That the struggle between the presbyterians and the established clergy, though it ended favourably for the latter, was a deadly blow to the government, and raised up a host of opposition, is a fact well known in the history of this reign: but the multitudinous trifles by which it is illustrated in Pepys's pages, gives a reality and a conviction of the truth, which may not be without its use in our own day, when the tempora! interests of the kingdom are so lavishly staked in support of clerical intolerance, and clerical alarm for tithes. The English have, it is true, in all ages been a priest-ridden nation; but they have never been without a due regard to their own personal interests: and it would well become a prudent statesman to stand between the passions of the Church and its interests, and to take care that men's duties are not placed by the clergy in too strong opposition to their inclinations. The extravagance of the court, and the heavy burdens laid upon the people, the insolence of the nobility, their debauchery and greediness, added largely to popular discontent. On the 31st of August, 1661, little more than a year from the bonfires and insane rejoicings of the Restoration, Pepys writes as follows: "At Court things are in very ill condition, there being so much emulacion, poverty, and the vices of drinking, swearing, and loose amours, that I know not what will be the end of it, but confusion. And the Clergy so high, that all people that I meet with do protest against their practice. In short, I see no content or satisfaction any where, in any one sort of people. The Benevolence proves so little, and an occasion of so much discontent every where, that it had better it had never been set up. I think to subscribe 201. We are at our office quiet, only for lack of money all things go to rack. Our very bills offered to be sold upon the Exchange at ten per cent loss. We are upon getting Sir R. Ford's house added to our Office. But I see so many difficulties will follow in pleasing of one another in the dividing of it, and in becoming bound personally to pay the rent of 2001. per annum, that I do believe it will yet scarce come to pass." Again on the 10th of November, 1662, he says, "The towne, I bear, is full of discontents, and all know of the King's new bastard by Mrs. Haslerigge, and as far as I can hear will never be contented with Episcopacy, they are so cruelly set for Presbytery, and the Bishops carry themselves so high that they are never likely to gain any thing upon them." And on the 30th, "Publick matters in an ill condition of discontent against the height and vanity of the Court, and their bad payments: but that which troubles most, is the Clergy, which will never content the City, which is not to be reconciled to Bishopps: but more the pity that differences must still be." In page 260, there occurs also a picture of the court, clergy, and nation, too important to pass over unnoticed. "July 20. He (Lord Sandwich) told me also how loose the Court is, nobody looking after business, but every man his lust and gain; and how the King is now become besotted upon Mrs. Stewart, that he gets into corners, and will be with her half an hour together kissing her to the observation of all the world; and she now stays by herself and expects it, as my Lady Castlemaine did use to do; to whom the King, he says, is still kind, so as now and then he goes to her as he believes; but with no such fondness as he used to do. But yet it is thought that this new wench is so subtle, that it is verily thought if the Queene had died, he would have inarried her. Mr. Blackburn and I fell to talk of many things, wherein he was very open to me: first, in that of religion, he makes it greater matter of prudence for the King and Council to suffer liberty of conscience; and imputes the loss of Hungary to the Turke from the Emperor's denying them this liberty of their religion. He says that many pious ministers of the word of God, some thousands of them, do now beg their bread and told me how highly the present clergy carry themselves every where, so as that they are hated and laughed at by every body among other things, for their excommunications, which they send upon the least occasions almost that can be. And I am convinced in my judgement, not only from his discourse, but my thoughts in general, that the present clergy will never heartily go down with the generality of the commons of England; they have been so used to liberty and freedom, and they are so acquainted with the pride and debauchery of the present clergy. He did give me many stories, of the affronts which the clergy receive in all places of England from the gentry and ordinary persons of the parish. He do tell me what the City thinks of General Monk, as of a most perfidious man that hath betrayed every body, and the King also; who, as he thinks, and his party, and so I have heard other good friends of the King say, it might have been better for the King to have had his hands a little bound for the present, than be forced to bring such a crew of poor people about him, and be liable to satisfy the demands of every one of them. He told me that to his knowledge (being present at every meeting at the Treaty at the Isle of Wight,) that the old King did confess himself over-ruled and convinced in his judgement against the Bishopps, and would have suffered and did agree to exclude the service out of the churches, nay his own chapell; and that he did always say, that this he did not by force, for that be would never abate one inch by any violence : but what he did was out of his reason and judgement. He tells me that the King by name, with all his dignities, is prayed for by them that they call Fanatiques, as heartily and powerfully as in any of the other churches that are thought better: and that, let the King think what he will, it is them that must help him in the day of war. For so generally they are the most substantial sort of people, and the soberest; and did desire me to observe it to my Lord Sandwich, among other things, that of all the old army now you cannot see a man begging about the streets; but what? You shall have this captain turned a shoemaker; the lieutenant, a baker : this a brewer; that a haberdasher; this common soldier, a porter; and every man in his apton and frock, &c. as if they never had done any thing else: whereas the other go with their belts and swords, swearing and cursing, and stealing; running into people's houses, by force oftentimes, to carry away something; and this is the difference between the temper of one and the other; and concludes (and I think with some reason,) that the spirits of the old parliament soldiers are so quiet and contented with God's providences, that the King is safer from any evil meant him by them one thousand times more than from his own discontented Cavalier. And then to the public management of business: it is done, as he observes, so loosely and so carelessly, that the kingdom can never be happy with it, every man looking after himself, and his own lust and luxury; and that half of what money the Parliament gives the King is not so much as gathered. And to the purpose he told me how the Bellamys (who had some of the northern counties assigned them for their debt for the petty warrant victualling, have often complained to him that they cannot get it collected, for that nobody minds, or if they do, they won't pay it in. Whereas (which is a very remarkable thing,) he hath been told by some of the Treasurers at Warr here of late, to whom the most of the 120,000. monthly was paid, that for most months the payments were gathered so duly, that they seldom had so much or more than 40s. or the like, short in the whole collection; whereas now the very Commissioners for Assessments and other publick payments are such persons, and those that they choose in the country so like themselves, that from top to bottom there is not a man carefull of any thing, or if he be, not solvent; that what between the beggar and the knave, the King is abused the best part of all his revenue." In the different parts of this Diary, there are ample evidences of the same break-up of principles and opinions, the same baseness, dishonesty, and rapacity, as in our days we have seen arise out of similar causes among the French. Girouettism is the natural vice of revolutionary times, and political consistency the rarest and most heroic of virtues. Few men are decidedly governed by principles; and those who are incorruptible by bribe, are not always proof against influence; for if physical courage is a common virtue, moral courage is the attribute only of the privileged few whom Nature has stamped with her own nobility. The French revolution has produced heroes in a teeming abundance ; it has called into existence but one Lafayette. Pepys himself began life as a Roundhead, as the following humorous anecdote shews. "Nov. 1. Here dined with us two or three more country gentlemen; among the rest Mr Christmas, my old school-fellow, with whom I had much talk. He did remember that I was a great Roundhead when I was a boy, and I was much afraid that he would have remembered the words that I said the day the King was beheaded (that, were I to preach upon him, my text should be- The memory of the wicked shall rot'); but I found afterwards that he did go away from school before that time." (1660.) Montagu, his patron, was also a turn-coat ; and like most other turncoats and renegades, contrived to furnish himself with a plausible excuse for his ratting. In page 84, vol. 1. Pepys relates his friend's public reason for siding with the King. "Nov. 7th. Went by water to my Lord, where I dined with him, and he in a very merry humour (present Mr. Borfett and Childe) at dinner: he, in discourse of the great opinion of the virtue-gratitude, (which he did account the greatest thing in the world to him, and had, therefore, in his mind been often troubled in the late times how to answer his gratitude to the King, who raised his father,) did say it was that did bring him to his obedience to the King; and did also bless himself with his good fortune, in comparison to what it was when I was with him in the Sound, when he durst not own his correspondence with the King; which is a thing that I never did hear of to this day before; and I do from this raise an opinion of him, to be one of the most secret men in the world, which I was not so convinced of before." Whereas in page 45, he had previously stated the true reason, that which has made so many traitors-pique. "May 15. In the afternoon my Lord and I walked together in the coach two hours, talking together upon all sorts of discourse: as religion, wherein he is, I perceive, wholly sceptical, saying, that indeed the Protestants as to the Church of Rome are wholly fanatiques: he likes uniformity and form of prayer: about Statebusiness, among other things he told me that his conversion to the King's cause (for I was saying that I wondered from what time the King could look upon him to become his friend,) commenced from his being in the Sound, when he found what usage he was likely to have from a Commonwealth." (1660.) The relaxation of religious stoutness which accompanied the Restoration, is notorious. This Pepys notices in his friend Mr. Creed, p. 106. "And so home, much wondering to see how things are altered with Mr. Creed, who, twelve months ago, might have been got to hang himself almost as soon as to go to a drinking-house on a Sunday." In this there is nothing new nor rare; in all ages men's opinions have been more dependant upon external circumstances, than on their own intellectual powers; and notions of propriety more especially are instilled according to the standard which is in vogue at the moment. Most persons however are intolerant from an overweening conceit of their own opinions, as being their own; and they too imagine, that to differ is to insult. Accordingly, it is an obvious truth, that this vice is the exclusive attribute of feeble narrow minds. Could it be clearly seen to what strange accidents we owe our opinions, not only in religion, but in politics, literature, metaphysics, and the like, it would be equally impossible for a rational being to take merit for them himself, or to be angry with others for not exhibiting the same modifications. Intolerance is a gross absurdity. The great length to which this article has extended itself, prevents our noticing the correspondence with various persons which occupies the half of the 2d volume, and closes the work. A large portion of it consists of letters between Pepys and Evelyn,-a sufficient guarantee that they merit perusal. Of the general character of these volumes, it is unnecessary to speak, the copious extracts which have been made from them in various periodicals, sufficiently prove the interest they have excited. In truth, it is difficult to find a chit-chat more amusing to the mere idler, while there are few books which will furnish more matter of thought, and more interesting information to those whose views in reading extend to instruction. Pepys's Memoirs will assuredly form a part of every good general library. In a mechanical point of view, the work is most creditably executed, the type and paper being excellent, and the illustrative engravings worthy of the artists whose names they bear. To Lord Braybrooke the public is deeply indebted for rescuing such valuable matter from the obscurity, not to say oblivion, of a college library and we most sincerely hope that his example will not be lost. The growing taste for this species of literature will ensure an ample remuneration to the labourer in the vineyard; and the number of MSS. latent in the different collections with which England abounds, promises an abundant harvest. In the general dearth of interesting publications which has marked the current literary season, Pepys's Memoirs is a perfect godsend. RECORDS OF WOMAN.-NO. II. Costanza. SHE knelt in prayer. A stream of sunset fell Bright waves of gold,-the autumn forest's hue- But she had told her griefs to Heaven alone, Filling its depths with soul, whene'er her hymn Went moaning through the grass, like sounds in dreams, She dwelt, and knew all secrets of their powers, All Nature's balms, wherewith her gliding tread To the sick peasant on his lowly bed Came, and brought hope; while scarce of mortal birth He deem'd the pale fair forin, that held on earth Communion but with grief. Ere long a cell, A rock-hewn chapel rose; a cross of stone Gleam'd through the dark trees o'er a sparkling well, And now 'twas prayer's own hour. That voice again The floating song. Strange sounds!-the trumpet's peal, And all was changed within the still retreat, The sweet saints prayers to heal him; then for flight, What mothers' eyes have watch'd in rosy sleep, Of the damp cheek they hung!-the eye's dark ray, |