a superfluous piece of state, commenced when the political horizon around them chanced to look gloomy. The spirit therefore of doubt prevails in the following memorandum of 10th April, 1669.

"Thence to the park, my wife and I; and here Sir W. Coventry did first see me and my wife in a coach of our own; and so did also this night the Duke of York, who did eye my wife mightily. But I begin to doubt that my being so much seen in my own coach at this time may be observed to my prejudice; but I must venture it now "-Vol. i. p 329.

At length-after many visits to the coachyard, and gratuities to the coachmaker's men, and after seeing with their own eyes the carriage cleaned, and oiled, and cased, after the best manner, comes disappointment, like a winter cloud, and the grand and decisive launch of their coach in Hyde Park reminds us of the days of happiness proposed to himself by Seged, Emperor of Ethiopia.

"Up betimes. My wife extraordinary fine with her flowered tabby 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 thus gilt with varnish, and all clean, and green reines, 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; 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.—Vol. ii. p. 337-8. This it is to put trust in chariots and horses!

There are sundry other odd littlenesses about Pepys which injure him in comparison with his friend Evelyn. He was too sensible of the influence of the great, and too ready to truckle to it, though we believe honest and fair in his own department. In the course of of fence taken against him by the celebrated Lord Chancellor Clarendon, on account of his having marked out some ornamental trees in Clarendon park for the use of the navy, both he and his principal, Lord Sandwich, retreat vilely from what they seem to have (however absurdly) conceived to be a high public duty-with this humiliating confession on the part of Pepys; "Lord, to see how we poor wretches dare not do the King good service for fear of the greatness of these men!" During an interview, in which he uses all the evasions and excuses which might deprecate the Chancellor's displeasure, he labours under an occasional suspicion that Clarendon is seriously disposed "to try his fidelity to his king." The Chancellor disliked, as any other gentleman would do, having fine trees cut down close to his house but the Clerk of the Acts magnifies the matter most ridiculously. Elsewhere Pepys seems, at least, fully sensible of the necessity of propitiating the great, but the following is a curious instance of the dread he entertained in failing in the least etiquette towards them. He met, it seems, the Duke of York coming along "the Pell Mell;"

"In our walk over the Parke, one of the Duke's footmen come running behind us, and come looking just in our faces to see who we were, and went back again. What his meaning is know not, but was fearful that I might not go far enough with my hat off."—Vol.

Our diarist must not be too severely judged. He lived in a time when the worst examples abounded, a time of court intrigue and state revolution, when nothing was certain for a moment, and when all who were possessed of any opportunity to make profit, used it with the most shameless avidity, lest the golden minutes should pass away unimproved. It was said of Charles himself, that he did by Tangiers as Lord Caernarvon said of wood, which he termed an "excrescence of the earth, provided by God for the payment of debts." The same might at that time have been said of most of the great employments in England, which were considered by those who filled them, not with reference to the public right and interest, but merely as they could be rendered available to their own private emolument. It is no mean praise, that we find Pepys, at such a period of general abuse, labouring successfully to introduce order and discountenance abuses in his own department. He received many hints to the following purpose, which, with his observations and answers, give a more favourable idea of his character than that which might be derived from the foibles and fopperies we have been noticing.

"He tells me also, as a friend, the great injury that he thinks I do myself by being so severe in the yards, and contracting the ill-will of the whole navy for those offices, singly upon myself. Now I discharge a good conscience therein, and I tell him that no man can (nor do he say any say it) charge me with doing wrong; but rather do as many good offices as any man. They think, he says, that I have a mind to get a good name with the King and Duke, who, he tells me, do not consider any such thing; but I shall have as good thanks to let all alone, and do as the rest. But I believe the contrary; and yet I told him I never go to the Duke alone, as others do, to talk of my own services. However, I will make use of his council, and take some course to prevent having the single ill-will of the office."-Vol. i. p. 244.

Indeed it is highly necessary to keep in mind that Mr Pepys was only thirty-seven years of age when he closed this diary in 1669, and that of the far more important half of his life this record furnishes no account whatever. The secretary of the Admiralty under James II. was, no doubt, a different man in many particulars from the Clerk of the Acts, whose comparatively humble career we have been surveying. The high character of Pepys in his ultimate official station is well known; nor can it be denied that the unfortunate prince he served deserves credit for having uniformly sheltered so faithful and useful a public servant as the secretary against the ill-will which he incurred by his unremitting attention to the interests of the king and kingdom. The various disadvantages with which Pepys had throughout his public life to contend were of a kind which would have broken down the patience of a less zealous and industrious officer. When he first came into office under Lord Sandwich's patronage, there was nothing but destruction and confusion in the affairs of the navy.-(Vol. ii. p.471.) The fleet in such order, as to discipline, as if the devil had commanded it. (lb.) Ships cast away by mere rashness and drunken humour of the captains, who swore if the pilots did not carry them where

*profligacy of all ranks increased to the utmost height. Some of the flag-officers themselves were so ignorant of seamanship as not to know which tack lost the wind or kept it. The vessels did not support each other in battle, and fell out of the line upon receiving the smallest damage, under pretence of refitting. The men, ill fed and unpaid, deserted whenever the humour seized them, or besieged the Navyoffice, so that no business could be done, "because of the horrible croud, and lamentable moans of the poor seamen that do be starving in the street for lack of money."-(Vol. i.p.353.) On a subsequent occasion the confusion was even greater, so as to menace Mr Pepys with loss of his evening's meal.

"The yard being very full of women (I believe above three hundred), coming to get money for their husbands and friends that are prisoners in Holland; and they lay clamouring and swearing and cursing us, that my wife and I were afraid to send a venison pasty. that we had for supper to night, to the cook's to be baked, for fear of their offering violence to it; but it went, and no hurt done. To the Tower to speak with Sir John Robinson about the bad condition of the pressed men for want of clothes."--Vol. i. p. 429.

We will conclude this picture with what occurs vol. ii p. 112, where we are told of the poor seamen, in their desperation for want of pay, jumping into the Thames to escape from the service, though two were shot by the soldiers posted to prevent their escape; "they being as good men as ever were in the world, and would readily serve the King were they but paid." Such was the state of the navy of Charles II., and we need not waste words in accounting for the wretched conduct of the Dutch war, and the insults and loss sustained at Sheerness and Chatham. The historical reader will find much curious information on both these particulars, and many others, in the Memoirs. It is indisputable that up to the present hour the British navy has every reason to hold in grateful remembrance the great reforming services of James II., and his faithful servant, Mr Pepys.

Our Journalist, besides his grave treatise upon the Mare Clausum -to which, by the by, he gave a new title at the Restoration, the former being suited to the Republican model-has some pretension to notice as a man of letters,-having written a romance, and, at least, two songs. The former he prudently burned, though not without some regret, doubting he could not do it so well over again if he should try (vol. i. p. 275); the latter were rendered mellifluous by the voices of Knipp and Mercer. He does not appear to have got beyond the false taste of his times, as he extols "Volpone" and the "Silent Woman" as the best plays he ever saw, and accounts the "Midsummer's Night's Dream" the most insipid and ridiculous. (Vol. i. p. 167.) "Othello" he sets down as a " mean thing;" "Henry VIII." although much cried up, did not please him, even though he went with purpose to be pleased; it was, in his opinion, "a simple

it, there was nothing well done." But the most diverting circumstance is the series of unsuccessful efforts which Pepys made to relish the celebrated poem of Butler, then enjoying all the blaze of novel popularity. Possibly, some remaining predilection for the opinions which are ridiculed in that witty satire prevented his falling in with. the universal fashion of admiring it. The first part of "Hudibras" cost him two shillings and sixpence, but he found it so silly an abuse of a Presbyterian knight going to the wars, that he became ashamed. of it, and prudently sold it for eighteen pence. Wise by experience, he did not buy the second part, but only borrowed it to read.

Mr Pepys, although an economical man, appears to have been very generous to his friends and relations, a kind brother, a dutiful son, and attentive in the discharge of all the social duties. One piece

of generosity towards a relative, however, sounds a little strange in modern ears.

"I did give my wife's brother 10s. and a coat that I had by me, a close-bodied lightcoloured cloth coat, with a gold edgeing in each seam, that was the lace of my wife's best pettycoat that she had when I married. He is going into Holland to seek his fortune."Vol. i. p. 278.

The donation of ten shillings to a man going to seek his fortune is not splendid, though eked out by the coat with the gold edging, which had been already "condemned a double debt to pay."

Another peculiarity is that, like most curious people, he is disposed to see something uncommon in the most ordinary occurrences. He was a cockney to be sure, yet we are rather surprised at the following notice of an old shepherd in his worsted stockings.

"I walked upon the Downes, where a flock of sheep was, and the most pleasant and innocent sight that ever I saw in my life. We found a shepherd and his little boy reading, far from any houses or sight of people, the bible to him; and we took notice of his woollen stockings, of two colours mixed."-Vol. ii. p. 92.

It would be unjust to dismiss the personal character of Pepys without noticing his sincere, pious, and thankful disposition. Whatever human weaknesses he may display, and however he may seem at times vain of his worldly advantages, he never fails to return thanks to the Author of good for the blessings which he enjoys; and if we see his foibles more clearly, it is because there is neither mystery nor vice to intercept our prospect into his bosom. It is at the bottom of the clear fountain that the least pebbles are distinctly visible.

In point of expression such Memoirs, composed entirely for bringing back events to the writer's own recollection, ought not to be severely criticised. The language is always distinct and intelligible, though sometimes amusingly quaint; as when he says of Harrison, that in the course of being hanged, drawn, and quartered, “he looked as cheerful as any man could do in that condition" (vol. i. p. 78); and again in the following exquisitely limited tribute of sorrow for the

profligacy of all ranks increased to the utmost height. Some of the flag-officers themselves were so ignorant of seamanship as not to know which tack lost the wind or kept it. The vessels did not support each other in battle, and fell out of the line upon receiving the smallest damage, under pretence of refitting. The men, ill fed and unpaid, deserted whenever the humour seized them, or besieged the Navyoffice, so that no business could be done, "because of the horrible croud, and lamentable moans of the poor seamen that do be starving in the street for lack of money."-(Vol. i.p.353.) On a subsequent occasion the confusion was even greater, so as to menace Mr Pepys with loss of his evening's meal.

"The yard being very full of women (I believe above three hundred), coming to get money for their husbands and friends that are prisoners in Holland; and they lay clamouring and swearing and cursing us, that my wife and I were afraid to send a venison pasty, that we had for supper to-night, to the cook's to be baked, for fear of their offering violence to it; but it went, and no hurt done. To the Tower to speak with Sir John Robinson about the bad condition of the pressed men for want of clothes."--- Vol. i. p. 429.

p.

We will conclude this picture with what occurs vol. ii 112, where we are told of the poor seamen, in their desperation for want of pay, jumping into the Thames to escape from the service, though two were shot by the soldiers posted to prevent their escape; "they being as good men as ever were in the world, and would readily serve of the King were they but paid." Such was the state of the navy Charles II., and we need not waste words in accounting for the wretched conduct of the Dutch war, and the insults and loss sustained at Sheerness and Chatham. The historical reader will find much curious information on both these particulars, and many others, in the Memoirs. It is indisputable that up to the present hour the British navy has every reason to hold in grateful remembrance the great reforming services of James II., and his faithful servant, Mr Pepys.

Our Journalist, besides his grave treatise upon the Mare Clausum -to which, by the by, he gave a new title at the Restoration, the former being suited to the Republican model-has some pretension to notice as a man of letters,-having written a romance, and, at least, two songs. The former he prudently burned, though not without some regret, doubting he could not do it so well over again if he should try (vol. i. p. 275); the latter were rendered mellifluous by the voices of Knipp and Mercer. He does not appear to have got beyond the false taste of his times, as he extols "Volpone" and the "Silent Woman" as the best plays he ever saw, and accounts the "Midsummer's Night's Dream" the most insipid and ridiculous. (Vol. i. p. 167.) "Othello" he sets down as a " mean thing;""Henry VIII." although much cried up, did not please him, even though he went with purpose to be pleased; it was, in his opinion, "a simple