CHAPTER VII.

PEPYS’S RELATIONS, FRIENDS, AND ACQUAINTANCES.

“If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life he will soon find himself left alone; a man should keep his friendship in constant repair.”—Dr. Johnson.

Family feeling was strong in Pepys, and we therefore find him in constant communication with persons in all degrees of relationship. These relations varied greatly in social position, from the peer to the little shopkeeper. Thus we find that one Pepys was a Lord Chief Justice of Ireland; another a Member of Parliament; another a Doctor of Divinity; another a goldsmith, and another a turner.

In later life, when Pepys had risen greatly in social importance, the relations were not so much associated with, and a more distinguished circle of friends make their appearance. This gradual dropping away of the relations may have been caused by decrease of the family, for the Diarist on one occasion writes: “It is a sad consideration how the Pepys’s decay, and nobody almost that I know in a present way of increasing them.”[163]

The members of Pepys’s immediate family have already been alluded to, and we have seen how his father, John Pepys, the tailor, retired to Brampton in 1661. The old man died in 1680, and desired by his will that all the lands and goods left him by his brother Robert should be delivered up to his eldest son. He also left £5 to the poor of Brampton, and 40s. to the poor of Ellington, and the remainder of his property to be divided amongst his three children—Samuel and John and Paulina Jackson. John, however, died before him.

Of the numerous cousins who figure in the “Diary,” the Turners and the Joyces are the most frequently referred to. Serjeant John Turner and his wife Jane, who lived in Salisbury Court, were not very highly esteemed by Sir William Baker, who called the one a false fellow and the other a false woman, and Pepys does not appear altogether to have disliked hearing him say so.[164]

Their daughter Theophila was, however, a favourite with Pepys, and on March 3, 1662–63, she showed him his name on her breast as her valentine, “which,” he observes, “will cost me 20s.” Four days afterwards he bought her a dozen pairs of white gloves.

The Joyces were never much liked by Pepys, but at one time he thought it well to be friends with them, as he writes on the 6th of August, 1663,—“I think it convenient to keep in with the Joyces against a bad day, if I should have occasion to make use of them.” William Joyce was good-natured, but Pepys wearied of his company because he was “an impertinent coxcomb” and too great a talker. As is often the case with our Diarist, he gives a different character of the man on another occasion. He writes, “A cunning, crafty fellow he is, and dangerous to displease, for his tongue spares nobody.”[165]

Anthony Joyce was in business, and on one occasion he supplied Pepys with some tallow, payment for which he was unduly anxious about, so that the purchaser was vexed.[166] Anthony gave over trade in 1664, but was ruined by the Fire; and afterwards kept the “Three Stags” at Holborn Conduit. William was greatly disgusted when his brother became a publican. Pepys says he ranted about it “like a prince, calling him hosteller and his sister hostess.”[167]

In January, 1667–68, Anthony threw himself into a pond at Islington, but being seen by a poor woman, he was got out before life was extinct. “He confessed his doing the thing, being led by the devil; and do declare his reason to be, his trouble in having forgot to serve God as he ought since he came to this new employment.”[168] He died soon after this, and his friends were in great fear that his goods would be seized upon on the ground that he was a suicide. Pepys used all his influence to save the estate, and obtained the King’s promise that it should not be taken from the widow and children. Those who were likely to benefit by the confiscation gave much trouble, and managed to stop the coroner’s verdict for a time. At last, however, the widow’s friends on the jury saved her from further anxiety by giving a verdict that her husband died of a fever. “Some opposition there was, the foreman pressing them to declare the cause of the fever, thinking thereby to obstruct it; but they did adhere to their verdict, and would give no reason.”[169]

Kate Joyce (Anthony’s widow) was a pretty woman, and caused Pepys some trouble. She had many offers of marriage, and after a short period of widowhood she married one Hollingshed, a tobacconist.[170] Pepys was disgusted, and left her to her own devices with the expression, “As she brews let her bake.”

Mrs. Kite, the butcher, was another of Pepys’s aunts whose company he did not greatly appreciate. He was, however, her executor, and at her death he calls her daughter ugly names, thus: “Back again with Peg Kite, who will be I doubt a troublesome carrion to us executors.”[171] A few days after she is called “a slut,”[172] and when she declares her firm intention to marry “the beggarly rogue the weaver,” the executors are “resolved neither to meddle nor make with her.”[173]

Few of these family connections were left when Pepys himself died, for in the long list of persons to whom rings and mourning were given the following relations only are noticed:—Samuel and John Jackson, sons of Pall Jackson (born Pepys), the two nephews; Balthazar St. Michel, brother-in-law, and his daughter Mary; Roger Pepys, of Impington, Edward Pickering, Tim Turner, the minister of Tooting; Mr. Bellamy, Mr. and Mrs. Mathews, Dr. Montagu, Dean of Durham; and the Earl of Sandwich.

Dr. Daniel Milles, the minister of St. Olave’s, Hart Street, was one of Pepys’s life-long acquaintances—we can hardly call him friend, for the Diarist never seems to have cared much for him. We read how he “nibbled at the Common Prayer,” then how he took to the surplice, and gradually changed from the minister under the Commonwealth to the Church of England rector under Charles. A year or two after he ought to have been accustomed to the Prayer-Book, he made an extraordinary blunder in reading the service. Instead of saying, “We beseech Thee to preserve to our use the kindly fruits of the earth,” he said: “Preserve to our use our gracious Queen Katherine.”[174] In 1667 he was presented to the rectory of Wanstead, in Essex, and in order to qualify him for holding two livings at the same time, he was made one of the Duke of York’s chaplains.[175]

It is often amusing to notice how frequently Pepys changed his opinion of certain persons: for instance, in 1660, he calls Mr. Milles “a very good minister,”[176] while in 1667 he styles him “a lazy fat priest.”[177]

Two men who occupy a considerable space in the “Diary” are the two clerks, Thomas Hayter and William Hewer. Most of those who were in anyway connected with Pepys were helped on by him in the struggle of life, and his clerks were no exception to this rule. Hayter was appointed Clerk of the Acts in 1674, and Secretary of the Admiralty in 1679; and subsequently Hewer was a Commissioner of the Navy and Treasurer for Tangier. Some of those whose fortunes had been made by Pepys turned out ungrateful when their patron was out of power; but Hewer continued to be a comfort to the old man to the last.

Allusion has already been made to Pepys’s helpers in the arrangement of his books and papers, and therefore much need not be said about them here. While the “Diary” was being written, Pepys obtained help from his wife and brother-in-law and servants; but when he became more opulent he employed educated men to write for him. One of these was Cesare Morelli, an Italian, recommended by Thomas Hill. He arranged Pepys’s musical papers, and in 1681 he acknowledged the receipt of £7, which made a total of £85 17s. 6d. received from Pepys during a period extending from November 4th, 1678, to August 13th, 1681.[178] This friendship, which does Pepys much credit, caused him some trouble, as Morelli was a Roman Catholic, and the zealots falsely affirmed that he was also a priest.

Pepys early made the acquaintance of Dr. Petty, who was a member of the Rota Club; and he frequently mentions him and his double-bottomed boat (named “The Experiment”) in the “Diary.” Many anecdotes are told of Petty by Aubrey—how he was poor at Paris, and lived for a week on three pennyworth of walnuts; how, while teaching anatomy at Oxford, he revived Nan Green after her execution, and how he obtained the Professorship of Music at Gresham College by the interest of Captain John Graunt, author of “Observations on the Bills of Mortality.” At the Restoration Petty was knighted, and made Surveyor-General of Ireland, where he gathered a large fortune. Pepys considered Sir William Petty to be one of the most rational men that he ever heard speak with tongue;[179] and he was also an excellent droll. The latter character was proved when a soldier knight challenged him to fight. He was very short-sighted; and, having the privilege of nominating place and weapon for the duel, he chose a dark cellar for the place, and a great carpenter’s axe for the weapon. This turned the challenge into ridicule, and the duel never came off.

Petty was a prominent Fellow of the Royal Society, and about 1665 he presented a paper on “The Building of Ships,” which the President (Lord Brouncker) took away and kept to himself, according to Aubrey, with the remark, that “’twas too great an arcanum of State to be commonly perused.” Aubrey also relates an excellent story apropos of the Royal Society’s anniversary meeting on St. Andrew’s Day. The relater had remarked that he thought it was not well the Society should have pitched upon the patron of Scotland’s day, as they should have taken St. George or St. Isidore (a philosopher canonized). “No,” said Petty, “I would rather have had it on St. Thomas’s Day, for he would not believe till he had seen and put his fingers into the holes, according to the motto, Nullius in verba.”

Among the City friends of Pepys, the Houblons stand forward very prominently. James Houblon, the father, died in 1682, in his ninetieth year, and was buried in the church of St. Mary Woolnoth, his epitaph being written in Latin by Pepys. His five sons are frequently mentioned in the “Diary,” but James and Wynne were more particularly his friends, and were among those who received mourning rings after his death. In 1690, when Pepys was committed to the Gate-house, and four gentlemen came forward to bail him, James Houblon was one of these four.[180]

Alderman Backwell, the chief goldsmith of his time, had many dealings with Pepys, who went to him at one time to change some Dutch money, and at another to weigh Lord Sandwich’s crusados.[181] Probably our Diarist was rather troublesome at times, for once he bought a pair of candlesticks, which soon afterwards he changed for a cup, and at last he obtained a tankard in place of the cup. In 1665 there was a false report that Backwell was likely to become a bankrupt; but in 1672, on the closing of the Exchequer, the King owed him £293,994 16s. 6d., and he was in consequence ruined by Charles’s dishonest action. On his failure many of his customers’ accounts were taken over by the predecessors of the present firm of Child and Co., the bankers.

We shall have occasion to allude in the next chapter to some of those who were brought in contact with Pepys in the way of business; but it is necessary to say a few words here about two men who were both official acquaintances and personal friends. Sir Anthony Deane was one of the most accomplished shipbuilders of his time, and a valuable public servant, but he did not escape persecution. A joint charge of betraying the secrets of the British navy was made against Pepys and Deane in 1675. In 1668 Deane had held the office of shipwright at Portsmouth, and afterwards he was appointed a Commissioner of the Navy. In 1680 he resigned his post, but in 1681 he again formed one of the new Board appointed by James II., and hoped to help in improving the condition of the navy, which was then in a very reduced state. After the Revolution he sought retirement in Worcestershire, and the two old men corresponded and compared notes on their states of mind. Deane wrote to Pepys: “These are only to let you know I am alive. I have nothing to do but read, walk and prepare for all chances, attending this obliging world. I have the old soldier’s request, a little space between business and the grave, which is very pleasant on many considerations. As most men towards their latter end grow serious, so do I in assuring you that I am,” &c.[182] Pepys replied: “I am alive too, I thank God! and as serious, I fancy, as you can be, and not less alone. Yet I thank God too! I have not within me one of those melancholy misgivings that you seem haunted with. The worse the world uses me, the better I think I am bound to use myself. Nor shall any solicitousness after the felicities of the next world (which yet I bless God! I am not without care for) ever stifle the satisfactions arising from a just confidence of receiving some time or other, even here, the reparation due to such unaccountable usage as I have sustained in this.”[183]

Mr. (afterwards Sir Henry) Sheres is frequently referred to in the latter pages of the “Diary,” but the friendship which sprang up between him and Pepys dates from a period subsequent to the completion of that work. Sheres accompanied the Earl of Sandwich into Spain, where he acquired that Spanish character which clung to him through life. He returned to England in September, 1667, carrying letters from Lord Sandwich. Pepys found him “a good ingenious man,” and was pleased with his discourse.

In the following month Sheres returned to Spain, being the bearer of a letter from Pepys to Lord Sandwich.[184] Subsequently he was engaged at Tangier, and received £100 for drawing a plate of the fortification, as already related.[185] He was grateful to Pepys for getting him the money, and had a silver candlestick made after a pattern he had seen in Spain, for keeping the light from the eyes, and gave it to the Diarist.[186] On the 5th of April, 1669, he treated the Pepys household, at the Mulberry Garden, to a Spanish olio, a dish of meat and savoury herbs, which they greatly appreciated.

On the death of Sir Jonas Moore, Pepys wrote to Colonel Legge (afterward Lord Dartmouth) a strong letter of recommendation in favour of Sheres, whom he describes “as one of whose loyalty and duty to the King and his Royal Highness and acceptance with them I assure myself; of whose personal esteem and devotion towards you (Col. Legge), of whose uprightness of mind, universality of knowledge in all useful learning particularly mathematics, and of them those parts especially which relate to gunnery and fortification; and lastly, of whose vigorous assiduity and sobriety I dare bind myself in asserting much farther than, on the like occasion, I durst pretend to of any other’s undertaking, or behalf of mine.”[187] Sheres obtained the appointment, and served under Lord Dartmouth at the demolition of Tangier in 1683. He appears to have been knighted in the following year, and to have devoted himself to literature in later life. He translated “Polybius,” and some “Dialogues” of Lucian, and was the author of a pretty song. His name occurs among those who received mourning rings on the occasion of Pepys’s death.

Raleigh said, “There is nothing more becoming any wise man than to make choice of friends, for by them thou shalt be judged what thou art.” If so, it speaks well for Pepys that the names of most of the worthies of his time are to be found amongst his correspondents. Newton and Wallis stand out among the philosophers; the two Gales (Thomas and Roger), Evelyn, and Bishop Gibson among antiquaries and historians; Kneller among artists; and Bishop Compton and Nelson, the author of the “Festivals and Fasts,” among theologians.

The letters of some of these men have been printed in the “Correspondence” appended to the “Diary,” and in Smith’s “Life, Journals, and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys;” but many more still remain in manuscript in various collections.