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the remains of a turkey for the Sunday's dinner, and who has rather a secluded life of it in the garret at this present writing, but who for the rest seems to have wonderfully little to grumble at-very much less than she comes to have by-and-by in Samuel's own person-and is my dear wife, and affectionately considered-there appears the father, whom Samuel finds in his "cutting-house" at his honest trade of tailor, and of whom, with his mother, he has a very unsatisfactory leave-taking on his going to sea, "without having them to drink or say anything of business one to another," -a brother John, who becomes visible as a scholar at Paul's school, having his declamation overlooked and corrected for him by Samuel, who is a good brother-another, Tom, cursorily mentioned afterwards as carrying home a new coat with silver buttons to the rising Admiralty official,—and sundry "cozins," who cross the stage now and then, giving and receiving dinners, advices, and such matters of ordinary reciprocity. The ground is strangely shifted in this second family group, from the lofty kinsfolk of Wotton and Godstone, the ambassador father-in-law, and magnificent connections of Evelyn and his wife; yet by no means contemptible people are these merry citizens, pleasure-loving and feast-giving, with their own pretensions, quite as decided, though of a lesser order of greatness. The time is manifestly a crisis, and vexed with cross currents of intelligence from every hand, poor good Richard Cromwell having broken down under the weight of his father's truncheon, the woeful Rump not knowing what to make of its dreary burden of life, and General Monk advancing towards the city-a powerful but uncomprehended fate, touching whose intentions the public mind is in great doubt and wonder. This public mind, like Pepys' own, seems to be fully more eager to hear of change than active to bring it about, and waits with great curiosity and eagerness, as the exhausted public mind, not fertile in expedients, is apt to wait for the command and leading of some visible Influence great enough to give authority to the general wish. At the coffee-house-at the House itself, where there is an undeniable

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muddle," and nothing half so grateful as coffee-in Westminster Hall, at church, and in every public place, all sorts of rumours are to be heard of, till rumour grows almost weary of perpetual self-contradiction. About this time occurs a pretty glimmer of picture, which shows that Samuel has an eye for the picturesque. General Monk has been appointed general-inchief of all the forces in the three kingdoms, and there is a universal satisfaction, although no other positive changes seem to be known. In Westminster Hall Pepys meets with Locke and Purcell, famous masters in their melodious art, and the three go to a coffee-house, where they are placed at windows overlooking the water. Before them lies the Thames, "the silent highway"-not over silent, one may conclude, in this time of public excitement-and full of the swift shooting wherries and gay barges, more graceful to see than coach and omnibus, which make a constant communication between the City and learned and stately Westminster. Purcell and Locke, and Pepys himself, who is no contemptible musician, sing "brave songs" by the windows of the coffee-house. The air tingles with the joyful sound of bells; the February afternoon, sunny and red, shines on the animated river, and, looking down its gay and busy tide, the chronicler says, "Here out of the windows it was a most pleasant sight to see the city, from one end to the other, with. a glory about it, so high was the light of the bonfires, and so thick round the city, and the bells rang everywhere."

Almost immediately my lord emerges from the darkness, goes to sea-which is to say, lies in the Channel, waiting the turn of events-taking with him this faithful historian; and finally has the honourable office of bringing home the king. The most noticeable thing in this part of the record, and the most amusing, is the unfailing industry and pains of Samuel in picking up all the small perquisites and fees pertaining to his office. His "half-piece," which he gets from a person who would be chaplain; his whole piece and twenty shillings in silver from the captain whose commission he draws; his various droppings in of little streams of revenue; his addings up and thanks

givings for the same; together with his simple delight in being addressed as S. P., Esq., and his satisfaction in sitting at table with my lord, and having so much honour in the fleet. How these transactions might look at the present day, or if any one above seventeen dare acknowledge to his inmost heart a stray spark of pleasure in the Esquire on the back of a letter, is quite a different matter. Samuel Pepys makes no boggling at his official dishonesty, if dishonesty it was; his vanity is so simple, genuine, and warm, that one almost likes him for it; and we believe that never one of the public whom he has admitted so largely into his confidence, grudged him a farthing of that £30 which Samuel devoutly thanks heaven he is "worth" on the conclusion of his voyage.

Up to the same period of time his contemporary has progressed in stately prosperity-has become the purchaser of Say's Court, the ancestral property of his father-in-law, Sir Richard Browne; the father of several children, and the sorrowful survivor of one infant prodigy, whom he calls the light of his life; has owned to a human thankfulness in paying every farthing of debt he owes ;-that the immaculate Evelyn should ever have permitted himself to be in debt seems the wonder! And now, having taken an active part in plotting for the Restoration, so soon as this was practicable, is in high favour at the restored Court, a friend of both Charles and James, and a most joyful and triumphant sympathiser in their changed fortunes. Shrewd Samuel, who is no enthusiast, looks on with a cooler eye of observation; Evelyn rejoices, with stately propriety, but with all his heart.

The beginning of the new reign confers upon each a public appointment, and hereafter they gradually approach each other. Pepys, at the close of another year, has made a leap from his £80 to near £300, advancing steadily to the higher elevation - and Evelyn, suave and courtly, and full of devices for the spread of the arts and the enlightenment of the age, having a ready eye for all ingenious, learned, and curious spirits, among whom there can be little doubt Samuel has an admirable right to be placed.

The canvass widens and enlarges; busy London throbbing with gay life and energy, a world of new affairs in hand, a new reign and a youthful ruler-a throng of foreign guests and congratulations, and a very flood of homereturning exiles open to our view. Foremost on the scene is the King-of whom no one as yet has begun to speak evil, and who, amid gorgeous processions, and in the splendour of his ancestral palace, is still the ideal type of monarchy to his rejoicing people-and the Duke, who gives signs of vigour, honesty, and spirit, and is still an orthodox Protestant, so far as appearances go;-no time yet for poor Cavaliers to feel the bitter pangs of disappointment-no time for balked and ruined creditors of the Crown to bewail the unrewarded misery of their loyal sacrifices;-a host of new delights and new enterprises sprang into sudden being, and a long retinue of placemen, after Pepys' fashion, or perhaps after a fashion still less honest, nursing their £80 into £300, and much contented with the process. Rising men everywhere making themselves visible-rising statesmen, wits, philosophers, and favourites-and abundance of interest to fill the public mind on every topic, and keep the busy throng perpetually astir.

Evelyn has already propounded to Mr Robert Boyle his plan for a philosophic assembly of mutual edification, and already there is word of a youth of incomparable genius, Mr Christopher Wren, who is calling new buildings into being in the classic regions of Alma Mater; so here we have already the unformed Royal Society, and the unbuilt St Paul's, glimmering to the daylight. But, alas! less advanced in civilisation than might have been expected from his silver buttons, Mr Secretary Pepys is visible, correcting his cookmaid Luce, in the passage of his house, for leaving the door ajar, and much troubled to be seen in the act of administering the chastisement by Sir W. Penn's boy, who will tell it to the family-which fright, however, does not prevent this vigilant master from beating the same or another girl with a stick some time after, for domestic misbehaviour. Mr Pepys has not only a cookmaid now, but gives dinners, and has my ladies calling

upon his wife, to his intense satisfaction; his dining-parlour is hung with green serge and gilded leather, and he grows a person of importance-yet we fear, by this token, is still only externally refined.

Meanwhile Prince Rupert, emblem of fiery Cavaliers, subdued into the arts of peace, shows Evelyn, with his own hand, how to grave in mezzotinto-strange to hear of this, with Edgehill and Marston Moor, and the red-hot reputation of the impetuous soldier in one's memory! And there gleams across the scene a vision of Henrietta Maria-old Henrietta Maria, no longer the beautiful inspiration of royal councils, the hopeless perverter of royal faith, the idol of that melancholy, constant, doomed king of hers- but a dowager and superannuated old lady, at the head of a little subsidiary court, telling Evelyn tales of sagacious dogs, yet sometimes growing garrulous over her escapes and troubles in the time of the rebellion: strange change of time once more. And now we hear of the execution of Harrison and others of the judges of King Charles, and of the meaner and less excusable revenge taken upon the remains of the great Usurper, the imperial rebel Cromwell. "Oh, the stupendous and inscrutable judgments of God!" writes Evelyn, speaking of this deplorable piece of vengeance. "Look back at October 22d, 1658, (Oliver's funeral), and be astonished! and fear God, and honour the King! but meddle not with them that are given to change!" Of the same event, when ordered by Parliament, Pepys records a somewhat different opinion: the thing troubles him, "that a man of so great courage as he (Oliver) was should have that dishonour, though otherwise he might deserve it enough." Far beyond the reach of his insulters was the dead; but after such dishonour as it was in their power to inflict, the restorers of Charles II. buried the bones of Oliver at Tyburn, under the gallows, on the first-observed fast for the "Martyrdom" of Charles I.,-a vulgar and impotent conclusion to the solemn tragedy which already connected these

two names.

There is, however, something of a lull in politics, and pleasure is the

business of the day. Mr Pepys, for
his part, contrives to weave his occu-
pations and enjoyments together with
singular industry, and never under-
takes an official journey, or goes about
a piece of public duty, without abun-
dant provision for "being merry," and
making use of every opportunity that
falls in his way. Even Evelyn sees
innumerable plays; and the Clerk of
the Admiralty, more given to dissipa-
tion than Evelyn, has to make solemn
resolution against these fascinating
vanities. We read with a little amuse-
ment the graver historian's record-
"I saw Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,
played; but now the old plays begin
to disgust this refined age, since his
Majesty's being so much abroad;"
which Pepys confirms by a similar
observation of "Saw Romeo and Juliet
the first time it was ever acted; but
it is a play of itself the worst that
ever I heard, and the worst acted that
ever I saw these people do." Like
every other present time, "this refined
age,
we presume, gave itself credit
for fastidious taste and nice discrimi-
nation; and neither Evelyn's scholarly
mind and graceful likings, nor the
natural judgment of Pepys, has been
able to judge by a higher standard
than the opinion of their time.

The matter-of-fact and even-handed
fashion in which religious observances
are conjoined with these amusements,
is one of the most remarkable features
in the volumes before us. The scruples
which vex many a righteous soul
touching ordinary matters of confor-
mity to "the world" were scarcely to
be expected here; but the church-
going and sermon-hearing takes place
so quietly, and so entirely lacks any
disturbing effect upon the profane le-
vities that surround them, that we
stand aside in silent admiration. The
most famous orators of the Church—
Jeremy Taylor, Dr South, Ken, and
Hall, and Tillotson, and many a lesser
light-illuminated the high places of
orthodoxy; and a host of industrious
and learned Nonconformists, led by a
few notable divines, as great in their
way as the daintier Episcopates, edi-
fied the pulpits of the city. Steadier
church-goer than Mr Secretary Pepys
it would be impossible to find; and
after a year of the new reign, his en-
lightened appetite even labours hard

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to reconcile itself to Lenten farewhile his penitence for sleeping during a sermon, and that laudatory certificate of church attendance and membership-a certificate which, with a little alteration of form and diction, might satisfy the strictest kirk-session in Scotland-show a certain honesty in his profession. There is, indeed, so perfect an honesty in this entire journal of his, that Samuel's religiousness claims full credit at our hands, such as it is yet, nevertheless, it is true that Samuel might be a very heathen for any restraint his religion puts upon him. Compunctions afterwards it may produce; but prudence, and not piety, checks Mr Secretary before the act, however piety may come in behind to prick the offending conscience. Yet whatever he does, Samuel never misses going to church; and if it be to see a pretty Mistress Somebody, or if he chances to fall asleep before the sand in the hourglass has measured out the heads of the sermon, Samuel fails not to pray a" God forgive me," as he records his sin. Nor is he by any means alone in this union of vice and devotion. The royal reprobate himself hears many a sermon, and there are solemn preachings, very frequent and very eloquent, to the household-with what effect upon the household manners and mode of life it is difficult to perceive. Nor is this all. We are accustomed to think of this period as the most entirely reprobate and abandoned in all our national history, yet nevertheless true it is, and of perfect verity, that piety also flourished in those days; piety-genuine meek devotion-and a divine and undefiled faith. Within the unwholesome atmosphere of that court of Charles, doing dutiful homage to the poor, swart, uncomplaining Portuguese Katherine, brushing against the very skirts of Portsmouth and Castlemaine, living under the polluting eyes of Rochester and Sedley, and, still worse, of their master, piety was even here. The last place in the world to look for such a strange and alien visitant, yet there the angel found it possible to exist; and perhaps nothing less than the ascetic routine of perpetual devotion, the sad, self-absorbed, and selfinspecting pietism of Mrs Godolphin,

could have preserved the heavenly principle alive in such a place. Duty, too, after its kind, and the superstitious loyalty in which the ancient Cavalier families were sedulously bred, must have come in to close those meek uncriticising eyes to the vileness of the illustrious vice before them; yet, withal, it shocks our modern notions, to realise this mingling of the pure and the impure, and to excuse this toleration of high-seated iniquity. How chary is the good religious Evelyn in his comments, how slow to condemn "his Majesty," how much inclined in loyal reverence to do what domestic love does so often-and be bitter on the evil influences-the temptations and the tempters who "lead away." How the king would have been a great monarch, "had not his easy nature resigned him to be managed by crafty men, and some abandoned and depraved wretches, who corrupted his otherwise sufficient parts;" how "he was a prince of many virtues, debonair, easy of access, not bloody nor cruel;" and how "he would doubtless have been an excellent prince had he been" something exactly the reverse of what he was. After this fashion only, and with manifest pain and reluctance, Evelyn permits himself to condemn; and it is easy to perceive with what a pang of humiliation and disappointment the old highminded honourable Royalist must have owned to himself this pitiable failure of the royal blood to produce anything worthy of the throne, which that "arch rebel" and "unnatural usurper" had filled after so kingly a fashion. The testimony of two ambassadors, who had served the Commonwealth first and then the king, and who complained of the lessened respect paid to them, when sent by Charles; the evident diminution of English influence everywhere; the unwise and unprosperous wars, rashly undertaken and ill conducted-though always saved, by little outbursts of vigour and courage on the part of the generals, from entire discomfiture and shame; the wanton extravagance of the court, and corresponding dishonesty, penuriousness, and bankruptcy in public affairs, were all so many sore assaults upon the old enthusiastic party of Cavaliers, whose sufferings and

plottings, in which neither land nor life were spared, and whose insane rejoicing and triumph over the accomplished restoration were so utterly put to shame by the result. They had buried Oliver at Tyburn-but all the gold in England could not purchase Oliver's imperial mantle to fall upon the shoulders of this impotent and careless king.

Very much more distinct, for Pepys was not restrained either by personal attachment or exaggerated loyalty, is the deliverance which he gives upon Charles and his reign. Unmitigated is the public discontent, according to Mr Secretary, and the people look wistfully upon the times of stout old Oliver, when England was great among the nations, and pure, if something rigid and straitened at home; when the public money supplied the public necessities, and there was no vicious and disreputable court to sap the national finances and credit, and make the national establishment a Castle Rack-rent on a larger scale. "Why will not people lend their money? " cries an afflicted my Lord Treasurer, when the Commissioners of the Navy carry their accounts and complaints to him. "Why will they not trust the king as well as Oliver? Why do our prizes come to nothing, that yielded so much heretofore?" In the Council Chamber, and such an honourable presence, Mr Secretary makes no response, but does not fail to record a very clear opinion on the subject, in the privacy of his own closet at home. The boldness of Samuel's secret chronicle even discloses more courageously than he himself does the opinions of Evelyn, "who," says Pepys, "is grieved for, and speaks openly to me his thoughts of the times, and our ruin approaching and all by the folly of the king.'

With an incalculable amount of pleasure-making, and that strange cross-fire of report and incident, which make the daily narrative, so minute and clear in all its details, something perplexing as a whole, we make our circumstantial progress with Mr Secretary through several slow-paced years, and are able to decide with absolute certainty where our hero has dined on almost every day of the whole

period-what was his company, and what his fare; whether he made merry upon venison and pullets, or had fish, because it was Good Friday; or felicitated himself that he had come to sufficient estate to have a hash of fowls for the little private supper of himself and his wife at home. Nor are we less enlightened as to the extent and increase of Samuel's wardrobe, and the finery of his wife, which last he rather grudges, yet is complacent in. Steadily growing in wealth, he grows in splendour withal, abounds in new-fashioned luxuries; sets up a magnificent coach, with gilt standards and green reins, and everything handsome about it; wears silk on working days, and procures for himself a suit ornamented with gold lace, so overpoweringly grand that he keeps it by him long in fear and trembling, afraid lest it be too fine for public exhibition, as indeed it afterwards proves to be. Private domestic incidents there are not many to animate the record, though Samuel's misdemeanours bring him at last into a state of much uneasiness at home, where his poor wife's suspicions and jealousies give him a troubled life of it, and even put the guilty Secretary in bodily fear and dolour: it is, however, some satisfaction to perceive that Samuel at last heartily sets himself to overcome this, and succeeds very tolerably, as it seems; his wife being a persuasible woman, who will hear reason after all. And an important man in his office grows Samuel, the very soul of its business and diplomacies, its triumphant defender before Parliament, when, as the spokesman of the arraigned Naval Commissioners, he covers himself with modest glory. Nor does Mr Pepys make less progress in the general world, where he is adopted into learned and courtly circles; becomes a member of the Royal Society, an intimate of Evelyn's, known at court, and familiarly recognised by duke and king. Neither the Plague nor the Fire sends him from his post, and his account of both of these events is very distinct and graphic, with that indubitable air of eyewitness and sufferer which gives reality to the tale. The irrestrainable curiosity which makes him follow funerals against his will during the

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