assembled on parade in Lombard Street, where, at that time, was seated
the General Post-Office. In what exact strength we mustered I do
not remember; but, from the length of each separate _attelage_, we
filled the street, though a long one, and though we were drawn up in
double file. On _any_ night the spectacle was beautiful. The absolute
perfection of all the appointments about the carriages and the harness,
and the magnificence of the horses, were what might first have fixed
the attention. Every carriage, on every morning in the year, was taken
down to an inspector for examination--wheels, axles, linchpins, pole,
glasses, &c., were all critically probed and tested. Every part of
every carriage had been cleaned, every horse had been groomed, with
as much rigour as if they belonged to a private gentleman; and that
part of the spectacle offered itself always. But the night before us
is a night of victory; and behold! to the ordinary display, what a
heart-shaking addition!--horses, men, carriages--all are dressed in
laurels and flowers, oak leaves and ribbons. The guards, who are his
Majesty's servants, and the coachmen, who are within the privilege
of the Post-Office, wear the royal liveries of course; and as it is
summer (for all the _land_ victories were won in summer,) they wear,
on this fine evening, these liveries exposed to view, without any
covering of upper coats. Such a costume, and the elaborate arrangement
of the laurels in their hats, dilated their hearts, by giving to them
openly an _official_ connection with the great news, in which already
they have the general interest of patriotism. That great national
sentiment surmounts and quells all sense of ordinary distinctions.
Those passengers who happen to be gentlemen are now hardly to be
distinguished as such except by dress. The usual reserve of their
manner in speaking to the attendants has on this night melted away. One
heart, one pride, one glory, connects every man by the transcendent
bond of his English blood. The spectators, who are numerous beyond
precedent, express their sympathy with these fervent feelings by
continual hurrahs. Every moment are shouted aloud by the Post-Office
servants the great ancestral names of cities known to history through,
a thousand years,--Lincoln, Winchester, Portsmouth, Gloucester,
Oxford, Bristol, Manchester, York, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Perth,
Glasgow--expressing the grandeur of the empire by the antiquity of its
towns, and the grandeur of the mail establishment by the diffusive
radiation of its separate missions. Every moment you hear the thunder
of lids locked down upon the mail-bags. That sound to each individual
mail is the signal for drawing off, which process is the finest part
of the entire spectacle. Then come the horses into play;--horses!
can these be horses that (unless powerfully reined in) would bound
off with the action and gestures of leopards? What stir!--what
sea-like ferment!--what a thundering of wheels, what a trampling of
horses!--what farewell cheers--what redoubling peals of brotherly
congratulation, connecting the name of the particular mail--"Liverpool
for ever!"--with the name of the particular victory--"Badajoz for
ever!" or "Salamanca for ever!" The half-slumbering consciousness
that, all night long and all the next day--perhaps for even a
longer period--many of these mails, like fire racing along a train
of gunpowder, will be kindling at every instant new successions of
burning joy, has an obscure effect of multiplying the victory itself,
by multiplying to the imagination into infinity the stages of its
progressive diffusion. A fiery arrow seems to be let loose, which
from that moment is destined to travel, almost without intermission,
westwards for three hundred[26] miles--northwards for six hundred;
and the sympathy of our Lombard Street friends at parting is exalted
a hundredfold by a sort of visionary sympathy with the approaching
sympathies, yet unborn, which we were going to evoke.
Liberated from the embarrassments of the city, and issuing into the
broad uncrowded avenues of the northern suburbs, we begin to enter
upon our natural pace of ten miles an hour. In the broad light of the
summer evening, the sun perhaps only just at the point of setting,
we are seen from every storey of every house. Heads of every age
crowd to the windows--young and old understand the language of our
victorious symbols--and rolling volleys of sympathising cheers run
along behind and before our course. The beggar, rearing himself against
the wall, forgets his lameness--real or assumed--thinks not of his
whining trade, but stands erect, with bold exulting smiles, as we pass
him. The victory has healed him, and says--Be thou whole! Women and
children, from garrets alike and cellars, look down or look up with
loving eyes upon our gay ribbons and our martial laurels--sometimes
kiss their hands, sometimes hang out, as signals of affection, pocket
handkerchiefs, aprons, dusters, anything that lies ready to their
hands. On the London side of Barnet, to which we draw near within a few
minutes after nine, observe that private carriage which is approaching
us. The weather being so warm, the glasses are all down; and one may
read, as on the stage of a theatre, everything that goes on within the
carriage. It contains three ladies, one likely to be "mama," and two
of seventeen or eighteen, who are probably her daughters. What lovely
animation, what beautiful unpremeditated pantomime, explaining to us
every syllable that passes, in these ingenuous girls! By the sudden
start and raising of the hands, on first discovering our laurelled
equipage--by the sudden movement and appeal to the elder lady from both
of them--and by the heightened colour on their animated countenances,
we can almost hear them saying--"See, see! Look at their laurels.
Oh, mama! there has been a great battle in Spain; and it has been a
great victory." In a moment we are on the point of passing them. We
passengers--I on the box, and the two on the roof behind me--raise
our hats, the coachman makes his professional salute with the whip;
the guard even, though punctilious on the matter of his dignity as an
officer under the crown, touches his hat. The ladies move to us, in
return, with a winning graciousness of gesture: all smile on each side
in a way that nobody could misunderstand, and that nothing short of a
grand national sympathy could so instantaneously prompt. Will these
ladies say that we are nothing to _them_? Oh, no; they will not say
_that_. They cannot deny--they do not deny--that for this night they
are our sisters: gentle or simple, scholar or illiterate servant, for
twelve hours to come--we on the outside have the honour to be their
brothers. Those poor women again, who stop to gaze upon us with delight
at the entrance of Barnet, and seem by their air of weariness to be
returning from labour--do you mean to say that they are washerwomen and
charwomen? Oh, my poor friend, you are quite mistaken; they are nothing
of the kind. I assure you, they stand in a higher rank: for this one
night they feel themselves by birthright to be daughters of England,
and answer to no humbler title.
Every joy, however, even rapturous joy--such is the sad law of
earth--may carry with it grief, or fear of grief, to some. Three miles
beyond Barnet, we see approaching us another private carriage, nearly
repeating the circumstances of the former case. Here also the glasses
are all down--here also is an elderly lady seated; but the two amiable
daughters are missing; for the single young person, sitting by the
lady's side, seems to be an attendant--so I judge from her dress,
and her air of respectful reserve. The lady is in mourning; and her
countenance expresses sorrow. At first she does not look up; so that I
believe she is not aware of our approach, until she bears the measured
beating of our horses' hoofs. Then she raises her eyes to settle
them painfully on our triumphal equipage. Our decorations explain
the case to her at once; but she beholds them with apparent anxiety,
or even with terror. Sometime before this, I, finding it difficult
to hit a flying mark, when embarrassed by the coachman's person
and reins intervening, had given to the guard a _Courier_ evening
paper, containing the gazette, for the next carriage that might pass.
Accordingly he tossed it in so folded that the huge capitals expressing
some such legend as--GLORIOUS VICTORY, might catch the eye at once. To
see the paper, however, at all, interpreted as it was by our ensigns of
triumph, explained everything; and, if the guard were right in thinking
the lady to have received it with a gesture of horror, it could not
be doubtful that she had suffered some deep personal affliction in
connexion with this Spanish war.
Here now was the case of one who, having formerly suffered, might,
erroneously perhaps, be distressing herself with anticipations of
another similar suffering. That same night, and hardly three hours
later, occurred the reverse case. A poor woman, who too probably
would find herself, in a day or two, to have suffered the heaviest
of afflictions by the battle, blindly allowed herself to express an
exultation so unmeasured in the news, and its details, as gave to her
the appearance which amongst Celtic Highlanders is called _fey_. This
was at some little town, I forget what, where we happened to change
horses near midnight. Some fair or wake had kept the people up out
of their beds. We saw many lights moving about as we drew near; and
perhaps the most impressive scene on our route was our reception at
this place. The flashing of torches and the beautiful radiance of blue
lights (technically Bengal lights) upon the heads of our horses; the
fine effect of such a showery and ghostly illumination falling upon
flowers and glittering laurels, whilst all around the massy darkness
seemed to invest us with walls of impenetrable blackness, together
with the prodigious enthusiasm of the people, composed a picture at
once scenical and affecting. As we staid for three or four minutes,
I alighted. And immediately from a dismantled stall in the street,
where perhaps she had been presiding at some part of the evening,
advanced eagerly a middle-aged woman. The sight of my newspaper it was
that had drawn her attention upon myself. The victory which we were
carrying down to the provinces on _this_ occasion was the imperfect
one of Talavera. I told her the main outline of the battle. But
her agitation, though not the agitation of fear, but of exultation
rather, and enthusiasm, had been so conspicuous when listening, and
when first applying for information, that I could not but ask her
if she had not some relation in the Peninsular army. Oh! yes: her
only son was there. In what regiment? He was a trooper in the 23d
Dragoons. My heart sank within me as she made that answer. This sublime
regiment, which an Englishman should never mention without raising
his hat to their memory, had made the most memorable and effective
charge recorded in military annals. They leaped their horses--_over_
a trench, where they could _into_ it, and with the result of death or
mutilation when they could _not_. What proportion cleared the trench
is nowhere stated. Those who _did_, closed up and went down upon the
enemy with such divinity of fervour--(I use the word _divinity_ by
design: the inspiration of God must have prompted this movement to
those whom even then he was calling to his presence)--that two results
followed. As regarded the enemy, this 23d Dragoons, not, I believe,
originally 350 strong, paralysed a French column, 6000 strong, then
ascending the hill, and fixed the gaze of the whole French army. As
regarded themselves, the 23d were supposed at first to have been all
but annihilated; but eventually, I believe, not so many as one in four
survived. And this, then, was the regiment--a regiment already for
some hours known to myself and all London as stretched, by a large
majority, upon one bloody aceldama--in which the young trooper served
whose mother was now talking with myself in a spirit of such hopeful
enthusiasm. Did I tell her the truth? Had I the heart to break up her
dream? No. I said to myself, to-morrow, or the next day, she will hear
the worst. For this night, wherefore should she not sleep in peace?
After to-morrow, the chances are too many that peace will forsake her
pillow. This brief respite, let her owe this to _my_ gift and _my_
forbearance. But, if I told her not of the bloody price that had been
paid, there was no reason for suppressing the contributions from her
son's regiment to the service and glory of the day. For the very few
words that I had time for speaking, I governed myself accordingly. I
showed her not the funeral banners under which the noble regiment was
sleeping. I lifted not the overshadowing laurels from the bloody trench
in which horse and rider lay mangled together. But I told her how these
dear children of England, privates and officers, had leaped their
horses over all obstacles as gaily as hunters to the morning's chase.
I told her how they rode their horses into the mists of death, (saying
to myself, but not saying to _her_,) and laid down their young lives
for thee, O mother England! as willingly--poured out their noble blood
as cheerfully--as ever, after a long day's sport, when infants, they
had rested their wearied heads upon their mothers' knees, or had sunk
to sleep in her arms. It is singular that she seemed to have no fears,
even after this knowledge that the 23d Dragoons had been conspicuously
engaged, for her son's safety: but so much was she enraptured by the
knowledge that _his_ regiment, and therefore _he_, had rendered eminent
service in the trying conflict--a service which had actually made
them the foremost topic of conversation in London--that in the mere
simplicity of her fervent nature, she threw her arms round my neck,
and, poor woman, kissed me.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] Lady Madeline Gordon.
[18] "_Vast distances._"--One case was familiar to mail-coach
travellers, where two mails in opposite directions, north and south,
starting at the same minute from points six hundred miles apart, met
almost constantly at a particular bridge which exactly bisected the
total distance.
[19] "_Resident._"--The number on the books was far greater, many of
whom kept up an intermitting communication with Oxford. But I speak of
those only who were steadily pursuing their academic studies, and of
those who resided constantly as _fellows_.
[20] "Snobs," an its antithesis, "nobs," arose among the internal
factions of shoe-makers perhaps ten years later. Possibly enough, the
terms may have existed much earlier; but they were then first made
known, picturesquely and effectively, by a trial at some assizes which
happened to fix the public attention.
[21] "False echoes"--yes, false! for the words ascribed to Napoleon,
as breathed to the memory of Desaix, never were uttered at all. They
stand in the same category of theatrical inventions as the cry of the
foundering _Vengeur_, as the vaunt of General Cambronne at Waterloo,
"_La Garde meurt, mais ne se rend pas_," as the repartees of Talleyrand.
[22] "Privileged few." The general impression was that this splendid
costume belonged of right to the mail coachmen as their professional
dress. But that was an error. To the guard it _did_ belong as a
matter of course, and was essential as an official warrant, and a
means of instant identification for his person, in the discharge of
his important public duties. But the coachman, and especially if his
place in the series did not connect him immediately with London and
the General Post-Office, obtained the scarlet coat only as an honorary
distinction after long or special service.
[23] "_Households._"--Roe-deer do not congregate in herds like
the fallow or the red deer, but by separate families, parents,
and children; which feature of approximation to the sanctity of
human hearths, added to their comparatively miniature and graceful
proportions, conciliate to them an interest of a peculiarly tender
character, if less dignified by the grandeurs of savage and forest life.
[24] "_However visionary._"--But _are_ they always visionary? The
unicorn, the kraken, the sea-serpent, are all, perhaps, zoological
facts. The unicorn, for instance, so far from being a lie, is rather
_too_ true; for, simply as a _monokeras_, he is found in the Himalaya,
in Africa, and elsewhere, rather too often for the peace of what in
Scotland would be called the _intending_ traveller. That which really
_is_ a lie in the account of the unicorn--viz., his legendary rivalship
with the lion--which lie may God preserve, in preserving the mighty
imperial shield that embalms it--cannot be more destructive to the
zoological pretensions of the unicorn, than are to the same pretensions
in the lion our many popular crazes about his goodness and magnanimity,
or the old fancy (adopted by Spenser, and noticed by so many among our
elder poets) of his graciousness to maiden innocence. The wretch is the
basest and most cowardly among the forest tribes; nor has the sublime
courage of the English bull-dog ever been so memorably exhibited as
in his hopeless fight at Warwick with the cowardly and cruel lion
called Wallace. Another of the traditional creatures, still doubtful,
is the mermaid, upon which Southey once remarked to me, that, if it
had been differently named, (as, suppose, a mer-ape) nobody would have
questioned its existence any more than that of sea-cows, sea-lions, &c.
The mermaid has been discredited by her human name and her legendary
human habits. If she would not coquette so much with melancholy
sailors, and brush her hair so assiduously upon solitary rocks, she
would be carried on our books for as honest a reality, as decent a
female, as many that are assessed to the poor-rates.
[25] "_Audacity!_" Such the French accounted it, and it has struck me
that Soult would not have been so popular in London, at the period
of her present Majesty's coronation, or in Manchester, on occasion
of his visit to that town, if they had been aware of the insolence
with which he spoke of us in notes written at intervals from the
field of Waterloo. As though it had been mere felony in our army to
look a French one in the face, he said more than once--"Here are the
English--we have them: they are caught _en flagrant delit_." Yet no man
should have known us better; no man had drunk deeper from the cup of
humiliation than Soult had in the north of Portugal, during his flight
from an English army, and subsequently at Albuera, in the bloodiest of
recorded battles.
[26] "_Three hundred._" Of necessity this scale of measurement, to an
American, if he happens to be a thoughtless man, must sound ludicrous.
Accordingly, I remember a case in which an American writer indulges
himself in the luxury of a little lying, by ascribing to an Englishman
a pompous account of the Thames, constructed entirely upon American
ideas of grandeur, and concluding in something like these terms:--"And,
sir, arriving at London, this mighty father of rivers attains a breadth
of at least two furlongs, having, in its winding course, traversed
the astonishing distance of 170 miles." And this the candid American
thinks it fair to contrast with the scale of the Mississippi. Now, it
is hardly worth while to answer a pure falsehood gravely, else one
might say that no Englishman out of Bedlam ever thought of looking
in an island for the rivers of a continent; nor, consequently, could
have thought of looking for the peculiar grandeur of the Thames in
the length of its course, or in the extent of soil which it drains:
yet, if he _had_ been so absurd, the American might have recollected
that a river, not to be compared with the Thames even as to volume of
water--viz. the Tiber--has contrived to make itself heard of in this
world for twenty-five centuries to an extent not reached, nor likely to
be reached very soon, by any river, however corpulent, of his own land.
The glory of the Thames is measured by the density of the population to
which it ministers, by the commerce which it supports, by the grandeur
of the empire in which, though far from the largest, it is the most
influential stream. Upon some such scale, and not by a transfer of
Columbian standards, is the course of our English mails to be valued.
The American may fancy the effect of his own valuations to our English
ears, by supposing the case of a Siberian glorifying his country in
these terms:--"Those rascals, sir, in France and England, cannot
march half a mile in any direction without finding a house where food
can be had and lodging: whereas, such is the noble desolation of our
magnificent country, that in many a direction for a thousand miles, I
will engage a dog shall not find shelter from a snow-storm, nor a wren
find an apology for breakfast."
DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS.[27]
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.
"My father and I with a dark-lantern, being now night, into
the garden with my wife, and there went about our great work
to dig up my gold. But, Lord! what a tosse I was for some
time in, that they could not justly tell where it was; that
I began hastily to sweat, and be angry that they could not
agree better upon the place, and at last to fear that it was
gone: but by-and-by, poking with a spit, we found it, and then
began with a spudd to lift up the ground. But, good God! to
see how sillily they did it, not half a foot under ground, and
in the sight of the world from a hundred places, if anybody
by accident were near hand, and within sight of a neighbour's
window: only my father says that he saw them all gone to church
before he began the work, when he laid the money. But I was out
of my wits almost, and the more for that, upon my lifting up
the earth with the spudd, I did discern that I had scattered
the pieces of gold round about the ground among the grass and
loose earth; and taking up the iron headpieces wherever they
were put, I perceived the earth was got among the gold, and
wet, so that the bags were all rotten, and all the notes, that
I could not tell what in the world to say to it, not knowing
how to judge what was wanting, or what had been lost by Gibson
in his coming down; which, all put together, did make me mad;
and at last I was fixed to take up the headpieces, dirt and
all, and as many of the scattered pieces as I could with the
dirt discern by candle-light, and carry them into my brother's
chamber, and there lock them up till I had eat a little supper;
and then, all people going to bed, W. Hewer and I did all
alone, with several pails of water and besoms, at last wash the
dirt off the pieces, and parted the pieces and the dirt, and
then began to tell them by a note which I had of the value of
the whole, in my pocket; and do find that there was short above
a hundred pieces; which did make me mad; and considering that
the neighbour's house was so near that we could not possibly
speak one to another in the garden at that place where the gold
lay--especially my father being deaf--but they must know what
we had been doing, I feared that they might in the night come
and gather some pieces and prevent us the next morning; so W.
Hewer and I out again about midnight, for it was now grown
so late, and there by candle-light did make shift to gather
forty-five pieces more. And so in, and to cleanse them; and by
this time it was past two in the morning; and so to bed, with
my mind pretty quiet to think that I have recovered so many, I
lay in the trundle-bed, the girl being gone to bed to my wife,
and there lay in some disquiet all night, telling of the clock
till it was daylight."
Then ensued a scene of washing for gold, the study of which may be
useful to any intending emigrant to California.
"And then W. Hewer and I, with pails and a sieve, did lock
ourselves into the garden, and there gather all the earth about
the place into pails, and then sift those pails in one of the
summer-houses, just as they do for diamonds in other parts
of the world; and there, to our great content, did by nine
o'clock make the last night's forty-five up seventy-nine: so
that we are come to about twenty or thirty of what the true
number should be; and perhaps within less; and of them I may
reasonably think that Mr Gibson might lose some: so that I am
pretty well satisfied that my loss is not great, and do bless
God that all is so well. So do leave my father to make a second
examination of the dirt; and my mind at rest on it, being but
an accident: and so gives me some kind of content to remember
how painful it is sometimes to keep money, as well as to get
it, and how doubtful I was to keep it all night, and how to
secure it in London: so got all my gold put up in bags."
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:--
"Knowing that I have a great sum of money in the house, this
puts me into a most mighty affright, that for more than two
hours, I could not almost tell what to do or say, but feared
this night, and remembered that this morning I saw a woman and
two men stand suspiciously in the entry, in the dark; I calling
to them, they made me only this answer, the woman saying that
the men only come to see her; but who she was, I cannot tell.
The truth is, my house is mighty dangerous, having so many ways
to be come to; and at my windows, over the stairs, to see who
goes up and down; but if I escape to-night, I will remedy it.
God preserve us this night safe! So, at almost two o'clock I
home to my house, and, in great fear, to bed, thinking every
running of a mouse really a thief; and so to sleep, very
brokenly, all night long, and found all safe in the morning."
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.
"Waked about seven o'clock this morning, with a noise I
supposed I heard near our chamber, of knocking, which by-and-by
increased; and I, now awake, could distinguish it better. I
then waked my wife, and both of us wondered at it, and lay
so a great while, while that increased, and at last heard
it plainer, knocking, as it were breaking down a window for
people to get out; and then removing of stools and chairs;
and plainly, by-and-by, going up and down our stairs. We lay,
both of us, afraid; yet I would have rose, but my wife would
not let me. Besides, I could not do it without making noise;
and we did both conclude that thieves were in the house, but
wondered what our people did, whom we thought either killed,
or afraid as we were. Thus we lay till the clock struck eight,
and high day. At last, I removed my gown and slippers safely to
the other side of the bed, over my wife; and there safely rose,
and put on my gown and breeches, and then, with a firebrand in
my hand, safely opened the door, and saw nor heard anything.
Then, with fear, I confess, went to the maid's chamber door,
and all quiet and safe. Called Jane up, and went down safely,
and opened my chamber door, where all well. Then more freely
about, and to the kitchen, where the cookmaid up, and all safe.
So up again, and when Jane came, and we demanded whether she
heard no noise, she said "Yes, but was afraid," but rose with
the other maid and found nothing; but heard a noise in the
great stack of chimneys that goes from Sir J. Minnes's through
our house; and so we sent, and their chimneys have been swept
this morning, and the noise was that, and nothing else. _It is
one of the most extraordinary accidents in my life_, and gives
ground to think of Don Quixote's adventures, how people may be
surprised; and the more from an accident last night, that our
young gibb-cat did leap down our stairs, from top to bottom, at
two leaps, and frighted us, that we could not tell whether it
was the cat or a spirit, and do sometimes think this morning
that the house might be haunted."
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--
"He told me," says Pepys, "the whole story of Mrs Stewart's
going away from Court, he knowing her well, and believes her,
up to her leaving the Court, to be as virtuous as any woman in
the world: and told me, from a lord that she told it to but
yesterday, with her own mouth, and a sober man, that when the
Duke of Richmond did make love to her she did ask the King,
and he did the like also, and that the King did not deny it:
and told this lord that she was come to that pass as to have
resolved to have married any gentleman of £1500 a year that
would have had her in honour; for it was come to that pass,
that she would not longer continue at Court without yielding
herself to the King, whom she had so long kept off, though he
had liberty more than any other had, or he ought to have, as to
dalliance. She told this lord that she had reflected upon the
occasion she had given the world to think her a bad woman, and
that she had no way but to marry and leave the Court, rather in
this way of discontent than otherwise, that the world might see
that she sought not anything but her honour; and that she will
never come to live at Court more than when she comes to town to
kiss the Queen her mistress's hand: and hopes, though she hath
little reason to hope, she can please her lord so as to reclaim
him, that they may yet live comfortably in the country on his
estate."
"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.
"To the King's house: and there, going in, met with Knipp,
and she took us up into the tireing-rooms; and to the women's
shift, where Nell was dressing herself, and was all unready,
and as very pretty, prettier than I thought. And into the
scene-room, and there sat down, and she gave us fruit; and here
I read the questions to Knipp, while she answered me, through
all her part of "Flora Figarys," which was acted to-day. But,
Lord! to see how they were both painted would make a man mad,
and did make me loathe them; and what base company of men
comes among them, and how lewdly they talk! and how poor the
men are in clothes, and yet what a show they make upon the
stage by candle-light, is very observable. But to see how Nell
cursed, for having so few people in the pit, was pretty; the
other house carrying away all the people at the new play, and
is said, now-a-days, to have generally most company, as being
better players. By-and-by into the pit, and there saw the play,
which is pretty good."
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:--
"31st Dec. 1662.--The Duke of Monmouth is in so great splendour
at court, and so dandled by the King, that some doubt that,
if the King should have no child by the Queen, which there is
yet no appearance of, whether he would not be acknowledged as
a lawful son; and that there will be a difference between the
Duke of York and him, which God prevent!... 8th Feb. 1663.--The
little Duke of Monmouth, it seems, is ordered to take place
of all Dukes, and so do follow Prince Rupert now, before the
Duke of Buckingham, or any else.... 27th April.--The Queen,
which I did not know, it seems was at Windsor, at the late St
George's feast there; and the Duke of Monmouth dancing with
her, with his hat in his hand, the King came in and kissed
him, and made him put on his hat, which everybody took notice
of.... 4th May.--I to the garden with my Lord Sandwich, after
we had sat an hour at the Tangier committee, and after talking
largely of his own businesses, we began to talk how matters are
at court: and though he did not fully tell me any such thing,
yet I do suspect that all is not kind between the King and the
Duke, (York) and that the King's fondness to the little Duke do
occasion it; and it may be that there is some fear of his being
made heir to the crown.... 22d Feb. 1664.--He (Charles) loves
not the Queen at all, but is rather sullen to her; and she,
by all reports, incapable of children. He is so fond of the
Duke of Monmouth that everybody admires it; and he says that
the Duke hath said, that he would be the death of any man that
says the King was not married to his mother.... 11th September
1667.--Here came Mr Moore, and sat and conversed with me of
public matters, the sum of which is, that he has no doubt there
is more at the bottom than the removal of the Chancellor; that
is, he do verily believe that the King do resolve to declare
the Duke of Monmouth legitimate, and that we shall soon see it.
This I do not think the Duke of York will endure without blows."
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--
"His favour leaves me nothing to require,
Prevents my wishes and outruns desire;
What more can I expect while David lives?
All but his kingly diadem he gives."
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.
FOOTNOTES:
[27] _Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, F.R.S., Secretary
at the Admiralty in the Reigns of Charles II. and James II._ With a
Life and Notes by RICHARD LORD BRAYBROOKE. Third edition considerably
enlarged. London, 1849.
_Printed by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh._
Transcriber's Notes:
Simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors
were corrected.
Punctuation normalized.
Anachronistic and non-standard spellings retained as printed.
Italics markup is enclosed in _underscores_.
Greek text is transliterated and enclosed in ®registration signs®.