'His care of my education', she wrote in her last Will and Testament, 'was such as might become a father, a lover, a friend, and a husband; for instruction, tenderness, affection and fidelity to the last moment of his life; which obligation I mention with a gratitude to his memory ever dear to me; and I must not omit to own the sense I have of my parents' care and goodness in placing me in such worthy hands.' Surely no husband ever had a nobler epitaph.
In an age of fierce political and ecclesiastical conflict, Evelyn, often, no doubt, strongly tempted to partisanship, managed to steer his course with prudence and great worldly judgment.

But for that, his industry and business talent would probably have brought him more prominently into office under Charles II.

In a corrupt and profligate age, however, his character stands out as that of one unsullied by excesses, impurities, or vices.

And it is not the least of his merits that, in an age of bigotry and narrow-mindedness, he was not intolerant towards those whose religious views happened to differ from his own.
VII _Evelyn's Literary Works._ Evelyn's earliest publications, some of which have already been referred to, consisted mostly in translations from the French, Latin, and Greek, that of the first book of Lucretius' _De Rerum Natura_ being in verse.
Their authorship was usually veiled either under Greek pseudonyms or else more thinly under the initials 'J.E.' That on _A Character of England_ (1659), a tract purporting to have been written by a foreigner, appeared anonymously.
Of all these seven publications appearing before the Restoration, the only one of any importance was _The French Gardener_, the translation of a work by N.de Bonnefons, which appeared at the end of 1658 and was thus referred to in the diary,--'Dec.

6th.