Hostname: page-component-788cddb947-2s2w2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-08T16:31:29.489Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The politics of London air John Evelyn's Fumifugium and the Restoration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Mark Jenner
Affiliation:
University of York

Abstract

Historians have commonly described John Evelyn's pamphlet about London smoke pollution, Fumifugium, as a precocious example of environmental concern. This paper argues that such an interpretation is too simple. Evelyn's proposals are shown to be closely related to political allegory and the panegyrics written to welcome the newly restored Charles II. However, the paper also shows that Fumifugium was not simply a literary conceit; rather it exemplified the mid-seventeenth-century Ėnglish interest in the properties of air that is visible in both the Hartlib circle and the early Royal Society.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 I am grateful to the organizers and audiences of the seminars in Oxford, Cambridge and London which heard and commented on earlier versions of this paper and would like to thank Peter Goddard, James Robertson, Keith Thomas and particularly Patricia Greene for reading drafts. I wish to acknowledge the financial support of the Wellcome Trust for my post at Manchester where this article was completed.

2 Examples of this genre include Nash, R., Wilderness and the American mind (London and New Haven, 1967)Google Scholar; Thomas, K., Man and the natural world: changing attitudes in England 1500–1800 (London, 1983)Google Scholar; McEvoy, A. F., The fisherman's problem: ecology and law in the California fisheries 1850–1980 (Cambridge, 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Merchant, C., Ecological revolutions: nature, gender and science in New England (Chapel Hill and London, 1989)Google Scholar; Worster, D., ed., The ends of the earth (Cambridge, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hays, S. P., Beauty, health and permanence: environmental politics in the United States, 1955–1985 (Cambridge, 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brimblecombe, P. & Pfister, C., eds., Silent countdown: essays in European environmental history (Berlin and London, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Steinberg, T., Nature incorporated: industrialization and the waters of New England (Cambridge, 1991)Google Scholar; Bowler, P. J., The Fontana history of the environmental sciences (London, 1992)Google Scholar. For polemical overviews of the approaches adopted within environmental history, see Guha, R., ‘Radial American environmentalism and wilderness preservation: a Third World critique’, Environmental Ethics, XI (1989), 7183CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chase, M., ‘Can history be green? a prognosis’, Rural History, III (1992), 243–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Thomas, N., ‘Sanitation and seeing: the creation of state power in early colonial Fiji’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, XXXII (1990), 149–70, esp. p. 160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Evans, R. J., ‘Epidemics and revolutions: cholera in nineteenth-century Europe’, Past & Present, CXX (1988), 144–5Google Scholar; Schaffer, S., ‘Measuring virtue: eudiometry, enlightenment and pneumatic medicine’, in Cunningham, A. & French, R., eds., The medical enlightenment of the eighteenth century (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 281318.Google Scholar

5 Cook, H., ‘Policing the health of London: the College of Physicians and the early Stuart monarchy’, Social History of Medicine, II (1989), 31Google Scholar. Cf. Barnes, T. G., ‘The prerogative and environmental control of London building in the early seventeenth century: the lost opportunity’, California Law Review, LVIII (1970), 1332–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Slack, P., ‘Books of orders: the making of English social policy, 1577–1631’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser. XXX (1980), 122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 E.g. Cosgrove, D. and Daniels, S., eds., The iconography of landscape: essays on the symbolic representation, design and use of past environments (Cambridge, 1988).Google Scholar

7 Keynes, G. L., John Evelyn: a study in bibliophily with a bibliography of his writings (2nd edn, Oxford, 1968), p. 93.Google Scholar

8 J. Evelyn, Fumifugium, sig. A2. All quotations are taken from the facsimile edition of the first edition published by the Rota (Exeter, 1976).

9 Fumifugium sig. A2V & sig. a.

10 Ibid. pp. 1–5.

11 This highly literary representation contains many parallels to Evelyn's description of Mount Etna, which itself followed Edward, Sandys closely, The diary of John Evelyn, ed. de Beer, E. S. (6 vols., Oxford, 1955), II, 341n.Google Scholar

12 Fumifugium, pp. 5–8.

13 Ibid. pp. 8–15.

14 It is worth emphasizing that Evelyn was not opposed to trade, see his Publick employment and an active life prefer'd to solitude (London, 1667).Google Scholar

15 Fumifugium, pp. 15–23.

16 Ibid. pp. 21–2.

17 Ibid. pp. 23–6.

18 Thomas, , Man and the natural world, p. 245.Google Scholar

19 See Hatcher, J., The history of the British coal industry. Vol. I. Before 1700 (Oxford, 1993), pp. 3442, 498503CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nef, J. U., The rise of the British coal industry (2 vols., London, 1932).Google Scholar

80 Huygens, L., The English journal 1651–52, ed. and trans. Bachrach, A. G. H. & Collmer, R. G. (Leiden, 1982), pp. 65, 110.Google Scholar

21 Thirsk, J. and Cooper, J. P., eds., Seventeenth-century economic documents (Oxford, 1972), p. 777Google Scholar; Graunt, J., Natural and political observations … upon the bills of mortality (1662)Google Scholar reprinted in Laslett, P., ed., The earliest classics (London, 1973).Google Scholar

22 P[ublic] R[ecord] O[ffice], PC2/55 p. 345.

23 PRO, PC2/57 pp. 179, 183, 188, 196, 214.

24 Bowle, J., John Evelyn and his world (1981), p. 106Google Scholar; Smith, S. R., ‘John Evelyn & London air’, History Today, XXV (1975), 185Google Scholar; Brimblecombe, P., The big smoke: a history of air pollution in London since medieval times (London, 1987), p. 50.Google Scholar

25 E.g. Attfield, R., The ethics of environmental concern (Oxford, 1983), p. 42Google Scholar; idem, ‘Has the History of Philosophy ruined the environment?’, Environmental Ethics, XIII (1991), 134Google Scholar; Glacken, C. J., Traces on the Rhodian shore. Nature and culture in western thought from ancient times to the end of the eighteenth century (Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1967), p. 489.Google Scholar

26 Wilson, A., ‘The politics of medical improvement in early Hanoverian London’, in Cunningham, & French, , eds., The medical enlightenment of the eighteenth century, p. 7.Google Scholar

27 Evelyn, J., A character of England (1659), p. 5Google Scholar, passim. My emphasis.

28 England's directions for members elections (n.d. 1659/60?); The diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. Latham, R. & Matthews, W. (11 vols., London, 19701983), I, 45.Google Scholar

29 Steele, R. R., A bibliography of royal proclamations… 1485–1714, in Bibliotheca Lindesiana, v (Oxford, 1910), pp. 386, 389Google Scholar; PRO, SP29/40/132, 133. For the concerns of the 1630s, see Cook, Barnes and Slack (n. 5 above).

30 Leslie, H., The martyrdome of King Charles (The Hague, 1649), p. 25Google Scholar. For Denham, see O'Hehir, B., Harmony from discords: a life of Sir John Denham (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1968).Google Scholar

31 Evelyn, J., Panegyric to Charles II (1661), facsimile edition, Augustan Reprint Society 21 (1951)Google Scholar; Diary of John Evelyn, III, 276–284.

32 Fumifugium, Preface to the reader. My emphasis.

33 Jose, N., Ideas of Restoration in English Literature 1660–1671 (London, 1984), ch. 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34 A speech spoken by a blew-coat boy of Christs Hospital to … Charles the Second in his passage from the Tower to Whitehall. April 22. 1661 (1661), p. 1.Google Scholar

35 Flatman, T., A panegyrick to his renowed [sic] Majestie, Charles the Second (1660)Google Scholar; Bold, H., ‘On the Thunder happening after the Solemnity of the Coronation of Charles II. on St. George's Day, 1661’, reprinted in Somers tracts (13 vols., London, 18091815), VII, 514.Google Scholar

36 Spurr, J., ‘“Virtue, religion and government”: the Anglican uses of providence’, in Harris, T., Seaward, P. & Goldie, M., eds., The politics of religion in Restoration England (Oxford, 1990), p. 37.Google Scholar

37 Whitehall, R., The coronation. A poem (1661), pp. 45.Google Scholar

38 Wood, T., A plot to disseize God of his right defeated (1661), sig. A2Google Scholar; Heylin, P., A sermon preached in the collegiate Church of St. Peter in Westminster on Wednesday May 29th 1661 (1661), p. 39Google Scholar. This is not to suggest that such imagery was necessarily Royalist regardless of context: in December 1658 the corporation of Great Yarmouth welcomed Richard Cromwell as a sun which had risen to dispel malignant vapours, PRO, SP 18/184/85.

39 Hunter, M., Establishing the new science (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1989), pp. xiv, 42.Google Scholar

40 King, H., A sermon preached at White-Hall on the 29th of May, 1661 (London, 1661), p. 24Google Scholar. Other sermons citing this text include Paradise, J., Hadadrimmon, sive threnodia anglicana ob regicidium (London, 1661), p. 45Google Scholar; Bury, A., The bow (London, 1662), p. 13Google Scholar; Ward, S., Against resistance of lawful powers (London, 1661), p. 5.Google Scholar

41 Prest, J., The garden of Eden (London, 1981), p. 38Google Scholar. See also, Corbin, A., The foul and the fragrant (Leamington Spa, 1986).Google Scholar

42 Evelyn, J., Panegyric to Charles II, facsimile edition, Augustan Reprint Society 21 (1951), p. 4.Google Scholar

43 Waller, E., ‘On St. James's Park, as lately improved by His Majesty’, The poems of Edmund Waller, ed. Drury, G. T. (London, 1893), p. 169Google Scholar. For the rebuilding in St James's Park, see Colvin, H., ed., The history of the king's works (5 vols., London, 19631982), V, 264–5.Google Scholar

44 Panegyric, pp. 15–16.

45 Brimblecombe, , The big smoke, pp. 52–8Google Scholar. See also idem, ‘Interest in air pollution among early Fellows of the Royal Society’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society, XXXII (19771978), 123–9.Google Scholar

46 Boyle, R., New experiments physico-mechanical, touching the spring of the air (Oxford, 1660), pp. 34.Google Scholar

47 Shapin, S. and Schaffer, S., Leviathan and the air pump (Princeton, 1985).Google Scholar

48 Henshaw, N., Aero-Chalinos: or a register for the air (Dublin, 1664), sig. a.6Google Scholar. For his familiarity with Boyle's work, see sig. a.3. In 1677 a second edition of this book was published under the auspices of the Royal Society.

49 E.g. College of Physicians, Certaine directions for the plague (1636, facsimile edn, Amsterdam, 1979), sigs. C2–3V. See also Jenner, M. S. R., ‘Early modern English conceptions of “cleanliness” and “dirt” as reflected in the environmental regulation of London c. 1530–c. 1700’ (unpublished D.Phil, thesis, University of Oxford, 1991), esp. ch. 3.Google Scholar

50 Ch[rist] Ch[urch Library, Oxford], Evelyn MS 54(A) pp. 4–9, quotation at p. 7. These MSS are cited with kind permission of the Evelyn Trustees. See also, Bray, W., The diary of John Evelyn, ed. Wheatley, H. B. (4 vols., London, 1879), III, 255Google Scholar. Since this article was accepted the Evelyn MSS have been purchased by the British Library.

51 The lines, ‘Carbonumque gravis vis, atque odor insinuatur/ Quam facile in cerebrum?…’ are De rerum natura, VI, 802–3.Google Scholar

52 Ch.Ch., Evelyn MS 34a, fo. 8.

53 Evelyn, J., Essays on the first book of T. Lucretius Carus De Rerum Natura (London, 1659)Google Scholar; for Evelyn's doubts about publishing his translation, see Cambridge University Library, Add. MS 8540; Bray, , The diary of John Evelyn, III, 212–13, 215, 218, 257Google Scholar. More generally, see Kargon, R. H., Atomism in England from Hariot to Newton (Oxford, 1966), pp. 8992Google Scholar and passim. For Evelyn's interest in chemistry, Taylor, F. Sherwood, ‘The chemical studies of John Evelyn’, Annals of Science, VIII (1954), 285–92.Google Scholar

54 Frank, R. G., Harvey and the Oxford physiologists (Berkeley, Los Angeles & London, 1980).Google Scholar

55 For Beale, see Stubbs, M., ‘John Beale, philosophical gardener of Herefordshire, Parts I & II’, Annals of Science, XL (1982), 463–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar & XLVI (1989), 323–63; Leslie, M., ‘The spiritual husbandry of John Beale’, in Leslie, M. & Raylor, T., eds., Culture and cultivation in early modern England (Leicester, 1992), pp. 151172Google Scholar. More generally, see Mowl, T., ‘New science, old order: the gardens of the Great Rebellion’, Journal of Garden History, XIII (1993), 1635.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

56 The correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, ed. and trans. Hall, A. R. & Hall, M. B. (13 vols., Madison, London & Philadelphia, 19651986), I, 315, 318–19Google Scholar. This parallel is noted in Parry, G., ‘John Evelyn as hortulan saint’, in Leslie, & Raylor, , eds., Culture and cultivation, p. 141.Google Scholar

57 B.L. Add. MS 15948, fos. 89V–91.

58 E.g. Thirsk, J., Economic policy and projects (Oxford, 1978), p. 140Google Scholar; Webster, C., The great instauration (London, 1975), part 5Google Scholar. Stubbs, ‘John Beale, Part 2’ emphasizes millenarian aspects of Beale's work.

59 Beale, J., Herefordshire orchards, a pattern for all England (1657), pp. 78Google Scholar; idem, Pomona (1664), passim.

60 Sheffield University Library, Hartlib MS [hereafter HP] 28/1/73B.

61 SirPlat, H., A new, cheape, and delicate fire of cole-balles, wherein seacole is by mixture of other combustible bodies, both sweetened and multiplied (1603)Google Scholar. This pamphlet is discussed in Brimblecombe, pp. 30–1. For other examples of familiarity with Plat's ideas among those who corresponded with Hartlib, see Webster, , Great instauration, pp. 387, 470Google Scholar. Cf. also, Artificiall fire, or coalefor rich and poore (1644).

62 HP 28/1/7B.

63 HP 29/4/5A & 29/5/53B.

64 Cf. Jenner, M., ‘“Another epocha”? Samuel Hartlib, John Lanyon and the cleansing of London’, in Greengrass, M. et al. , eds., Samuel Hartlib and Universal Reformation (Cambridge, 1994).Google Scholar

65 The diary of John Evelyn, III, 295–7, 310.Google Scholar

66 Commons Journals, VIII, 378. For a more detailed account of this legislation see Jenner, , ‘Early modern English conceptions of “cleanliness”’, pp. 303–5.Google Scholar

67 Evelyn, , Diary, III, 318–19, 328, 333, 335.Google Scholar

68 PRO E101/623/3. For discussion of the commissioners' work and a full list of their surviving records, see Jenner, , ‘Early modern English conceptions of “cleanliness”’, pp. 50–1, 304–8Google Scholar. I hope to publish a fuller account of their work in the near future.

69 Evelyn, J., London revived: considerations for its rebuilding in 1666, ed. Beer, E. S. de (Oxford, 1938).Google Scholar

70 Wren's proposals are reproduced in The Wren Society (20 vols., Oxford, 19241943), XII, Plates 24, 25, XVIII, 196Google Scholar. For a discussion of the various schemes put forward after the fire, see, Reddaway, T. F., The rebuilding of London after the great fire (London, 1951 edn)Google Scholar; Bell, W. G., The great fire of London 1666 (London, 1920), esp. ch. 12.Google Scholar

71 Charles, II, His majestie's declation to his city of London upon occasion of the late calamity by the lamentable fire (London, 1666), esp. pp. 2, 7.Google Scholar

72 Borsay, P., The English urban renaissance (Oxford, 1989)Google Scholar; idem, ‘The English urban renaissance: the development of provincial urban culture c. 1680–c. 1760’, Social History, V (1977), 581603.Google Scholar

73 See Jenner, , ‘Early modern conceptions of “cleanliness”’, esp. ch. 3.Google Scholar

74 For anxiety about smoke, see, Gentleman's Magazine, XVII (1747), 63–4Google Scholar; Sutherland, A., Attempts to revive antient medical doctrines (2 vols., London, 1763), II, 46–7Google Scholar; , D. & Porter, R., Patient's progress (Cambridge, 1989), p. 112Google Scholar; Armstrong, J., ‘The art of preserving health (i)’ in Lonsdale, R., ed., New Oxford book of eighteenth century verse (Oxford, 1987), pp. 294–5Google Scholar. On Hippocratic ideas in eighteenth-century medical reform, see Riley, J. C., The eighteenth-century campaign to avoid disease (London and Basingstoke, 1987).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

76 Porter, R., ‘Cleaning up the great wen’, in Bynum, W. F. & Porter, R., eds., Living and dying in London, Medical History supplement no. 11 (London, 1991), pp. 6175.Google Scholar

76 Williams, R., The country and the city (London, 1973).Google Scholar

77 Douglas, M. and Wildavsky, A., Risk and culture (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1982), p. 36.Google Scholar