Lord Braybrooke has established a strong claim to the gratitude of the literary world for his present elegant, improved, and augmented edition of the Diary of Samuel Pepys. The work may now, we presume, be regarded as complete, for there is little chance that any future editor will consider himself entitled to supply the lacunÆ or omissions which still confessedly exist. Lord Braybrooke informs us that, after carefully re-perusing the whole of the manuscript, he had arrived at the conclusion, "that a literal transcript of the Diary was absolutely inadmissible; and he more than hints that most of the excluded passages have been withheld from print on account of their strong indelicacy." We cannot blame the noble editor for having thus exercised his judgment, though we could wish that he had been a little more explicit as to the general tenor and application of the proscribed entries. The Diary of Pepys is a very remarkable one, comprehending both a history or sketch of the times in which he lived, and an accurate record of his own private transactions and affairs. He chronicles not only the faults of others, as these were reported to him or fell under his personal observation, but he notes his own frailties and backslidings with a candour, a minuteness, and even occasionally a satisfaction, which is at once amusing and uncommon. The one division of his subject is a political and social—the other a psychological curiosity. We are naturally desirous to hear all about Charles and his courtiers, and not averse to the general run of gossip regarding that train of beautiful women whose portraits, from the luxuriant pencil of Lely, still adorn the walls of Hampton Court. But not less remarkable are the quaint confessions of the autobiographer, whether he be recording, in conscious pride, the items of the dinner and the plate with which he appeased the appetite and excited the envy of some less prosperous guest, or junketing with Mrs Pierce and equivocal Mrs Knipp the actress, whilst poor Mrs Pepys was absent on a fortnight's visit to the country. Far are we from excusing or even palliating the propensities of Pepys. We have enough before us to show that he was a sad flirt, and a good deal of a domestic hypocrite: all this he admits, and even exhibits at times a certain amount of penitence and compunction. But we confess that we should be glad to know from which section of the Diary the objectionable matter has been expunged. If from the public part, or rather that disconnected with the personality of Pepys, we acquiesce without further comment in the taste and judgment of the editor. We do not want to have any minute details, even though Pepys may have written them down, of the drunken and disgraceful exhibitions of Sir Charles Sedley and his comrades, or even of the private actings of the Maids (by courtesy) of Honour. We have enough, and more than enough, of this in the Memoirs of Grammont, and no one would wish to see augmented that repertory of antiquated scandal. History, and the products of the stage as it then existed, speak quite unequivocally as to the general demoralisation of those unhappy times, and it cannot serve any manner of use to multiply or magnify instances. But whilst we so far freely concede the right of omission to Lord Braybrooke, we must own that we are not a little jealous lest, out of respect to the individual memory of Pepys, he should have concealed some personal confessions, which may have been really requisite in order to form an accurate estimate of the man. We cannot read the Diary without strong suspicions that something of the kind has taken place. Mere flirtation on the part of her husband could hardly have driven Mrs Pepys to the desperate extremity of heating the tongs in the fire, and approaching the nuptial couch therewith, obviously for no good purpose, to the infinite dismay of Samuel. Pepys might perhaps be excused for a reciprocated oscillation of the eyelid, when Mrs Knipp winked at him from the stage; but why, if his motives for frequenting her company were strictly virtuous and artistical, did he go to kiss her in her tireing-room? why should she have pulled his hair, when she sat behind him in the pit? or why should he have been sorely troubled "that Knipp sent by Moll (an orange-woman, whose basket was her character) to desire to speak to me after the play, and I promised to come; but it was so late, and I forced to step to Mrs Williams' lodgings with my Lord Brouncker and her, where I did not stay, however, for fear of her showing me her closet, and thereby forcing me to give her something; and it was so late, that, for fear of my wife's coming home before me, I was forced to go straight home, which troubled me"? If Pepys was really innocent in deed, and but culpable in thought and inclination, his escape was a mighty narrow one, and Mrs Pepys may well stand excused for the strength and frequency of her suspicions. The truth is, that Pepys, at least in the earlier part of his life, was a very odious specimen of the Cockney, and would upon many occasions have been justly punished by a sound kicking, or an ample dose of the cudgel. It seems to us perfectly inexplicable how the coxcomb—who, by the way, was a regular church-goer, and rather zealous religionist—could have prevailed upon himself to make such entries as the following in his journal: "August 18, 1667.—I walked towards Whitehall, but, being wearied, turned into St Dunstan's church, where I heard an able sermon of the minister of the place; and stood by a pretty, modest maid, whom I did labour to take by the hand; but she would not, but got further and further from me; and at last I could perceive her to take pins out of her pocket to prick me if I should touch her again, which seeing, I did forbear, and was glad I did spy her design. And then I fell to gaze upon another pretty maid in a pew close to me, and she on me; and I did go about to take her by the hand, which she suffered a little, and then withdrew. So the sermon ended, and the church broke up, and my amours ended also." What a pity that the first maid in question had not been more nimble with her fingers! The poisoned bodkin which the goblin page shoved into the knee of Wat Tinlinn, would have been well bestowed, if buried to the very head, on this occasion, in the hip of Pepys; and charity does not forbid us from indulging ourselves in fancy with the startling hideousness of his howl! No wonder that Mrs Pepys not only made hot the tongs, but incoherently insisted, at times, on the necessity of a separate maintenance.

The great charm of the book is its utter freedom from disguise. The zeal of antiquaries, and the patriotic exertions of the literary clubs, have, of late years, put the public in possession of various diaries, which are most valuable, as throwing light upon the political incidents and social manners of the times in which the authors lived. Thus we have the journals of honest John Nicholl, writer to the signet in Edinburgh, who saw the great Marquis of Montrose go down from his prison to the scaffold; of the shrewd and cautious Fountainhall; of the high-minded and accomplished Evelyn, and many others—the manuscripts of which had lain for years undisturbed on the shelf or in the charter-chest. But it cannot be said of any one of those diaries, that it was kept solely for the use and reference of the writer. Some of them may not have been intended for publication; and it is very likely that the thoughts of posthumous renown never crossed the mind of the chronicler, as he set down his daily jotting and observation. Nevertheless those were family documents, such as a father, if he had no wider aim, might have bequeathed for the information of his children. Diaries of more modern date have, we suspect, been kept principally with a view to publication; or, at least, the writers of them seem never to have been altogether devoid of a kind of consciousness that their lucubrations might one day see the light. Owing to that feeling, the veil of domestic privacy is seldom withdrawn, and seldomer still are we treated to a faithful record of the deeds and thoughts of the diarist. But Pepys framed his journal with no such intention. He durst not, for dear life, have submitted a single page of it to the inspection of the wife of his bosom—had he been as fruitful as Jacob, no son of his would have been intrusted with the key which could unlock the mysterious cipher in which the most private passages of his life were written. No clerk was allowed to continue it in a clear, legible hand, when failing eyesight rendered the task irksome or impossible to himself. There is something of pathos in his last entry, when the doors of the daily confessional were just closing for ever. "And thus ends all that I doubt I shall ever be able to do with my own eyes in the keeping of my journal, I being not able to do it any longer, having done now so long as to undo my eyes almost every time that I take a pen in my hand; and, therefore, whatever comes of it, I must forbear; and therefore resolve, from this time forward, to have it kept by my people in long hand, and must be contented to set down no more than is fit for them and all the world to know; or, if there be anything, I must endeavour to keep a margin in my book open, to add now and then a note in short-hand, with my own hand." Perhaps it is as well that the marginal continuation so hinted at was withheld; for, in the process of decanting, the wine would have lost its flavour, and must have suffered terribly in contrast with the raciness of the earlier cooper.

The position in life which Pepys occupied renders his Diary doubly interesting. Had he been only a hanger-on of the court, we might have heard more minute and personal scandal, conveyed through the medium of Bab May, or Chiffinch, or other unscrupulous satellites of a very profligate monarch. Had he been a mere private citizen or merchant, his knowledge of or interest in public events would probably have been so small, as to assist us but little in unravelling the intricate history of the time. But, standing as he did between two classes of society, then separated by a far stronger line of demarcation than now,—a citizen of London by birth and connexion, by occupation a government official, and through instinct an intense admirer of the great—he had access to more sources of information, and could interpret general opinion better, than the professional courtier or tradesman. Shrewd, sharp, and not very scrupulous, he readily seized all opportunities of making his way in the world; and though privately a censor of the more open vices of the great, he never was so truly happy as when admitted by accident to their society. Lord Braybrooke, we think, is too partial in his estimate of Pepys' character. If we are to judge of him by his own confessions, he was largely imbued with that spirit of meanness, arrogance, and vanity, which dramatic writers have always seized on as illustrative of the parvenu, but which is never apparent in the conversation, or discernible in the dealings, of a true and perfect gentleman.

Sam does not appear to have troubled himself much about his pedigree until he became a person of considerable note and substance. Indeed, the circumstances of his immediate extraction were not such as to have found much favour in the eyes of the professors of Herald's College. His father was a respectable tailor, and, in his own earlier years, Pepys had carried doublets to customers, if not actually handled the goose. The impressions that he received in his boyhood seem to have been indelible through life; prosperity could not make him insensible to the flavour of cucumber. The sight of a new garment invariably kindled in his mind the aspirations of his primitive calling, and very proud, indeed, was he when brother Tom brought him his "jackanapes coat with silver buttons." In his way he was quite a Sir Piercie Shafton, and never formed a complete opinion of any man without due consideration of his clothes. At the outset of his diary we find him married, and in rather indifferent circumstances. He was then a clerk in some public office connected with the Exchequer, at a small salary. But he was diligent in his vocation, and prudent in his habits; so that he and his wife, and servant Jane, fared not much worse, or perhaps rather better, than Andrew Marvell, for we find them living in a garret, and dining on New Year's day on the remains of a turkey, in the dressing whereof Mrs Pepys unfortunately burned her hand. A few days afterwards, they mended their cheer at the house of "cosen Thomas Pepys" the turner, where the dinner "was very good; only the venison pasty was palpable mutton, which was not handsome." But the advent of better banquets was near. In the preceding autumn, the old protector, Oliver Cromwell, had been carried to the grave, and the reins of government, sorely frayed and worn, were given to the weak hands of Richard. In truth, there was hardly any government at all. The military chiefs did not own the second Cromwell as their master; Lambert was attempting to get up a party in his own favour; and Monk, in command of the northern army, was suspected of a similar design. The bulk of the nation, in terror of anarchy, and heartily sick of the consequences of revolution, which, as usual, had terminated in arbitrary rule, longed for the restoration of their legitimate sovereign, as the only means of arresting further calamity; and several of the influential officers, not compromised by regicide, were secretly of the same opinion. Amongst these latter was Sir Edward Montagu, admiral of the fleet, afterwards created Earl of Sandwich, whose mother was a Pepys, and with whom, accordingly, Samuel was proud to reckon kin. Sir Edward had been already very kind to his young relative, and now laid the foundation of his fortunes by employing him as his secretary, during the expedition which ended with the return of Charles II. to his hereditary dominions. Pepys, in his boyish days, had been somewhat tainted with the Roundhead doctrines, but he was now as roaring a royalist as ever danced round a bonfire; and the slight accession of profit which accrued to him for his share in the Restoration, gave him an unbounded appetite for future accumulations. He made himself useful to Montagu, who presently received his earldom, and through his interest Pepys was installed in office as clerk of the Acts of the Navy.

Other snug jobs followed, and Pepys began to thrive apace. It is possible that, if judged by the standard of morality recognised in his time, our friend may have been deemed, on the whole, a tolerably conscientious officer; but, according to our more strict ideas, he hardly could have piqued himself, like a modern statesman, on the superior purity of his palms. If not grossly avaricious, he was decidedly fond of money; he cast up his accounts with great punctuality, and seems to have thought that each additional hundred pounds came into his possession through a special interposition of Providence. Now, although we know well that there is a blessing upon honest industry, it would appear that a good deal of Pepys' money flowed in through crooked channels. Bribes and acknowledgments he received without much compunction or hesitation, only taking care that little evidence should be left of the transaction. The following extract shows that his conscience was by no means of stiff or inflexible material: "I met Captain Grove, who did give me a letter directed to myself from himself. I discerned money to be in it, knowing as I found it to be, the proceeds of the place I have got him to be—the taking up of vessels for Tangier. But I did not open it till I came home—not looking into it until all the money was out, that I might say I saw no money in the paper, if ever I should be questioned about it. There was a piece in gold, and £4 in silver." Pepys made altogether a good thing out of the Tangier settlement, for which he was afterwards secretary, as, besides such small pickings as the above, we read of magnificent silver flagons—"the noblest that ever I saw all the days of my life"—presented to him, in grateful acknowledgment of services to come, by Gauden, victualler of the navy. Samuel had twinges of conscience, but the sight of the plate was too much for him: "Whether I shall keep them or no," saith he, striving to cast dust in his own eyes, "I cannot tell; for it is to oblige me to him in the business of the Tangier victualling, wherein I doubt I shall not; but glad I am to see that I shall be sure to get something on one side or other, have it which will; so with a merry heart I looked upon them, and locked them up." The flagons, however, did the business. Gauden was preferred; and, from an entry in the Diary, made about a year afterwards, we must conclude that his profits were enormous: "All the afternoon to my accounts; and then find myself, to my great joy, a great deal worth—above £4000—for which the Lord be praised! and is principally occasioned by my getting £500 of Cocke for my profit in his bargains of prize goods, and from Mr Gauden's making me a present of £500 more, when I paid him £800 for Tangier. Thus ends this year, to my great joy, in this manner. I have raised my estate from £1300, in this year, to £4400." A pretty accretion: but made, we fear, at the expense of the nation, by means which hardly would have stood the scrutiny of a court of justice. It may be quite true that every man in office, from the highest to the lowest, from the chancellor to the doorkeeper, was then doing the like; still we cannot give Pepys the benefit of a perfect indemnity on the score of the general practice. Even when he tells us elsewhere, with evident satisfaction—"This night I received, by Will, £105, the first-fruits of my endeavours in the late contract for victualling of Tangier, for which God be praised! for I can, with a safe conscience, say that I have therein saved the king £5000 per annum, and yet got myself a hope of £300 per annum, without the least wrong to the king"—it is impossible to reconcile his conduct with the strict rules of morality, or of duty: nor, perhaps, need we do so, seeing that Pepys makes no pretence of being altogether immaculate. He began by taking small fees in a surreptitious way, and ended by pocketing the largest without a single twinge. It is the progress from remuneration to guerdon, as philosophically explained by Costard—"Guerdon!—O sweet guerdon! better than remuneration; eleven-pence farthing better. Most sweet guerdon!—I will do it, sir, in print;—guerdon—remuneration!"

The common proverb tells us that money easily got is lightly expended. In one sense Pepys formed no exception to the common rule; for, notwithstanding divers good resolutions, he led rather a dissipated life for a year or two after the Restoration, and was in the constant habit of drinking more wine than altogether agreed with his constitution. This fault he strove to amend by registering sundry vows, which, however, were often broken; and he was finally weaned from the bottle by the pangs of disordered digestion. His expenses kept pace with his income. The "jackanapes coat, with silver buttons," was succeeded by a "fine one of flowered tabby vest, and coloured camelot tunique, made stiff with gold lace at the bands," in which Pepys probably expected to do great execution in the Park, or, at any rate, to astonish Mrs Knipp; but it proved to be so extravagantly fine, that his friends thought it necessary to interfere. "Povy told me of my gold-laced sleeve in the Park yesterday, which vexed me also, so as to resolve never to appear in court with them, but presently to have them taken off, as it is fit I should, and so called at my tailor's for that purpose." Povy's hint might have its origin in envy; but, on the whole, it was wise and judicious. Also Mrs Pepys was indulged with a fair allowance of lace, taffeta, and such trinkets as females affect; and both of them sat for their portraits to Hales, having previously been refused by Lely. Furniture and plate of the most expensive description were ordered; and finally, to his intense delight, Samuel achieved the great object of his own ambition, and set up a carriage of his own. The account of his first public appearance in this vehicle is too characteristic to be lost:—"At noon home to dinner, and there found my wife extraordinary fine, with her flowered gown that she made two years ago, now laced exceeding pretty, and indeed was fine all over; and mighty earnest to go, though the day was very lowering; and she would have me put on my fine suit, which I did. And so anon we went alone through the town with our new liveries of serge, and the horses' manes and tails tied with red ribbons, and the standards gilt with varnish, and all clean, and green reins, that people did mightily look upon us; and, the truth is, I did not see any coach more pretty, though more gay, than ours all the day. But we set out, out of humour—I, because Betty, whom I expected, was not come to go with us; and my wife, that I would sit on the same seat with her, which she likes not, being so fine; and she then expected to meet Sheres, which we did in the Pell Mell, and, against my will, I was forced to take him into the coach, but was sullen all day almost, and little complaisant; the day being unpleasing, though the Park full of coaches, but dusty, and windy, and cold, and now and then a little dribbling of rain; and, what made it worse, there were so many hackney coaches as spoiled the sight of the gentlemen's; and so we had little pleasure." The tale of Seged, Emperor of Ethiopia, does not convey a clearer moral. No peacock was prouder than Samuel Pepys, as he stepped that day, in all the luxury of gorgeous apparel, into his coach, and drove through the streets of London, under the distinct impression that, for the moment, he was the most remarked and remarkable man in the whole of his Majesty's dominions. Yet there were drops of bitterness in the cup. Betty Turner was not there to enjoy the triumph, and Sheres, who must needs join the party, was supposed by Samuel to stand rather high in the good graces of Mrs Pepys, insomuch that he mourned not a whit when he heard that the gallant captain was about to set off to Tangier. Add to this, the ungenial weather, and the insolent display of hackney coaches, obscuring somewhat the lustre of his new turn-out, and detracting from the glory of red ribbons, gilt standards, and green reins, and we need hardly wonder if, even in the hour of triumph, Pepys felt that he was mortal. It is to be hoped that, when he returned home, he vented his ill-humour neither upon his wife nor his monkey, both of whom, on other occasions, were made to suffer when anything had gone wrong.

Three great national events, which have not yet lost their interest, are recorded in this Diary. These are the plague, the great fire of London, and the successful enterprise of De Ruyter and the Dutch fleet at Chatham. The account of the plague will be read with much interest, especially at the present time, when another terrible epidemic has been raging through the streets and lanes of the metropolis. The progress of the plague through Europe seems, in many respects, to have resembled that of the cholera. It did not burst out suddenly in one locality, but appears to have pervaded the Continent with a gradual and irresistible march, sometimes lingering in its advance, and ever and anon breaking out with redoubled virulence. Several years before it reached England, the pestilence raged in Naples, and is said to have carried off in six months nearly 400,000 victims. Its introduction was traced to a transport ship, with soldiers on board, coming from Sardinia. It reached Amsterdam and Hamburg more than a year before it broke out in London, and its malignity may be judged of by the following entry in Pepys' Diary: "We were told to-day of a sloop, of three or four hundred tons, where all the men were dead of the plague, and the sloop cast ashore at Gottenburg." In England there had been great apprehension of its coming, long before the visitation; and two exceedingly unhealthy seasons, occurring in succession, had probably enfeebled the constitutions of many, and rendered them more liable to the contagion. Pepys' note of 15th January 1662 is as follows: "This morning Mr Berkenshaw came again, and after he had examined me, and taught me something in my work, he and I went to breakfast in my chamber upon a collar of brawn; and after we had eaten, asked me whether we had not committed a fault in eating to-day; telling me that it is a fast-day, ordered by the parliament, to pray for more seasonable weather; it having hitherto been summer weather: that it is, both as to warmth and every other thing, just as if it wore the middle of May or June, which do threaten a plague, (as all men think,) to follow, for so it was almost the last winter; and the whole year after hath been a very sickly time to this day." The plague appeared in London in December 1664, and reached its deadliest point in August and September of the ensuing year. The number of those who died from it has been differently estimated from sixty-eight to one hundred thousand. London is now, according to the best authorities, about four times as populous as it was then, so that we may easily judge of the consternation into which its inhabitants must have been thrown when the pestilence was at its worst. During the month of September 1849, the greatest number of deaths occurring from cholera in the metropolis, in one day, was about four hundred and fifty—a proportion very small when compared with the ravages of the plague at its most destructive season, and yet large enough to justify great apprehension, and to demand humiliation and prayer for national apathy and transgression. Yet, great as the alarm was, when death was waving his wings over the affrighted city, it does not seem to have been so excessive as we might well imagine. The truth is, that, not withstanding intramural interment, bad sewerage, and infected air, the sanatory condition of London, since it was rebuilt after the great fire, has improved in a most remarkable degree. Prior to that event, the metropolis had at various times suffered most severely from epidemics. In 1204, when the population must have been very small, it is recorded that two hundred persons were buried daily in the Charterhouse-yard. The mortality in 1367 has been described as terrific. In 1407, thirty thousand persons perished of a dreadful pestilence. There was another in 1478, which not only visited London with much severity, but is said to have destroyed, throughout England, more people than fell in the wars which had raged with little intermission for the fifteen preceding years. In 1485, that mysterious complaint called the sweating sickness was very fatal in London. Fifteen years later, in 1500, the plague there was so dreadful that Henry VII. and his court were forced to remove to Calais. The sweating sickness, described as mortal in three hours, again scourged England in 1517, and its ravages were so great, that, according to Stowe, half of the inhabitants of most of the larger towns died, and Oxford was almost depopulated. In 1603-4, upwards of thirty thousand persons died of the plague in London alone; and in 1625 there was another great mortality. Since the great plague of London in 1664-5, down to our time, no very fatal epidemic—at least none at all comparable to those earlier pestilences—seems to have occurred in the metropolis, and it is therefore natural that any extraordinary visitation should, from its increased rarity, occasion a much higher degree of alarm. Of all the accounts extant of the plague, that of Pepys appears to be the most truthful and the least exaggerated. He remained in London at his post until the month of August, when he removed to Greenwich; and although a timorous man, and exceedingly shy of exposing himself to unnecessary risks, he seems on this occasion to have behaved with considerable fortitude. One anecdote we cannot omit, for it tells in a few words a deep and tearful tragedy, and is moreover honourable to Pepys. It occurred when the plague was at its height. "My Lord Brouncker, Sir J. Minnes, and I, up to the vestry, at the desire of the justices of the peace, in order to the doing something for the keeping of the plague from growing; but, Lord! to consider the madness of people of the town, who will, because they are forbid, come in crowds along with the dead corpses to see them buried; but we agreed on some orders for the prevention thereof. Among other stories, one was very passionate, methought, of a complaint brought against a man in the town, for taking a child from London from an infected house. Alderman Hooker told us it was the child of a very able citizen in Gracious Street, a saddler, who had buried all the rest of his children of the plague; and himself and wife, now being shut up in despair of escaping, did desire only to save the life of this little child, and so prevailed to have it removed, stark-naked, into the arms of a friend, who brought it, having put it into fresh clothes, to Greenwich; when, upon hearing the story, we did agree it should be permitted to be received, and kept in the town." It is now generally admitted that the Account of the Plague, written by Defoe, cannot be accepted as a genuine narrative, but must be classed with the other fictions of that remarkable man, whose singular power of giving a strong impression of reality to every one of his compositions must always challenge the admiration of the reader. He has not, perhaps, aggravated the horrors of the pestilence, for that were impossible; but he has concentrated them in one heap, so as to produce a more awful picture than probably met the eye of any single citizen of London even at that disastrous period. Pepys, in his account of different visits which he was forced to make to the City when the epidemic was at its height, has portrayed the outward desolation, and the inward anxiety and apprehension, which prevailed, in more sober, yet very striking colours: "28th August 1665.—To Mr Colville the goldsmith's, having not been for some days in the streets; but now how few people I see, and those looking like people that had taken leave of the world. To the Exchange, and there was not fifty people upon it, and but few more like to be, as they told me. I think to take adieu to-day of the London streets.... 30th.—Abroad, and met with Hadley, our clerk, who, upon my asking how the plague goes, told me it increases much, and much in our parish; for, says he, there died nine this week, though I have returned but six; which is a very ill practice, and makes me think it is so in other places, and therefore the plague much greater than people take it to be. I went forth, and walked towards Moorefields, to see—God forgive my presumption!—whether I could see any dead corpse going to the grave, but, as God would have it, did not. But, Lord! how everybody's looks and discourse in the street is of death, and nothing else! and few people going up and down, that the town is like a place deserted and forsaken.... 6th Sept.—To London, to pack up more things; and there I saw fires burning in the street, (as it is through the whole city,) by the lord mayor's order. Hence by water to the Duke of Albemarle's: all the way fires on each side of the Thames, and strange to see, in broad daylight, two or three burials upon the Bankside, one at the very heels of another: doubtless, all of the plague, and yet at least forty or fifty people going along with every one of them.... 20th.—Lord! what a sad time it is to see no boats upon the river; and grass grows all up and down Whitehall Court, and nobody but poor wretches in the streets!" By this time the plague had become so general, that all attempt to shut up the infected houses was abandoned; so that, says Pepys, "to be sure, we do converse and meet with people that have the plague upon them." A little later, when the pestilence was abating, we find this entry: "I walked to the town; but, Lord! how empty the streets are, and melancholy! so many poor, sick people in the streets, full of sores, and so many sad stories overheard as I walk, everybody talking of this dead, and that man sick, and so many in this place, and so many in that; and they tell me that, in Westminster, there is never a physician, and but one apothecary, left—all being dead; but that there are great hopes of a great decrease this week: God send it!" Still, without the circle of the plague, (for it does not seem to have penetrated beyond the immediate environs of London,) men ate, drank, and made merry, as though no vial of divine wrath had been poured out amongst them. Even Pepys, after returning from the melancholy spectacles of this day, seems to have drowned his care in more than usual jollity; and his records go far to confirm the truthfulness of Boccaccio, in the account which he has given of the levity of the Florentines during the prevalence of a like contagion.

The fire of London, which occurred about the middle of the succeeding year, not only dispelled the more poignant memories of the plague, but is thought to have done good service in eradicating its remains, which still lingered in some parts of the city, and may perhaps have been the means of preventing a second outbreak of this pestilence. On the second night the conflagration was awful: Pepys watched it from the river,—"So near the fire as we could for the smoke; and all over the Thames, with one's face in the wind, you were almost burned with a shower of fire-drops. This is very true; so as houses were burned by these drops and flakes of fire—three or four, nay, five or six houses, one from another. When we could endure no more upon the water, we to a little alehouse on the Bankside, over against the Three Cranes, and there stayed till it was dark almost, and saw the fire grow, and, as it grew darker, appeared more and more; and in corners, and upon steeples, and between churches and houses, as far as we could see up the hill of the City, in a most horrid, malicious, bloody flame, not like the fine flame of an ordinary fire. Barbary and her husband away before us. We stayed till, it being darkish, we saw the fire as only one entire arch of fire, from this to the other side of the bridge, and in a bow up the hill for an arch of above a mile long: it made me weep to see it. The churches, houses, and all on fire and flaming at once; and a horrid noise the flames made, and the cracking of houses at their ruin." For five days the conflagration raged, nor was its force spent until the greater part of London was laid in ashes. The terror of the calamity was heightened by rumours industriously propagated, though their origin never could be traced. The fire was said to be the result of a deep-laid Popish plot; and that report, though in all probability utterly without foundation, was at a future day the cause of shameful persecution and bloodshed. A great alarm was raised that the Dutch, with whom England was then at war, and whose fleet was actually in the Channel, had landed; so that a kind of sullen despair and apathy seized upon the minds of many. It was long before London could recover from the blow; but at length a new city, far more substantial and splendid than the first, arose from the scattered ruins.

England was at that time contesting the supremacy of the seas with the States of opulent and enterprising Holland. Amsterdam was then considered the most wealthy capital of Europe. The Dutch navy was powerful, well equipped, and well manned, and the admirals, De Ruyter and De Witt, were esteemed second to none living for seamanship and ability. The struggle was not a new one. In 1652, after a desperate engagement with Blake, Van Tromp, the renowned commander of Holland, had sailed in triumph through the Channel, with a broom at his masthead, to denote that he had swept the English from the seas. That premature boast was afterwards terribly avenged. Three times, in three successive months, did these foes, worthy of each other, encounter on the open seas, and yet victory declared for neither. Four other battles were fought, which England has added to her proud list of naval triumphs; but most assuredly the decisive palm was not won until, on the 31st July 1653, gallant Van Tromp fell in the heat of action. A braver man never trod the quarterdeck, and Holland may well be proud of such a hero. For a time the States succumbed to the stern genius of Cromwell; nor did the struggle commence anew until after the Restoration of Charles. The first engagement was glorious for England. The Duke of York, afterwards James II., commanded in person: he encountered the Dutch fleet off Harwich, and defeated it after a stubborn engagement. Eighteen of their finest vessels were taken, and the ship of the admiral (Opdam) blown into the air. Mr Macaulay, in his late published History of England, has not deigned even to notice this engagement—a remarkable omission, the reason of which it is foreign to our purpose to inquire. This much we may be allowed to say, that no historian who intends to form an accurate estimate of the character of James II., or to compile a complete register of his deeds, can justly accomplish his task without giving that unfortunate monarch due credit for his conduct and intrepidity, in one of the most important and successful naval actions which stands recorded in our annals. The same year (1665) is memorable for another victory, when the Earl of Sandwich captured fourteen of the enemy's ships. Prince Rupert and the Duke of Albemarle were less successful in the engagement which commenced on 1st June 1666. The fight lasted four days, with no decisive result, but considerable loss on either side. The next battle, fought at the mouth of the Thames, ended in favour of England; the Dutch lost four-and-twenty men-of-war, and four of their admirals, and four thousand officers and seamen, fell. When we take into consideration the state of the navy during the earlier part of the reign of Charles, it is absolutely astonishing that England was able not only to cope with the Dutch on equal terms, but ultimately to subdue them. We learn from Pepys the particulars of a fact long generally known, that in no department of the state were there greater corruptions, abuses, and frauds practised than in that of the Admiralty. The pay both of officers and men was constantly in arrear, insomuch that some of them were reduced to absolute starvation whilst considerable sums were due to them. Stores were embezzled and plundered almost without inquiry. The fleets were often wretchedly commanded, for there was not then, as there is now, any restriction between the services; and new-made captains from the circle of the court, who never in their lives had been at sea, were frequently put over the heads of veterans who from boyhood had dwelt upon the ocean. There was scarcely any discipline in the navy; impressment was harshly and illegally practised, and after each engagement the sailors deserted by hundreds. So bad did matters at length become, that, towards the close of the year 1666, the fleet was in actual mutiny, and the naval arm of England paralysed. The subsequent reform of the navy is mainly attributable to the firmness and determination of the Duke of York, who, being a far better man of business than his indolent and selfish brother, applied himself resolutely to the task. The most important suggestions and rules for remedying grievances, and securing future efficiency, were made and drawn out by Pepys, who showed himself, in this respect, a most able officer of the crown, and who, in consequence, acquired an ascendency in navy affairs, which lie never lost until the Revolution deprived him of a master who thoroughly understood his value. But, before any steps were taken towards this most necessary reform, her daring adversaries aimed at the capital of England a blow which narrowly failed of success.

The seamen, as we have said, being in a state of mutiny arising from sheer wanton mismanagement, it became apparent that no active naval operations could be undertaken in the course of the following year. All this was well known to the Dutch, who determined to avail themselves of the opportunity. During the spring of 1667, the whole British coast, as far north as the firth of Forth, was molested by the Dutch cruisers, insomuch that great inconvenience was felt in London from the total stoppage of the coal trade. In the month of June, De Ruyter, being by that time fully prepared and equipped, sailed boldly into the Thames, without encountering a vestige of opposition. It is not too much to say, that the plague and fire combined, had not struck the citizens of London with so much alarm as did this hostile demonstration. All the former naval triumphs of England seemed to have gone for nothing, for here was invasion brought to the very doors of the capital. The supremacy of the seas was not now in dispute: it was the occupancy of the great British river, the highway of the national commerce. Strange were the thoughts, that haunted the minds of men whilst that mighty armament was hovering on our shores: it seemed a new Armada, with no gallant Drake to oppose it. "We had good company at our table," wrote Pepys, upon the 3d of June; "among others, my good Mr Evelyn, with whom, after dinner, I stepped aside, and talked upon the present posture of our affairs, which is, that the Dutch are known to be abroad with eighty sail of ships of war, and twenty fireships; and the French come into the Channel, with twenty sail of men-of-war, and five fireships, while we have not a ship at sea to do them any hurt with; but are calling in all we can, while our ambassadors are treating at Breda; and the Dutch look upon them as come to beg peace, and use them accordingly: and all this through the negligence of our prince, who had power, if he would, to master all these with the money and men that he hath had the command of, and may now have if he would mind his business. But, for aught we see, the kingdom is likely to be lost, as well as the reputation of it, for ever; notwithstanding so much reputation got and preserved by a rebel that went before him." All this was true. Had he been alive—he whose senseless clay had six years before been exhumed and dishonoured at Tyburn—England would not then have been submitting to so unexampled a degradation. Traitor and renegade as he was, Cromwell loved his country well. Self-ambition might be his first motive, but he was keenly alive to the glory of England, and had made her name a word of fear and terror among the nations. He was no vulgar demagogue, like those of our dogmatic time. Unlawfully as he had usurped the functions of a sovereign, Britain suffered nothing in foreign estimation while her interests were committed to his charge. What wonder if, at such a crisis, Pepys and others could not help reverting to the memory of the strong man whose bones were lying beneath the public gallows, whilst the restored king was squandering among his harlots that treasure which, if rightfully applied, might have swept the enemies of England from the seas?

On the 8th of June, the Dutch fleet appeared off Harwich. Two days afterwards they ascended the river, took Sheerness, and, breaking an enormous chain which had been drawn across the Medway for defence, penetrated as far as Upnor Castle, where, in spite of all resistance, they made prize of several vessels, and burned three men-of-war. By some shameful mismanagement the English ships had been left too far down the river, notwithstanding orders from the Admiralty to have them removed: they were, besides, only half manned; and on this occasion the English sailors did not exhibit their wonted readiness to fight. It was even reported to Pepys, by a gentleman who was present, "that he himself did hear many Englishmen, on board the Dutch ships, speaking to one another in English; and that they did cry and say, We did heretofore fight for tickets, now we fight for dollars! and did ask how such and such a one did, and would commend themselves to them—which is a sad consideration." Reinforcements arrived from Portsmouth; but instead of working, they "do come to the office this morning to demand the payment of their tickets; for otherwise they would, they said, do no more work; and are, as I understand from everybody who has to do with them, the most debauched, damning, swearing rogues that ever were in the navy—just like their profane commander." It seemed, at one time, more than probable that the Dutch would attack the city: had they made the attempt, it is not likely, so great was the panic, that they would have been encountered by effectual opposition; but De Ruyter was apprehensive of pushing his advantage too far, and contented himself with destroying such shipping as he found in the river.

Meanwhile, great was the explosion of public wrath, both against the Court and the Admiralty officials. Crowds of people congregated in Westminster, loudly clamouring for a parliament. The windows of the Lord Chancellor's house were broken, and a gibbet erected before his gate. "People do cry out in the streets of their being bought and sold; and both they, and everybody that do come to me, do tell me that people make nothing of talking treason in the streets openly; as, that they are bought and sold, and governed by Papists, and that we are betrayed by people about the king, and shall be delivered up to the French, and I know not what." Poor Pepys expected nothing else than an immediate attack upon his office, in which, by some miraculous circumstance, there happened to be at the moment a considerable sum of public money. His situation rendered him peculiarly obnoxious to abuse; and at one time it was currently reported that he was summarily ordered to the Tower. These things cost him no little anxiety; but what distracted him most was, the agonising thought that the whole of his private savings and fortune, which he had by him in specie, might, in a single moment, be swept away and dissipated for ever. If the seamen who were mutinous for pay should chance to hear of the funds in hand, and take it into their heads to storm the office, there was little probability of them drawing nice distinctions between public and private property: and, in that case, money, flagons, and all would find their way to Wapping. Also, there might be a chance of a reckoning in any event; "for," said he, "the truth is, I do fear so much that the whole kingdom is undone, that I do this night resolve to study with my father and wife what to do with the little I have in money by me, for I give up all the rest that I have in the king's hands, for Tangier, for lost. So God help us! and God knows what disorders we may fall into, and whether any violence on this office, or perhaps some severity on our persons, as being reckoned by the silly people, or perhaps may, by policy of state, be thought fit to be condemned by the king and Duke of York, and so put to trouble; though, God knows! I have in my own person done my full duty, I am sure." So, in the very midst of the confusion, Samuel, like a wise man, set about regulating his own affairs. He was lucky enough to get £400 paid him, to account of his salary, and he despatched his father and wife to Cambridgeshire, with £1300 in gold in their night-bag. Next day Mr Gibson, one of his clerks, followed them with another 1000 pieces, "under colour of an express to Sir Jeremy Smith." The two grand silver flagons went to Kate Joyce's, where it is to be presumed they would be tolerably safe. Pepys, moreover, provided himself a girdle, "by which, with some trouble, I do carry about me £300 of gold about my body, that I may not be without something in case I should be surprised; for I think, in any nation but ours, people that appear—for we are not indeed so—so faulty as we would have their throats cut." Still he had £200 in silver by him, which was not convertible into gold, there having been, as usual on such occasions, a sharp run upon the more portable metal. His ideas as to secreting this sum would not have displeased Vespasian, but he seems to have been deterred from that experiment by the obvious difficulty of recovering the silver at the moment of need. These dispositions made, Pepys obviously felt himself more comfortable, and manfully resolved to abide the chances of assault, imprisonment, or impeachment.

None of those calamities befell him. After the navy of Holland had disappeared from the waters of the Thames, an inquiry, of rather a strict and rigorous nature, as to the causes of the late disaster, was instituted; but, where the blame was so widely spread, and retort so easy, it was difficult to fix upon any particular victim as a propitiation for the official sins; and Pepys, who really understood his business, made a gallant and successful defence, not only for himself, but for his associates. We need not, however, enter into that matter, more especially as we hope that the reader feels sufficient interest in Pepys and his fortunes, to be curious to know what became of his money; nor is the history of its disposal and recovery the least amusing portion of this narrative.

Mr Peter Pett, commissioner of the navy, who was principally blamable for the loss of the ships at Chatham, had been actually sent to the Tower; and our friend Pepys, being summoned to attend the council, had an awful misgiving that the same fate was in store for him. He escaped, however; "but my fear was such, at my going in, of the success of the day, that I did think fit to give J. Hater, whom I took with me to wait the event, my closet key, and directions where to find £500 and more in silver and gold, and my tallies, to remove in case of any misfortune to me. Home, and after being there a little, my wife came, and two of her fellow-travellers with her, with whom we drank—a couple of merchant-like men, I think, but have friends in our country. They being gone, my wife did give me so bad an account of her and my father's method, in burying of our gold, that made me mad; and she herself is not pleased with it—she believing that my sister knows of it. My father and she did it on Sunday, when they were gone to church, in open daylight, in the midst of the garden, where, for aught they knew, many eyes might see them, which put me into trouble, and I presently cast about how to have it back again, to secure it here, the times being a little better now."

The autumn was well advanced before Pepys could obtain leave to go down into the country, whither at length he proceeded, not to shoot partridges or pheasants, but to disinter his buried treasure. We doubt whether ever resurrectionist felt himself in such a quandary.

Then ensued a scene of washing for gold, the study of which may be useful to any intending emigrant to California.

And then did Samuel Pepys return to London rejoicing, not one whit the worse for all his care and anxiety, yet still incubating on his treasure, which he had prudently stowed away beneath him, and, says he, "my work every quarter of an hour was to look to see whether all was well; and I did ride in great fear all the day."

We have already hinted that Pepys was by no means a Hector in valour. The sight of a suspicious bumpkin armed with a cudgel, on the road, always gave him qualms of apprehension; and in the night-season his dreams were commonly of robbery and murder. For many nights after the great fire, he started from sleep under the conviction that his premises were in a bright flame: the creaking of a door after midnight threw him into a cold perspiration; and a reported noise on the leads nearly drove him past his judgment. He thus reports his sensations on the occurrence of the latter phenomenon:—

All of us have, doubtless, on occasion, been wakened from slumber by a hollow bellowing, as if an ox had, somehow or other, fallen half way down the chimney. Once, in a remote country district, we were roused from our dreams by a hideous flapping of wings in the same locality, and certainly did, for a moment, conjecture that the foul fiend was flying away with our portmanteau. The first of these untimeous sounds usually proceeds from a gentleman of Ethiopian complexion, who is perched somewhere among the chimney-pots; the latter we discovered to arise from the involuntary struggles of a goose, who had been cruelly compelled to assist in the dislodgement of the soot. Some degree of tremor on such occasions is admissible without reproach, but surely old Trapbois himself could hardly have behaved worse than Pepys upon the following alarm.

Had our space admitted of it, we should have been glad to copy a few of the anecdotes narrated by Pepys regarding the court of King Charles. These are not always to be depended upon as correct, for Pepys usually received them at second hand, and put them down immediately without further inquiry. We all know, from experience, what exaggeration prevails in the promulgation of gossip, and how difficult it is at any time to ascertain the real merits of a story. The raw material of a scandalous anecdote passes first into the hands of a skilful manufacturer, who knows how to give it due colour and fit proportion; and when, after undergoing this process, it is presented to the public, it would puzzle any of the parties concerned to reconcile it with the actual facts. In a court like that of Charles, there is always mixed up with the profligacy a considerable deal of wit. Such men as Sedley, Rochester, Etherege, and Killigrew, were privileged characters, and never scrupled to lay on the varnish, if by so doing they could heighten the effect. Neither the station, nor the manners, nor, indeed, the tastes of Pepys, qualified him to mix with such society, and therefore he can only retail to us the articles which came adulterated to his hand. It is rash in any historian to trust implicitly to memoirs. They may, indeed, give an accurate general picture, but they cannot be depended on for particulars: for example, we entertain a strong suspicion that one-half at least of the personal anecdotes related by Count Anthony Hamilton are, if not absolutely false, at least most grossly exaggerated. We shall allude merely to one notable instance of this kind of misrepresentation which occurs in Pepys. Frances, more commonly known as La Belle Stewart, a lady of the noble house of Blantyre, was beloved by Charles II., with probably as much infusion of the purer passion as could be felt by so sated a voluptuary. So strong was his admiration, that it was currently believed that the fair Stewart, failing Katherine, had an excellent chance of being elevated to the throne; and it is quite well known that her virtue was as spotless as her beauty was unrivalled. In spite of the opposition of the king, she married Charles, Duke of Lennox and Richmond; and her resolute and spirited conduct on that occasion, under very trying circumstances, was much and deservedly extolled. And yet we find in the earlier pages of Pepys most scandalous anecdotes to her discredit. In the second volume there is an account of a mock marriage between her and Lady Castlemaine, in which the latter personated the bridegroom, making way, when the company had retired, for the entry of her royal paramour. On several other occasions Pepys alludes to her as the notorious mistress of the king, and it was only after her marriage that he appears to have been undeceived. His informant on this occasion was the honourable Evelyn, and it may not displease our readers to hear his vindication of the lady—

"A worthy woman," added Evelyn, "and in that hath done as great an act of honour as ever was done by woman." The fact is, that it was next thing to impossible for any lady to preserve her reputation at the court of King Charles. Those who handle pitch cannot hope to escape defilement; and daily association with the Duchess of Cleveland, and other acknowledged mistresses of the king, was not the best mode of impressing the public with the idea of a woman's virtue. Frances Stuart, a poor unprotected girl, did, we verily believe, pass through as severe an ordeal as well can be imagined: the cruel accusations which were raised up against her, were no more than the penalty of her position; but no stain of disgrace remains on the memory of her, whose fair and faultless form was selected as the fittest model for the effigy of the Genius of Britain.

In a small way, Pepys had some intercourse with the ladies of the court, though it must be confessed that his acquaintances were rather of the lower sphere. He was a staunch admirer of that splendid spitfire, Lady Castlemaine, whose portrait he greatly coveted. "It is," quoth he, "a most blessed picture, and one I must have a copy of." Mary Davis seems to have been no favourite of his, principally because she was an object of especial detestation to the monopolising Castlemaine. He styled her an "impertinent slut," and, one night at the theatre, "it vexed me to see Moll Davis, in the box over the king's, and my Lady Castlemaine's, look down upon the king, and he up to her; and so did my Lady Castlemaine once, to see who it was; but when she saw Moll Davis, she looked like fire, which troubled me." Why it should have troubled Pepys, we cannot perfectly comprehend. With Nell Gwynne, Samuel was upon exceedingly easy terms; and no wonder, for she and Knipp belonged to the same company.

We dare wager a trifle that Mrs Pepys died in total ignorance of her husband having been behind the scenes. Probably Nelly's style of conversation would have found less favour in her eyes. True, she had been introduced to Nelly on a previous occasion; but the little lady seems then to have been on her good behaviour, and had not made herself notorious with Lord Buckhurst, and Sir Charles Sedley, as was the case when Sam assisted at her toilet. Here again we find that arch-intriguer, Knipp, countermining the domestic peace of poor innocent Mrs Pepys. "Thence to the King's house, and there saw The Humorous Lieutenant, a silly play, I think; only the Spirit in it that grows very tall, and then sinks again to nothing, having two heads breeding upon one; and then Knipp's singing did please us. Here, in a box above, we spied Mrs Pierce; and, going out, they called us, and brought to us Nelly, a most pretty woman, who acted the great part of Coelia to-day very fine, and did it pretty well. I kissed her, and so did my wife; and a mighty pretty soul she is. We also saw Mrs Bell, which is my little Roman-nose black girl, that is mighty pretty: she is usually called Betty. Knipp made us stay in a box and see the dancing—preparatory to to-morrow, for The Goblins, a play of Suckling's, not acted these twenty-five years—which was pretty; and so away thence, pleased with this sight also, and specially kissing of Nell."

We have searched these volumes with some curiosity for entries which might throw any light on the history and character of the Duke of Monmouth. Of late he has been exalted to the rank of a champion of the Protestant cause, and figures in party chronicles rather as a martyr than a rebel. Now, although there is no doubt that he was privy to the designs of Sydney and Russell, the object of his joining that faction still remains a mystery to be explained. We can understand the spirit that animated the Whig Lords and Republican plotters, in attempting to subvert the power of the crown, which they deemed exorbitant and dangerous to the liberties of the subject. The personal character of the men was quite reconcilable with the motives they professed, and the principles they avowed. But that Monmouth—the gay, fickle, licentious, and pampered Monmouth—had any thought beyond his own aggrandisement, in committing such an act of monstrous ingratitude as rebellion against his indulgent father, seems to us an hypothesis unsubstantiated by even a shadow of proof. We do not here allude to his second treason, which brought him to the scaffold—his motives on that occasion are sufficiently clear: he never was a favourite with his uncle; he aimed at the crown through a false assertion of his legitimacy; and the knaves and fools who were his counsellors made use of the cry of Protestantism merely as a cover to their designs. Monmouth's first treason was undoubtedly his blackest crime: for, had he been the rightful heir of Britain, he could not have experienced at the hands of Charles more ample honour and affection. It is, therefore, valuable to know what position he occupied during the earlier period of his life.

The following are some of Pepys' entries, which we think are historically valuable:—

These are but a few of Pepys' notes relative to this subject, and we think there is much significancy in them. The fondness of Charles for Monmouth was, to say the least of it, extravagant and injudicious. He promoted him to the highest grade of the nobility; he procured for him a match with one of the wealthiest heiresses in Britain; and he allowed and encouraged him to assume outward marks of distinction which had always been considered the prerogative of Princes of the blood royal. In the words of Dryden—

Such unprecedented honours heaped upon the eldest of the bastards of Charles must necessarily have been extremely annoying to the Duke of York, and were ill-calculated to conciliate his favour, in the event of his succeeding to the crown. They certainly were enough to give much weight to the rumour long current in the nation, that Charles contemplated the step of declaring Monmouth legitimate, and of course they excited in the mind of the youth aspirations of the most dangerous nature. At no period of his career did the son of Lucy Walters display qualities which can fairly entitle him to our esteem. As a husband, he was false and heartless; as a son, he was undutiful and treacherous. Pepys always speaks of him disparagingly, as a dissipated, profligate young man; and he is borne out in this testimony by the shameful outrage committed on the person of Sir John Coventry, at his direct instigation. Again he says, "16th December 1666—Lord Brouncker tells me, that he do not believe the Duke of York will go to sea again, though there are many about the king that would be glad of any occasion to take him out of the world, he standing in their ways: and seemed to mean the Duke of Monmouth, who spends his time the most viciously and idle of any man, nor will be fit for anything; yet he speaks as if it were not impossible but the king would own him for his son, and that there was marriage between his mother and him." This was a strange champion to put forward in the cause of liberty and religion.

We now take our leave of these volumes, the perusal of which has afforded us some pleasant hours. Every one must regret that the health of Pepys compelled him to abandon his daily task so early; for by far the most interesting period of the reign of Charles remains unillustrated by his pen. Had his Diary been continued down to the Revolution, with the same spirit which characterises the extant portion, it would have been one of the most useful historical records in the English language. Pepys, beyond the immediate sphere of his own office, was no partisan. He never throws an unnecessary mantle over the faults even of his friends and patrons. No man was more alive to the criminal conduct of Charles, and his shameful neglect of public duty. He has his quips and girds at the Duke of York, though he entertained a high, and, we think, a just opinion of the natural abilities of that prince: and while he gives him due credit for a sincere desire to reform abuses in that public department which was under his superintendence, he shows himself by no means blind to his vices, and besetting obstinacy. Even the Earl of Sandwich, to whom he was so much indebted, does not escape. On one occasion, Pepys took upon himself to perform the dangerous office of a Mentor to that high-spirited nobleman, and it is to the credit of both parties that no breach of friendship ensued. Good advice was an article which Samuel was ever ready to volunteer, and his natural shrewdness rendered his councils really valuable. But, like many other people, he was not always so ready with his purse. Considering that he owed everything he possessed in the world to the earl, we think he might have opened his coffers, at such a pinch as the following, without any Israelitish contemplation of security. "After dinner comes Mr Moore, and he and I alone awhile, he telling me my Lord Sandwich's credit was like to be undone, if the bill of £200 my Lord Hinchingbroke wrote to me about be not paid to-morrow, and that, if I do not help them about it, they have no way but to let it be protested. So, finding that Creed had supplied them with £150 in their straits, and that this was no bigger sum, I am very willing to serve my lord, though not in this kind; but yet I will endeavour to get this done for them, and the rather because of some plate that was lodged the other day with me, by my lady's order, which may be in part security for my money. This do trouble me; but yet it is good luck that the sum is no bigger." We cannot agree with Lord Braybrooke that Pepys was a liberal man, even to his own relations. We do not go the length of saying that he was deficient in family duties, but it seems to us that he might have selected a fitter gift for his father than his old shoes; and surely, when his sister Paulina came to stay with him, there was no necessity for insisting that she should eat with the maids, and consider herself on the footing of a servant. Whatever Pepys may have been in after life, he portrays himself in his Diary as a singularly selfish man; nor is that character at all inconsistent with the shrewd, but sensual, and somewhat coarse expression of his features in the frontispiece. Yet it is impossible to read the Diary without liking him, with all his faults. There was, to be sure, a great deal of clay in his composition, but also many sparkles of valuable metal; and perhaps these are seen the better from the roughness of the material in which they are embedded. This at least must be conceded, that these volumes are unique in literature, and so they will probably remain.

Printed by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh.