wheatley has written an entirely new life of Evelyn, which is prefixed to this first volume. BICKERS AND SON.