John Locke (1632-1704) is famous as the author of a single great philosophical work, the Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690).  This is a study of the nature of the human mind and of the origin of ideas, which, far more than the work of Bacon and Hobbes, is the basis upon which English philosophy has since been built.  Aside from their subjects, both works are models of the new prose, direct, simple, convincing, for which Dryden and the Royal Society labored.  They are known to every student of philosophy, but are seldom included in a work of literature.[180]

EVELYN AND PEPYS.  These two men, John Evelyn (1620-1706) and Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), are famous as the writers of diaries, in which they jotted down the daily occurrences of their own lives, without any thought that the world would ever see or be interested in what they had written.

Evelyn was the author of Sylva, the first book on trees and forestry in English, and Terra, which is the first attempt at a scientific study of agriculture; but the world has lost sight of these two good books, while it cherishes his diary, which extends over the greater part of his life and gives us vivid pictures of society in his time, and especially of the frightful corruption of the royal court.

Pepys began life in a small way as a clerk in a government office, but soon rose by his diligence and industry to be Secretary of the Admiralty.  Here he was brought into contact with every grade of society, from the king’s ministers to the poor sailors of the fleet.  Being inquisitive as a blue jay, he investigated the rumors and gossip of the court, as well as the small affairs of his neighbors, and wrote them all down in his diary with evident interest.  But because he chattered most freely, and told his little book a great many secrets which it were not well for the world to know, he concealed everything in shorthand,—­and here again he was like the blue jay, which carries off and hides every bright trinket it discovers.  The Diary covers the years from 1660 to 1669, and gossips about everything, from his own position and duties at the office, his dress and kitchen and cook and children, to the great political intrigues of office and the scandals of high society.  No other such minute-picture of the daily life of an age has been written.  Yet for a century and a half it remained entirely unknown, and not until 1825 was Pepys’s shorthand deciphered and published.  Since then it has been widely read, and is still one of the most interesting examples of diary writing that we possess.  Following are a few extracts,[181] covering only a few days in April, 1663, from which one may infer the minute and interesting character of the work that this clerk, politician, president of the Royal Society, and general busybody wrote to please himself: