But to return. After the Restoration Evelyn emerged in full possession of a variety of accomplishments which in our time of specialists seems remarkable enough. He was employed on public business; he was Secretary to the Royal Society; he wrote plays and poems; he was the first authority upon trees and gardens in England; he submitted a design for the rebuilding of London; he went into the question of smoke and its abatement--the lime trees in St. James's Park being, it is said, the result of his cogitations; he was commissioned to write a history of the Dutch war--in short, he completely outdid the Squire of "The Princess", whom in many respects he anticipated--