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About this time the University of Oxford received a noble and lastingtestimony of Mr. Evelyn ’s gratitude to the place of his education; for itwas he who prevailed with the Lord Henry Howard to bestow the Arun-delian marbles, then remaining in the garden of Arundel-house in Lon-don, on that University. Lord Howard was also strongly importuned byMr. Evelyn to send to Oxford an exquisite statue of Minerva; but thesudden death of that Lord prevented its removal from Arundel-house inthe Strand. Mr. Evelyn spent his time at this juncture in a manner aspleasing as he could wish: he had great credit at Court , and great repu-tation in the world; was one of the commifsioners for rebuilding St.Paul’s, attended the meetings of the Royal Society with great regularity,and was punctual in the discharge of his office as a commifsioner of thesick and wounded. Yet, in the midst of his employments, he foundleisure to add fresh labours to those he had already published: As,18. “ The History of the three late famous Imposters, viz. Padre Ottomans,“ pretended son and heir to the late Grand Seignior; Mahomet Rei, a“ pretended Prince of the Ottoman family, but in truth a Wallachian “ counterfeit; and Sabbati Levi, the supposed Mefsiah of the Jews , in“ the year 1666 ; with a brief account of the ground and occasion of the“ present war between the Turk and Venetian: together with the cause“ and final extirpation, destruction, and exile of the Jews out of the“ Empire of Persia.” 1668, 8vo. These little histories abound withcurious facts; many of which, Mr. Evelyn says, he received from themouth of a Persian stranger of quality, who had lately resided in London .This work was highly commended in the Acta Eruditorum Lipsiensiumfor the year 1690, with this remarkable circumstance, that the pretendedMahomet Bei was, at that very time, in the city of Leipsic. Sir GeorgeMackenzie, an admired efsay-writer of that age, having written “ A“ Panegyric on Solitude,” our Author, by way of antidote, published apiece, entitled: 19. “ Public Employment and an active Life, with all“ its Appenages, preferred to Solitude.” 1667, 12mo.—20. “ An idea
of the Perfection of Painting, demonstrated from the principles of art,“ and by examples conformable to the observations which Pliny and“ Quintilian have made upon the most celebrated pieces of the. ancient“ painters, paralleled with some works of the most famous modern“ painters, Leonardo de Vinci, Raphael, Julio Romano , and N."Poufsin: written in French by Roland Freart , and now translated.1668, 12mo. D