Here Evelyn lived quietly till the time of the Restoration, spending his days in gardening and in cultivating the acquaintance of men of cultured tastes like his own, with occasional journeys to different parts of England.

Thus he visited Windsor, Marlborough, Bath, Oxford, Salisbury, Devizes, Gloucester, Worcester, Warwick, Leicester, Doncaster, York, Cambridge, and many other places, so that he probably saw a great deal more of England than the majority of men in his position.

Thus, too, he learned much about the country and about all branches of rural economy.

He had not yet seriously given himself to literature, although his third work was published in 1656, _An Essay on the First Book of T.Lucretius Cerus de Rerum Natura.

Interpreted and made English Verse_.
In January, 1658, heavy sorrow fell upon Evelyn by the death of his younger son, an infant prodigy, and a sad and wonderful example of a young brain being terribly overtaxed.