bought all the new mathematical instruments | volumes were selected with infinite care and as they were invented, and occupied himself deliberation, and the reader of the Diary for a reasonable time with each successive will frequently meet with a record of the novelty. While we are upon the subject of precise time and price at which Mr. Pepys his personal qualifications, we may just re- secured particular prizes. Thirty years, at cord one fact-in exemplification of our own least, before his death, we find that he had care in perusing his diary. His features resolved on no account to fill more than a have been perpetuated by Sir Godfrey Knel- certain number of "presses ;" and accordingler, in what we must presume to be a strik- ly, as he acquired any new or valuable publiing portrait-though we make bold to say cation fitted for a place on his shelves, he that, unless great allowance is due to the weeded his library of its least dignified or leveling effects of full-bottomed wigs and considerable specimens, to make way for the laced cravats, the individual specimens of new-comers. At the beginning of each year, the human race must have all resembled too, with the help of his wife and maid, he each other much more in those days than was wont to "set them up" afresh; and we at present. Such as he was depicted, how are favored with particular records of the apever, on canvas, he is now to be seen, in pearance which the " presses" made at any the very front of Lord Braybrooke's first one period, compared with the show of the volume; but we are not aware that any per- previous year. The 14th of January, 1668, son has yet discovered his exact height. seems to have been devoted to this amuseWe have now, therefore, to state that since, ment. "To my chamber, having a great on the 4th of Jan., 1669, he "could just many books brought me home from my stand under the arm of the tall woman in bookbinder, and so I to the new setting of Holborne," which said woman appears, by a my books against the next year-which costs subsequent entry, to have been "exactly six me more trouble than I expected, and at it feet five inches high." Mr. Pepys, in the 37th till two o'clock in the morning." Even this, year of his age, could not greatly have ex- however, did not content him; for on the ceeded the stature of five feet three! If 2nd of the next month we again find him any reader should think the fact thus elicited all the morning setting my books in order of small importance, we can assure him that in my presses for the following year,—their it is just such a one as the ingenious author number being much increased since the last, of the Diary would have been most anxious so as I am fain to lay by several books to to see recorded. make room for better-being resolved to keep no more than just my presses will contain." After this exercise he adjourns to "a very good dinner, of a powdered leg of pork and a loin of lamb roasted.' 66 With all these qualifications, however, Mr. Pepys was certainly not a bookworm. We rarely find him engaged in the same study for three weeks together; and though his cursory remarks upon the publications This library, thus perfected by thirty which he did not read, often show considera- years' rectification and refinement, Mr. Pepys ble acuteness and judgment, yet his selec- at length bequeathed to Magdalene College, tion of books for perusal was not very dis- Cambridge; on conditions which included criminating, and seems to have savored a its preservation for ages to come in the selfgood deal of that taste which is still catered same plight in which he had left it. The for in the drawing-room of a London club- presses were to remain unmutilated and house. But, fortunately for posterity, he undefaced, and were to be kept in an apartwas something of a bibliomaniac, and cer- ment exclusively devoted to themselves. tainly contrived to form a remarkably good Their contents were neither to be increased and interesting library; comprising not only nor diminished by a single volume, but were many curiosities of early typography, but to remain exactly in their original state and copious specimens of the fugitive literature form. As he willed, so it has been. In a cerof his day. Six large folio volumes, for in-tain room of what was once called "the new stance, are filled with broadsides, songs, and building" of Magdalene College, and on the ballads of every description, each of which exterior wall of which may still be deciphered is now almost unique; while the marketable the inscription BIBLIOTHECA PEPYSIvalue of the whole has been computed by ANA, was this collection for many years dethousands of pounds sterling. In addition posited; until, at a recent period, it was to these treasures is an admirable library of removed to an apartment in the new lodge the choicest books, bound after the choicest lately erected for the Master of the College. fashion, of the days of the Stuarts. These There it now remains,—the "presses" and 1849.] PEPYS'S DIARY. 12 वि their contents being just as they were left, | It is plain that he was in very early youth the former in all the glory of black mahoga- familiar with the Metropolis and its suburbs; ny and glazed doors,-the latter in their but on the other hand Brampton was the resoriginal bindings, and, probably enough, in idence of his father, and he was undoubtedly first sent to school at Huntingdon. Subsetheir original order. quently he went to St. Paul's, and received the completion of his education at Cambridge, where he was originally entered at Trinity; but having been attracted, apparently by a scholarship, to Magdalene, he commenced his academical residence at that college in 1651. Concerning his exploits at this seat of learning his biographers have unhappily been able to rescue only a single fact from oblivion,-and that, too, not particularly to his honor. In the Registrar's book of Magdalene is recorded the following:-"Memorandum, Oct. 21, 1653. That Pepys and Hind were solemnly admonished by myself and Mr. Hill, for having been scandalously overserved with drink ye night before. This was done in the presence of all the Fellows then resident, in Mr. Hill's chamber. JOHN WooD, Registrar." Whether this admonition produced any permanent effects is, we fear, rather doubtful. We do not, it is true, meet with many confessions of his absolute intoxication, which certainly would not, had it occurred, have been omitted from his records But the most precious specimen of this treasury was that with which we are now concerned. Amongst the books in the presses were six large volumes filled with writing in short-hand; which remained undeciphered, if not unnoticed, for a century and a quarter. At length, some twenty or thirty years ago, they attracted the attention of persons competent to estimate their value, and the cipher was soon after snbmitted to a gentleman of St. John's College for interpretation. The problem proved not very difficult of solution: the cipher employed being but slightly varied from one commonly in use in those times, and even regularly taught in certain schools, for the purpose of enabling students to write rapidly from dictation. The contents of the mysterious volumes were, accordingly, soon translated into the vulgar tongue; and they were found to be nothing less than a faithful and particular Diary of Mr. Pepys's life and conversation from the 1st of January, 1660, to the 31st of May, 1669. This Diary, or rather, a large selection from it, was first published by Lord Braybrooke in 1825; and the speedy sale of two large editions proved how accurately its interest had been estimated by its noble editor. For reasons, however, to be hereafter noticed, it was not then thought proper to publish the journal in full,-its records being subjected to an expurgatorial process, which is now shown to have been conducted with rather excessive severity. When, therefore, a third edition of the Diary was determined upon, it became a question of some interest to decide whether the original scheme should or should not be abandoned, for a more unreserved communication of the author's thoughts. Fortunately for the reading portion of the public, this question was decided in the affirmative; and the result now finally appears in the five volumes specified at the head of this paper. Trite as the biography has become, the convenience of our readers may, perhaps, be consulted by such a recapitulation of the leading facts of Mr. Pepys's life as will conduce to the ready appreciation of the Diary he left behind him. He was born on the 23rd of February, 1632; but whether at Brampton, in Huntingdonshire, or in London, appears to be now only ascertainable from the internal evidence supplied by his journal. brother telling me that this day there is a congregation for the choice of some officers in the University, he after dinner gets me a cap, gowne, and hood, and carries me to the Schools, where Mr. Pepper, my brother's tutor, and this day chosen Proctor, did appoint a M. A. to lead me into the Regent House, where I sat with them, and did vote by subscribing papers thus, Ego SAMUEL PEPYS eligo Magistrum Bernardum Skelton alterum e Taxatoribus hujus Academia, in as his subsequent career is less materially connected with the volume before us, we need not enter into its particulars. annum sequentem." Our Cambridge readers will not fail to observe how much has been abolished, and how much retained, in the corresponding ceremonies of the present day. This brings us at length to his famous It is a great pity that Pepys did not leave Journal. The dates of its commencement some record of the state of the University and termination (Jan., 1660-May, 1669) during the Protectorate, which was the have been already specified, and these would period of his attendance: as such a note from of themselves suffice to apprise the reader of such a hand would have been in the highest the general Historical information to be exdegree edifying. He visited the old place pected from its contents. Its essential charmore than once in after times, but only in acter, however, depends in a very slight his journeys to the north or east; nor does degree on such matters as these. Without he speak of it with half the interest he pro- making any exception in favor either of the fesses for the localities round about London. published memoirs of Fletcher, Lord Byron's He happened, however, to be there in 1661, valet, or of any other production of ancient just at the restoration of the old régime; or modern diarists, we unhesitatingly charaoand although it was mid-July the students terize this Journal as the most remarkable seem to have been all in residence, and the production of its kind which has ever been colleges full. "July 15. Up by three given to the world. It is difficult to add o'clock this morning, and rode to Cambridge, much, beyond example, in the way of illusand was there by seven o'clock; when, after tration. We can hardly yet satisfy ourselves I was trimmed, I went to Christ College, and of the description properly due to such a found my brother John, at eight o'clock, in development of human nature. Of one point, bed, which vexed me. Then to King's however, we entertain little doubt;—that its College, where I found the scholars in their contents were never compiled with the resurplices at the service with the organs-motest view to publication. No eyes but which is a strange sight to what it used, in my time, to be here." It was certainly clear enough that things were altered in respect of ceremonies; for when, a few days afterward, he went to church at Impington, "At our coming in, the country people all rose with much reverence; and when the parson begins, he begins Right Worshipfull and dearly beloved' to us.' Presently he is informed "how high the old" (i. e. the restored) "doctors are in the University over those they found there-though a great deal better scholars than themselves-for which I am very sorry." It should be borne in mind, however, in estimating any little touches of this sort, that the sympathies of Pepys, for many years after the Restoration, are clearly with the vanquished party. Though Mr. Pepys's father was a tailor by trade, yet he was connected by descent with the Earl of Sandwich; and in the house of this relative our hero found refuge and occupation, when an early marriage had rendered both these advantages unusually desirable. In 1658 he attended his patron, then Sir Edward Montague, upon his expedition to the Sound; and was appointed on his return to a subordinate clerkship in the Exchequer. Two years afterward he was made clerk of the Acts of the Navy-a place which he filled with great credit during the whole of the period embraced in the Diary. Nor was this the end of his promotion in the state; but those of Samuel Pepys could have ever been intended to scan the entries of his journal. Nor do we think, upon a general retrospect, that these daily records were made with any idea of subsequently reducing them to any publishable form-for their substance has certainly little reference to the political, and but incidentally to the social, history of the country. It is true that Mr. Pepys undoubtedly contemplated, inter alia, a connected history of matters relating to that department of the administration in which he spent so many years of his life; but for this purpose we know that he made an entirely separate collection of materials. Indeed, the internal evidence of the volumes themselves is hardly reconcilable with any other supposition than that they were written from a mechanical habit acquired by the author of committing daily to paper, under the protection of a cipher, his every action, motive, and thought; and with the sole view, apparently, of recurring to them in after times, for his own amusement and information. In this respect nothing that has ever been compiled in the shape of autobiography makes any perceptible approach to the fullness and genuineness of Mr. Pepys's Diary. Rousseau's Confessions will bear no kind of comparison; nor will any of the French essays by which that seductive tale has been followed. Perhaps the reflections of Silvio Pellico in his prison supply a somewhat nearer match; 1849.] PEPYS'S DIARY. but the two productions are hardly homoge- | neous enough to be compared. But little information is discoverable in the Diary itself of the motives which led to its compilation. Once, on visiting Sir W. Coventry in the Tower, he found him alone "writing down his journall, which, he tells me, he now keeps of the material things; upon which I told him (and he is the only man I ever told it to, I think), that I kept it most strictly these eight or ten years; and I am sorry almost that I told him it not being necessary, nor may be convenient, to have it known." This entry shows that the precaution of a cipher had some reference to the political perils of the times; although, as far as Mr. Pepys's memoranda go, "the material things" assuredly form but a small portion of their substance. Many of our readers will probably be able to tax their own recollections for the motives which suggest the keeping of a temporary journal; and we are inclined to think, upon the whole, that the ideas which resulted in the relic now before us, differed but very little from those of the most ordinary schoolgirl, tourist, or idle recluse. As regards the historical value of this production, we have already rated it rather low: though this opinion must be taken with a certain qualification. It is according to the definition which the term "history" receives that it must rise or fall in the reader's estimation. If history is to be characterized by that "dignity" which preedents have sanctioned, or composed with that grave formality which some quarterly reviewers demand, the journal of Mr. Pepys will be next to useless. It tells us comparatively little of wars, treaties, speeches, proclamations or debates; and this little is told in a sorely undignified spirit, and with an accuracy of detail by no means unimpeachable. Every now and then, indeed, we are able to detect errors in dates, Christian names, and even records of appointments, which would infallibly ruin the author in the eyes of modern critics. In fact, the very style in which such information is communicated precludes the possibility of giving it an unconditional acceptance. It is mostly mere gossip, retailed at second, or even at third hand. "Comes my lord so and so to me, and tells me that he has seen Mr. so and so, who does say," &c. The facts, therefore, which would be available for such histories as were written in the last century are few in number, and not extraordinary in value. But the picture wholly changes, if History is considered in the light of a science which isto inform us, besides the great events of the period, of the customs, habits, and opinions Even, however, when thus liberally view- upon it. In this as in other practices, accidental beginnings may easily beget permanent habits. But no example, to the best of our knowledge, has ever been elsewhere known of an individual who, without prickings of conscience or persuasions of creed, deliberately sate down every evening, and put upon record, not only all the most insignificant events, but all the childish, sneaking, ludicrous, or miserly thinkings and doings which had characterized the past day of his life. so curtailed and condensed as wholly to ruin that true portraiture of the author's own character and thoughts which was the most striking feature of the Diary. Moreover, notwithstanding the risk incurred by omissions, when the information desired by the student is to be picked and gleaned from incidental allusions and involuntary disclosures, we are yet ready to grant that two volumes out of the five might have been spared even in this view of the subject, were it not for It is this predominant personality of the Di- the loss in credibility and faithfulness which ary which renders it so difficult to give a satis- would thus be suffered by the remainder. factory view of its contents, in any form but But, taking the whole composition for what that of a complete and unreserved transcript it is, and for what it may teach us, it is of the whole. The present edition is, in this scarcely possible to suppress a single pasrespect, incomparably superior to the others, sage without serious detriment; and if we and, from the same cause, inferior still to what want to be satisfied with what we now posit might be made. We do not say that its sess, we must endeavor to persuade ourabsolutely literal or unreserved publication selves that the statements of the noble editor would be consistent with the reasonable re-imply on this occasion no prudish or unscruquirements of public decency; on the contra- pulous use of his privilege. ry, we are well enough inclined to believe, from the specimens which have now been allowed to pass, that those rejected upon the second scrutiny were indeed inadmissible. But the fact nevertheless remains, that the Journal in our hands is still incomplete; and the misgivings thus naturally created are strengthened by the involuntary observation that in the former instance, the most valuable and characteristic portion of the Diary was often that which was suppressed. The cases, it is true, are not exactly parallel; for in the former the guiding motive of the noble editor was a well-intended regard for the public patience; whereas in the present he has been solely actuated by the observances due, even above the truth of history, to public decorum; but in such a publication as this, complete satisfaction is not to be expected where anything is known to be behind. With respect to the "historical value" of the two editions, there can, as we have already remarked, be no comparison between them. If the phrase be taken in its most formal import, at least forty-nine fiftieths of the whole Journal might have been suppressed without loss on this score; so that the original edition retained comparatively little which was worth preserving, while it utterly demolished the instruction which it might have been made to convey. For although we regret to see that the additions and insertions are not marked in the new issue, yet the reader who will trouble himself to compare the two will find that, in the old edition even the published extracts were not given verbatim, but that sentences and paragraphs were "I found," says Lord Braybrooke, "after once more carefully reading over the whole of the MS., that a literal transcript of the Diary was absolutely inadmissible. I determined, therefore, in preparing the forthcoming edition, to insert in its proper place, every passage that had been omitted, with the exception only of such entries as were devoid of the slightest interest, and many others of so indelicate a character, that no one with a well-regulated mind will regret their loss; nor could they have been tolerated even in the licentious days to which they relate." With these assurances we suppose we must be content; but the "interest" of a passage is what every inquisitive reader likes to determine for himself; and we cannot forbear recollecting that on a previous occasion, Lord Braybrooke suppressed as "uninteresting" the particulars of a dinner which included a boiled haunch of venison! There is one very remarkable characteristic of this Diary which we do not remember to have ever seen noticed, and that is the prodigious faculty of memory in the writer which its entries discover. That this was in some degree artificially aided is probable enough. We know from the Journal itself that its composition involved two stages. The events of the day were first jotted down with great brevity, and with the use of no more words than would serve to recall them ; after which these notes were expanded into the entries which we now see. No doubt, too, the operation was greatly facilitated by daily practice; but even after all allowances are made on these scores, the results to an |