alone and on foot, from my lodging in Chancery | coach, the soldiers stood to their arms, and the Lane, at my cousin Young's, to Whitehall, in at lieutenant that held the colours displaying them, the entry that went out of King Street into the which is never done to any one but kings, or such bowling-green. There I would go under his window as represent their persons: I stood still all the and softly call him; he, after the first time except- while, then at the lowering of the colours to the ed, never failed to put out his head at the first call; ground, they received for them a low courtesy from thus we talked together, and sometimes I was so me, and for himself a bow; then taking coach, with wet with the rain, that it went in at my neck and very many persons, both in coaches and on foot, I out at my heels. He directed how I should make went to the duke's palace, where I was again remy addresses, which I did ever to their general, ceived by a guard of his excellency's, with the Cromwell, who had a great respect for your father, same ceremony of the king's colours as before. and would have bought him off to his service, upon Then I was received by the duke's brother and any terms. near a hundred persons of quality. I laid my hand upon the wrist of his excellency's right hand; he putting his cloak thereupon, as the Spanish fashion is, went up the stairs, upon the top of which stood the duchess and her daughter, who received me with great civility, putting me into every door, and all my children, till we came to sit down in her excellency's chamber, where she placed me upon her right hand, upon cushions, as the fashion of this court is, being very rich, and laid upon Persian carpets." "Being one day to solicit for my husband's liberty for a time, he bid me bring, the next day, a certificate from a physician that he was really ill. Immediately I went to Dr. Batters, that was by chance both physician to Cromwell and to our family, who gave me one very favourable in my husband's behalf. I delivered it at the Council Chamber, at three of the clock that afternoon, as he commanded me, and he himself moved, that seeing they could make no use of his imprisonment, whereby to lighten them in their business, that he might have his liberty upon 40001. bail, to take a course of physic, he being dangerously ill. Many spake against it; but most Sir Henry Vane, who said he would be as instrumental, for ought he knew, to hang them all that sat there, if ever he had opportunity; but if he had liberty for a time, that he might take the engagement before he went out; upon which Cromwell said, 'I never knew that the engagement was a medicine for the scorbutic! They, hearing their general say so, thought it obliged him, and so ordered him his liberty upon bail." These are specimens of what we think pest in the work; but, as there may be readers who would take an interest in her description of court ceremonies, or, at least, like to see how she manages them, we shall conclude with a little fragment of such a description. "This afternoon I went to pay my visit to the Duchess of Albuquerque. When I came to take "The two dukes embraced my husband with great kindness, welcoming him to the place, and the Duke of Medina Celi led me to my coach, an honour that he had never done any but once, when he waited on your queen to help her on the like occasion. The Duke d'Alcala led my eldest daughter, and the younger led my second, and the Gov. ernor of Cadiz, Don Antonio de Pimentel, led the third. Mrs. Kestian carried Betty in her arms." There is great choice of this sort for those who like it; and not a little of the more solemn and still duller discussion of diplomatic of these, and of the genealogies and obituaetiquette and precedence. But, independent ries, which are not altogether without interest, there is enough both of heart, and sense, and observation, in these memoirs, at once to repay gentle and intelligent readers for the trouble of perusing them, and to stamp a character of amiableness and respectability on the memory of their author. (November 1825.) Memoirs of SAMUEL PEPYS, Esq. F.R.S., Secretary to the Admiralty in the Reign of Charles II. and James II., comprising his Diary from 1659 to 1669, deciphered by the Rev. John Smith, A. B., of St. John's College, Cambridge, from the original Shorthand MS. in the Pepysian Library, and a Selection from his Private Correspondence. Edited by RICHARD LORD BRAY BROOKE. 2 vols. 4to. London: 1825. We have a great indulgence, we confess, and tastes, and principles, have been comfor the taste, or curiosity, or whatever it may monly found associated or disunited: And be called, that gives its value to such publica- as, in uncultivated lands, we can often judge tions as this; and are inclined to think the of their inherent fertility by the quality of the desire of knowing, pretty minutely, the man- weeds they spontaneously produce- - so we ners and habits of former times,-of under- may learn, by such an inspection of the moral standing, in all their details, the character and growths of a country, compared with its subordinary way of life and conversation of our sequent history, what prevailing manners are forefathers a very liberal and laudable de- indicative of vice or of virtue-what existing sire; and by no means to be confounded with follies foretell approaching wisdom - what that hankering after contemporary slander, forms of licentiousness give promise of comwith which this age is so miserably infested, ing purity, and what of deeper degradation— and so justly reproached. It is not only curi- what uncertain lights, in short, announce the ous to see from what beginnings, and by what rising, and what the setting sun! While, in steps, we have come to be what we are:-like manner, we may trace in the same records But it is most important, for the future and the connection of public and private morality, for the present, to ascertain what practices, and the mutual action and reaction of govern ment and manners;-and discover what individual corruptions spring from political dishonour- what domestic profligacy leads to the sacrifice of freedom-and what national virtues are most likely to resist the oppressions, or yield to the seductions of courts. Of all these things History tells us littleand yet they are the most important that she could have been employed in recording. She has been contented, however, for the most part, with detailing merely the broad and apparent results-the great public events and transactions, in which the true working principles of its destiny have their end and consummation; and points only to the wrecks or the triumphs that float down the tide of human affairs, without giving us any light as to those ground currents by which its central masses are governed, and of which those superficial appearances are, in most cases, the necessary though unsuspected effects. Every one feels, we think, how necessary this information is, if we wish to understand what antiquity really was, and what manner of men existed in former generations. How vague and unsatisfactory, without it, are all public annals and records of dynasties and battles of how little interest to private individuals-of how little use even to philosophers and statesmen! Before we can apply any example in history, or even comprehend its actual import, we must know something of the character, both of the age and of the persons to which it belongs-and understand a good deal of the temper, tastes, and occupations, both of the actors and the sufferers. Good and evil, in truth, change natures, with a change of those circumstances; and we may be lamenting as the most intolerable of calamities, what was scarcely felt as an infliction, by those on whom it fell. Without this knowledge, therefore, the most striking and important events are mere wonders, to be stared at altogether barren of instruction and probably leading us astray, even as occasions of sympathy or moral emotion. Those minute details, in short, which History has so often rejected as below her dignity, are indispensable to give life, certainty, or reality to her delineations; and we should have little hesitation in asserting, that no history is really worth any thing, unless it relate to a people and an age of which we have also those humbler and more private memorials. It is not in the grand tragedy, or rather the epic fictions, of History, that we learn the true condition of former ages the real character of past generations, or even the actual effects that were produced on society or individuals at the time, by the great events that are there so solemnly recorded. If we have not some remnants or some infusion of the Comedy of middle life, we neither have any idea of the state and colour of the general existence, nor any just understanding of the transactions about which we are reading. For what we know of the ancient Greeks for example-for all that enables us to imagine what sort of thing it would have been to have lived among them, or even what effects were produced on the society of Athens or Sparta by the battles of Marathon or Salamis, we are indebted not so much to the histories of Herodotus, Xenophon, or Thucydides, as to the Deipnosophists of Athenæus-the anecdotes of Plutarch-the introductory and incidental passages of the Platonic dialogues— the details of some of the private orationsand parts of the plays of Plautus and Terence, apparently copied from the Greek comedies. For our personal knowledge of the Romans, again, we do not look to Livy, or Dionysiusor even to Cæsar, Sallust, or Tacitus; but to Horace, Petronius, Juvenal, and the other satirists-to incidental notices in the Orations and Dialogues of Cicero-and above all to his invaluable letters, followed up by those of Pliny,-to intimations in Plutarch, and Seneca, and Lucian-to the books of the Civil lawand the biographies and anecdotes of the Empire, from Suetonius to Procopius. Of the feudal times-the heroic age of modern Europe-we have fortunately more abundant and minute information, both in the Romances of chivalry, which embody all the details of upper life; and in the memoirs and chronicles of such writers as Commines and Froissart, which are filled with so many individual pictures and redundant particularities, as to leave us scarcely any thing more to learn or to wish for, as to the manners and character, the temper and habits, and even the daily life and conversation of the predominating classes of society, who then stood for every thing in those countries: And, even with regard to their serfs and vassals, we are not without most distinct and intelligible lights-both in scattered passages of the works we have already referred to, in various ancient ballads and legends relating to their condition, and in such invaluable records as the humorous and more familiar tales of our immortal Chaucer. For the character and ordinary life of our more immediate ancestry, we may be said to owe our chief knowledge of it to Shakespeare, and the comic dramatists by whom he was succeeded-reinforced and supported by the infinite quantity of obscure and insignificant matter which the industry of his commentators has brought back to light for his elucidation-and which the matchless charm of his popularity has again rendered both interesting and familiar. The manners and habits of still later times are known to us, not by any means by our public histories, but by the writers of farces and comedies, polite essays, libels, and satires-by collections of private letters, like those of Gray, Swift, Arbuthnot, and Lord Orford-by private memoirs or journals, such as those of Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson, Swift's Journal to Stella, and Doddington's Diaryand, in still later times, by the best of our gay and satirical novels-by caricature prints-by the better newspapers and magazines,-and by various minute accounts (in the manner of Boswell's Life of Johnson) of the private life and conversation of distinguished individuals. The work before us relates to a period of which we have already very considerable memorials. But it is, notwithstanding, of very great interest and curiosity. A good deal of what it contains derives, no doubt, its chief interest from having happened one hundred and eighty years ago: But there is little of it that does not, for that very reason, throw valuable lights on our intermediate history. It consists, as the title shows, of a very minute and copious Diary, continued from the year 1659 to 1669-and a correspondence, much less perfect and continuous, down nearly to the death of the author in 1703. Fortunately for the public part of the story, the author was, from the very beginning, in immediate contact with persons in high office and about court-and, still more fortunately for the private part, seems to have been possessed of the most extraordinary activity, and the most indiscriminating, insatiable, and miscellaneous curiosity, that ever prompted the researches, or supplied the pen, of a daily chronicler. Although excessively busy and diligent in his attendance at his office, he finds time to go to every play, to every execution, to every procession, fire, concert, riot, trial, review, city feast, public dissection, or picture gallery that he can hear of. Nay, there seems scarcely to have been a school examination, a wedding, christening, charity sermon, bull-baiting, philosophical meeting, or private merry-making in his neighbourhood, at which he was not sure to make his appearance, and mindful to record all the particulars. He is the first to hear all the court scandal, and all the public news-to observe the changes of fashions, and the downfal of parties-to pick up family gossip, and to retail philosophical intelligence-to criticise every new house or carriage that is built-every new book or new beauty that appears-every measure the King adopts, and every mistress he discards. For the rest of his character, he appears to have been an easy tempered, compassionate, and kind man; combining an extraordinary diligence and regularity in his official business and domestic economy, with a singular love of gossip, amusement, and all kinds of miscellaneous information-a devoted attachment, and almost ludicrous admiration of his wife, with a wonderful devotion to the King's mistresses, and the fair sex in general, and rather a suspicious familiarity with various pretty actresses and singers; and, above all, a practical sagacity and cunning in the management of affairs, with so much occasional credulity, puerility, and folly, as would often tempt us to set him down for a driveller. Though born with good blood in his veins, and a kinsman, indeed, of his great patron, the first Earl of Sandwich, he had nothing to boast of in his immediate progenitors, being born the son of a tailor in London, and entering on life in a state of the utmost poverty. It was probably from this ignoble vocation of his father, that he derived that hereditary taste for dress which makes such a conspicuous figure in his Diary. The critical and affectionate notices of doublets, cloaks, beavers, periwigs, and sword-belts, actually outnumbering, we think, all the entries on any other subject whatever, and plainly engrossing, even in the most agitating circumstances, no small share of the author's attention. Perhaps it is to the same blot in his scutcheon, that we should trace a certain want of manliness in his whole character and deportment. Certain it is at least, that there is room for such an imputation. He appears before us, from first to last, with the true temper, habits, and manners of an Underling-obsequious to his superiors-civil and smooth to all men-lavish in attentions to persons of influence whom he dislikes and afraid and ashamed of being seen with his best friends and benefactors, when they are supposed to be out of favour most solicitous to keep out of quarrels of all sorts and ensuring his own safety, not only by too humble and pacific a bearing in scenes of contention, but by such stretches of simulation and dissimulation as we cannot easily reconcile to our notion of a brave and honourable man. To such an extent, indeed, is this carried, that, though living in times of great actual, and greater apprehended changes, it is with difficulty that we can guess, even from this most copious and unreserved record of his inmost thoughts, what were really his political opinions, or whether he ever had any. We learn, indeed, from one passage, that in his early youth he had been an ardent Roundhead, and had in that capacity attended with exultation the execution of the King-observing to one of his companions at the time, that if he had been to make a sermon on the occasion, he would have chosen for his text the words, "The memory of the wicked shall rot." This, to be sure, was when he was only in his eighteenth year-but he seems afterwards to have accepted of a small office in the Republican Court of Exchequer, of which he is in possession for some time after the commencement of his Diary. That work begins in January 1659, while Monk was on his march from Scotland; and yet, not only does he continue to frequent the society of Harrington, Hazlerigge, and other staunch republicans, but never once expresses any wish of his own, either for the restoration of the Royalty, or the continuance of the Protectorate, till after he is actually at sea with Lord Sandwich, with the ships that brought Charles back from Breda! After the Restoration is consolidated, indeed, and he has got a good office in the Admiralty, he has recorded, amply enough, his anxiety for the permanency of the ancient dynasty-though he cannot help, every now and then, reprobating the profligacy, wastefulness, and neglect of the new government, and contrasting them disad vantageously with the economy, energy, and popularity, of most of the measures of the Usurper. While we give him credit, therefore, for great candour and impartiality in the private judgments which he has here recorded, we can scarcely pay him the compliment of saying that he has any political principles whatever-or any, at least, for which he would ever have dreamed of hazarding his own worldly prosperity. beauties there, my wife was thought the greatest.— 13th. Up early, the first day that I put on my black camlett coat with silver buttons. To Mr. Spong, the Privy Seale, and thence to my Lord's, where whom I found in his night-gown, &c.-14th. To Mr. Pim the tailor and I agreed upon making me a Another indication of the same low and ignoble turn of mind is to be found, we think, in his penurious anxiety about his moneythe intense satisfaction with which he watches its increase, and the sordid and vulgar cares to which he condescends, to check its ex-velvet coat.-25th. This night W. Hewer brought penditure. Even after he is in possession of a great income, he goes and sits by the tailor till he sees him sew all the buttons on his doublet-and spends four or five hours, of a very busy day, in watching the coach-maker laying on the coats of varnish on the body of his coach! When he gives a dinner, he knows exactly what every dish has cost him-and tells a long story of his paddling half the night with his fingers in the dirt, digging up some money he had buried in a garden, and conveying it with his own hands, with many fears and contrivances, safely back to his house. With all this, however, he is charit-both; a new shag gown, trimmed with gold butable to the poor, kind to his servants and dependents, and very indulgent to all the members of his family-though we find him chronicling his own munificence in helping to fit out his wife's brother, when he goes abroad to push his fortune, by presenting him with "ten shillings-and a coat that I had by me -a close-bodied, light-coloured, cloth coat with a gold edging on each seam-that was the lace of my wife's best petticoat, when I married her!" As we conceive, a good deal, not only of the interest, but of the authority and just construction of the information contained in the work, depends on the reader having a correct knowledge of the individual by whom it is furnished, we think we cannot do better than begin our extracts with a few citations illustrative of the author's own character, habits, and condition, as we have already attempted to sketch them. The very first entry exhibits some of his peculiarities. He was then only twenty-seven years of age-and had been received, though not with much honour, into the house of his kinsman Sir Edward Montague, afterwards Earl of Sandwich. This is his condition in the beginning of 1659. "Jan. 1st (Lord's day). This morning. (we living lately in the garret,) I rose, put on my suit with great skirts, having not lately worn any other clothes but them. Went to Mr Gunning's chapel at Exeter House, &c. Dined at home in the garret, where my wife dressed the remains of a turkey. and in the doing of it she burned her hand. I staid at home the whole afternoon, looking over my accounts; then went with my wife to my father's, &c. -2d. From the Hall I called at home, and so went to Mr. Crewe's (my wife she was to go to her father's), and Mr. Moore and I and another gentleman went out and drank a cup of ale together in the new market, and there I eat some bread and cheese for my dinner." His passion for dress breaks out in every page almost; but we shall insert only one or two of the early entries, to give the reader a notion of the style of it. "10th. This day I put on my new silk suit, the first that ever I wore in my life.-12th. Home, and called my wife, and took her to Clodins' to a great wedding of Nan Hartlib to Mynheer Roder, which was kept at Goring House with very great state, cost, and noble company. But among all the me home from Mr. Pim's my velvet coat and cap, the first that ever I had. This the first day that ever I saw my wife wear black patches since we were married. My wife seemed very pretty to-day, it being the first time I had given her leave to weare a black patch.-22d. This morning, hearing that the Queene grows worse again, I sent to stop the making of my velvet cloak, till I see whether she lives or dies.-30th. To my great sorrow find myself then 7607., and now it is but 7171. But it hath 431. worse than I was the last month, which was chiefly arisen from my layings out in clothes for myself and wife; viz. for her about 121. and for myself 551., or thereabouts; having made myself a velvet cloak, two new cloth skirts, black, plain tons and twist, with a new hat, and silk tops for my legs, and many other things, being resolved henceforward to go like myself. And also two perriwiggs, one whereof costs me 31. and the other 40s. I have worn neither yet, but will begin next week, God willing.-29th. Lord's day. This morning I put on my best black cloth suit, trimmed with scarlett ribbon, very neat, with my cloak lined with velvett, and a new beaver, which altogether is very noble, with my black silk knit canons I bought a month ago.-30th. Up, and put on a new summer black bombazin suit; and being come now to an agree ment with my barber to keep my perriwig in good order at 20s. a year, I am like to go very spruce, more than I used to do.-31st. This day I got a little rent in my new fine camlett cloak with the latch of Sir G. Carteret's door; but it is darned up at my tailor's, that it will be no great blemish to it; but it troubled me.' This, we suppose, is enough-though there are more than five hundred such notices at the service of any curious reader. It may be supposed what a treat a Coronation would be to such a fancier of fine clothes; and accordingly, we have a most rapturous description of it, in all its glory. The King and the Duke of York in their morning dresses were, it seems, "but very plain men;" but, when attired in their "most rich embroidered suits and cloaks, they looked most noble." Indeed, after some time, he assures us, that "the show was so glorious with gold and silver, that we are not able to look at it any longer, our eyes being so much overcome!""" As a specimen of the credulity and twaddle which constitutes another of the staples of this collection, the reader may take the following. "19th. Waked with a very high wind, and said to my wife, I pray God I hear not of the death of any great person,-THIS WIND IS SO HIGH!' fearing that the Queene might be dead. So up; and going by coach with Sir W. Batten and Sir J. Minnes to St. James', they tell me that Sir W. Compton, who it is true had been a little sickly for a week or fortnight, but was very well upon Friday night last, at the Tangier Committee with us, was dead,-died yesterday at which I was most exceedingly surprised, he being, and so all the world saying that he was, one of the worthyest men and best officers of State now in England!' "23d. To Westminster Abbey, and there did see all the tombs very finely; having one with us alone (there being no other company this day to see the tombs, it being Shrove-Tuesday): and here we did see, by particular favour, the body of Queen Katherine of Valois;-and I had the upper part of her body in my hands, and I did kiss her mouth -reflecting upon it that I did kiss a queene, and that this was my birth day, thirty-six years old! -that I did kiss a queene! But here this man, who seems to understand well, tells me that the saying is not true that she was never buried, for she was buried.-Only when Henry the Seventh built his chapel, she was taken up and laid in this wooden coffin; but I did there see that in it the body was buried in a leaden one, which remains under the body to this day, &c. &c.-29th. We sat under the boxes, and saw the fine ladies; among others, my Lady Kerneguy, who is most devilishly painted. And so home-it being mighty pleasure to go alone with my poor wife in a coach of our own to a play! and makes us appear mighty great, I think, in the world; at least, greater than ever I could, or my friends for me, have once expected; or, I think, than ever any of my family ever yet lived in my memory-but my cosen Pepys in Salisbury Court.' Or the following memorandums of his travels. A mighty cold and windy, but clear day; and had the pleasure of seeing the Medway running winding up and down mightily, and a very fine country and I went a little out of the way to have visited Sir John Bankes, but he at London; but here I had a sight of his seat and house, the outside, which is an old abbey just like Hinchingbroke, and as good at least, and mightily finely placed by the river; and he keeps the grounds about it, and walks and the house, very handsome: I was might ily pleased with the sight of it. Thence to Maydstone, which I had a mighty mind to see, having never been there; and walked all up and down the town, and up to the top of the steeple-and had a noble view, and then down again: and in the town did see an old man beating of flax! and did step into the barn and give him money, and saw that piece of husbandry, which I never saw; and it is very pretty! In the street also I did buy and send to our inne, the Bell, a dish of fresh fish. And so having walked all round the town, and found it very pretty as most towns I ever saw, though not very big, and people of good fashion in it, we to our inne and had a good dinner; and a barber came to me and there trimmed me, that I might be clean against night to go to Mrs. Allen, &c. So all over the plain by the sight of the steeple (the plain high and low) to Salisbury by night; but before I came to the town, I saw a great fortification, and there light, and to it and in it! and find it prodigious so as to fright me to be in it all alone, at that time of night-it being dark. I understand since it to be that that is called Old Sarum. Come to the George Inne, where lay in a silk bed; and very good diet, &c. &c.-22d. So the three women behind W. Hewer, Murford, and our guide, and I single to Stonehenge, over the plain, and some great hills, even to fright us! Come thither, and find them as prodigious as any tales I ever heard of them, and worth going this journey to see. God knows what their use was: they are hard to tell, but yet may be told.-12th. Friday. Up, finding our beds good, but lousy; which made us merry! -9th. Up, and got ready, and eat our breakfast; and then took coach: and the poor, as they did yesterday, did stand at the coach to have something given them, as they do to all great persons; and I did give them something! and the town music did also come and play; but, Lord! what sad music they made! So through the town, and observed at our College of Magdalene the posts new painted! and understand that the Vice-Chancellor is there this year." Though a great playgoer, we cannot say much for his taste in plays, or indeed in literature in general. Of the Midsummer's Dream, he says, "it is the most insipid, ridiculous play I ever saw in my life." And he is almost equally dissatisfied with the Merry Wives of Windsor, and Henry the IV. To make amends, however, for these misjudgments, he is often much moved by the concord of sweet sounds; and has, in the following passage, described the effects they produced on him, in a way that must be admitted to be original. The Virgin Martyr (of Massinger), he says, was "mighty pleasant! Not that the play is worth much, but it is finely acted by Beck Marshall. But that which did please me beyond any thing in the whole world, was the wind-musique when the angel comes down which is so sweet that it ravished me, and indeed, in a word, did wrap up my soul, so that it made me really sick!—just as I have formerly been when in love with my wife!" Though "mighty merry" upon all occasions, and, like gentle dulness, ever loving a joke, we are afraid he had not much relish for wit. His perplexity at the success of Hudibras is exceedingly ludicrous. This is his own account of his first attempt on him "Hither come Mr. Battersby; and we falling into discourse of a new book of drollery in use, called Hudebras, I would needs go find it out, and met with it at the Temple: cost me 2s. 6d. But when I come to read it, it is so silly an abuse of the Presbyter Knight going to the warrs, that I am ashamed of it; and by and by meeting at Mr. Townsend's at dinner, I sold it to him for 18d!" The second is not much more successful. "To Paul's Church Yard, and there looked upon the second part of Hudibras-which I buy not, but borrow to read,-to see if it be as good as the first, which the world cried so mightily up; though it hath not a good liking in me, though I had tried twice or three times reading, to bring myself to think it witty." The following is a ludicrous instance of his parsimony and household meanness. "29th. (King's birth-day.) Rose early, and put six spoons and a porringer of silver in my pocket, to give away to-day. Back to dinner at Sir William Batten's; and then, after a walk in the fine gardens, we went to Mrs. Browne's, where Sir W. Pen and I were godfathers, and Mrs. Jordan and Shipman godmothers to her boy. And there, before and after the christening, we were with the woman above in her chamber; but whether we carried ourselves well or ill, I know not; but I was directed by young Mrs. Batten. One passage, of a lady that eate wafers with her dog, did a little displease me. I did give the midwife 10s., and the nurse 5s., and the maid of the house 28. But, for as much as I expected to give the name to the childe, but did not (it being called John), I forebore then to give my plate." On another occasion, when he had, according to the fashion of the time, sent a piece of plate, on a holiday, to his official superior, he records with great joy, |