The Celebrated work here presented to the public under peculiar
advantages may require a few introductory remarks.
By the publication, during the last half century, of
autobiographies, Diaries, and Records of Personal Character; this
class of literature has been largely enriched, not only with
works calculated for the benefit of the student, but for that
larger class of readers--the people, who in the byeways of
History and Biography which these works present, gather much of
the national life at many periods, and pictures of manners and
customs, habits and amusements, such as are not so readily to be
found in more elaborate works.
The Diary and Correspondence of John Evelyn, published in the
year 1817, is the first of the class of books to which special
reference is here made. This was followed by the publication, in
1825, of the Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, a work of
a more entertaining character than that of Evelyn. There is,
moreover, another distinction between the two: the Diary of
Pepys was written "at the end of each succeeding day;" whereas
the Diary of Evelyn is more the result of leisure and after-
thought, and partakes more of the character of history.
Pepys's account of the Great Fire of London in 1666 is full as
minute as that of Evelyn, but it is mingled with a greater number
of personal and official circumstances, of popular interest: the
scene of dismay and confusion which it exhibits is almost beyond
parallel. "It is observed and is true in the late Fire of
London," says Pepys, "that the fire burned just as many parish
churches as there were hours from the beginning to the end of the
fire; and next, that there were just as many churches left
standing in the rest of the city that was not burned, being, I
think, thirteen in all of each; which is pretty to observe."
Again, Pepys was at this time clerk of the Acts of the Navy; his
house and office were in Seething-lane, Crutched Friars; he was
called up at three in the morning, Sept. 2, by his maid Jane, and
so rose and slipped on his nightgown, and went to her window; but
thought the fire far enough off, and so went to bed again, and to
sleep. Next morning, Jane told him that she heard above 300
houses had been burnt down by the fire they saw, and that it was
then burning down all Fish-street, by London Bridge. "So," Pepys
writes, "I made myself ready presently, and walked to the Tower,
and there got upon one of the high places, and saw the houses at
that end of the bridge all on fire, and an infinite great fire at
the other end of the bridge." On Sept. 5, he notes, "About two
in the morning my wife calls me up, and tells me of new cries of
fire, it being come to Barking Church, which is at the bottom of
our lane." The fire was, however, stopped, "as well at Mark-lane
end as ours; it having only burned the dyall of Barking Church,
and part of the porch, and there was quenched." This narrative
has all the advantage of being written at the time of the event,
which kind of record has been pronounced preferable to "a cart-
load of pencillings." Of this very attractive particularity is
the Diary of Pepys, which is here submitted to the reader in the
most elegant and economical as well as complete form.
Of the origin of this work, details are given the accompanying
Preface, by the noble Editor--Lord Braybrooke. The diarist--Mr.
Secretary Pepys--was a great virtuoso in collections of English
history, both by land and sea, much relating to the admiralty and
maritime affairs. He gathered very much from records in the
Tower, had many fine models, and new inventions of ships, and
historical paintings of them; had many books of mathematics and
other sciences; many very costly curiosities relating to the City
of London, as views, maps, palaces, churches, coronations,
funerals, mayoralties, habits, heads of all our famous men, drawn
as well as painted, the most complete collection of anything of
its kind. He was a man whose free and generous spirit appeared
in his pen, and his ingenious fancy at his finger's end.
The original MS. of the Diary, which gives so vivid a picture of
manners in the reign of Charles II., is preserved in Magdalene
College, Cambridge; it is in six volumes, containing upwards of
3000 pages, closely written in Rich's system of shorthand, which
Pepys doubtless adopted from the possibility of his journal
falling into unfriendly hands during his life, or being rashly
communicated to the public after his death. The original
spelling of every word in the Diary, it is believed, has been
carefully preserved by the gentleman who deciphered it; and
although Pepys's grammar has been objected to, it is thought that
the entries derive additional interest from the quaint terms in
which they are expressed.
The period of the Diary was one of the most interesting and
eventful decades in our history. We have here the joyous
pictures of the Restoration, as well as much about "the merry
monarch," his gaieties and his intrigues. The Plague of 1665,
with the appalling episodes of this national calamity, is
followed by the life-like record of the Great Fire, and the
rebuilding of London. Then, what an attractive period is that of
the history of the London theatres, dating from the Restoration,
with piquant sketches of the actors and actresses of that day.
Pepys, in his love of wit and admiration of beauty, finds room to
love and admire Nell Gwyn, whose name still carries an odd
fascination with it after so many generations. In those busy
times coffee-houses were new, and we find Pepys dropping in at
Will's, where he never was before, and where he saw Dryden and
all the wits of the town. The Diarist records sending for "a cup
of tea, a China drink he had not before tasted." Here we find
the earliest account of a Lord Mayor's dinner in the Guildhall;
and Wood's, Pepys's "old house for clubbing, in Pell Mell,"--all
pictures in little of social life, with innumerable traits of
statesmen, politicians, wits and poets, authors, artists, and
actors, and men, and women of wit and pleasure, such as the town,
court, and city have scarcely presented at any other period.
Shortly after the publication of the Diary, there appeared in the
Quarterly Review, No. 66, a charming paper from the accomplished
pen of Sir Walter Scott, upon this very curious contribution to
our reminiscent literature. Sir Walter's parallel of Pepys and
Evelyn is very nicely drawn. "Early necessity made Pepys
laborious, studious, and careful. But his natural propensities
were those of a man of pleasure. He appears to have been ardent
in quest of amusement, especially where anything odd or uncommon
was to be witnessed. To this thirst after novelty, the
consequence of which has given great and varied interest to his
Diary, Pepys added a love of public amusements, which he himself
seems to have considered as excessive." "Our diarist must not be
too severely judged. He lived in a time when the worst examples
abounded, a time of court intrigue and state revolution, when
nothing was certain for a moment, and when all who were possessed
of any opportunity to make profit, used it with the most
shameless avidity, lest the golden minutes should pass away
unimproved.
"In quitting the broad path of history," says Sir Walter, "we
seek for minute information concerning ancient manners and
customs, the progress of arts and sciences, and the various
branches of antiquity. We have never seen a mine so rich as the
volumes before us. The variety of Pepys's tastes and pursuits
led him into almost every department of life. He was a man of
business, a man of information if not of learning; a man of
taste; a man of whim; and to a certain degree a man of pleasure.
He was a statesman, a BEL ESPRIT, a virtuoso, and a connoisseur.
His curiosity made him an unwearied as well as an universal
learner, and whatever he saw found its way into his tables.
Thus, his Diary absolutely resembles the genial cauldrons at the
wedding of Camacho, a souse into which was sure to bring forth at
once abundance and variety of whatever could gratify the most
eccentric appetite.
"If the curious, affect dramatic antiquities--a line which has
special charms for the present age--no book published in our time
has thrown so much light upon plays, playwrights, and play-
actors.
"Then those who desire to be aware of the earliest discoveries,
as well in sciences, as in the useful arts, may read in Pepys's
Memoirs, how a slice of roast mutton was converted into pure
blood; and of those philosophical glass crackers, which explode
when the tail is broken off (Rupert's Drops) of AURUM FULMINANS,
applied to the purpose of blowing ships out of the water; and of
a newly contrived gun, which was to change the whole system of
the art of war; but which has left it pretty much upon the old
footing. A lover of antique scandal which taketh away the
character, and committeth SCANDALUM MAGNATUM against the nobility
of the seventeenth century, will find in this work an untouched
treasure of curious anecdote for the accomplishment of his
purpose."