No More Learning

Not only were both possessed of exceptional
and unusually varied practical command of metre, but both had a
strong inclination to criticism ; a sound acquaintance, in Jonson's
case more specially with ancient, in Dryden's with modern, litera-
ture; and a vigorous argumentative faculty. Moreover, we know,
on their own authority, that both did treat, or, at least, intended
to treat, the subject thoroughly. But, in neither case does any full
treatment exist, and—which is more provoking—though we may
guess, we cannot, if (as, indeed, is not very commonly done) we
control our guesswork by positive evidence, be at all certain
what the general purport of either would have been.
The facts as to Jonson are these. He glances at prosody in
his incompleted English Grammar, distinguishes English from
classical quantity, but quits the subject with promise of treatment
‘in the heel of the book '—which heel was either never reached, or
perished in the burning of his study. In Discoveries, there is
little or nothing prosodic. In the more dubious, but probably, in
the main, trustworthy, Conversations with Drummond, however,
there are prosodic touches of great but tantalising interest. When
a man thinks Abraham Fraunce 'a fool' for writing quantitative
hexameters and John Donne worthy of 'hanging for not keeping
accent,' the opinions are noteworthy enough; but, as it happens,
they might be connected and systematised in quite different ways.
1 See vol. VII, chap. v.


## p. 239 (#261) ############################################

Prosodic Sentences in Jonson and Dryden 239
Spenser's metre, it is said, did not please Jonson ; but there are
several ways in which it may have displeased him. The central
statement-most definite in one part and most ambiguous in
another part—is that he not merely intended to perfect an Epic
Poem. . . all in couplets, for he detested all other rimes,' but had
actually written a Discourse of Poesy both against Campion and Daniel,
especially this last, where he proves couplets to be the bravest sort of verses
especially when they are broken like hexameters, and that cross-rhymes and
stanzas . . . were all forced.
Now, except as to the growing dislike of the stanza, where we
have the above mentioned corroboration of Drayton, and the
preference of the couplet, where we have the corroboration of
the whole history just surveyed, this gives us very little positive
information. Indeed, the phrase 'broken like hexameters' is
almost hopelessly susceptible of various and even opposite inter-
pretations. Those who like to take separate phrases, place their
own interpretations upon them and then infer and deduce away
merrily, may reconstruct Ben Jonson's Discourse of Poesy. The
present writer declines the task, though he feels tolerably certain
as to the probable drift of some passages.
The situation repeats itself, with a curious general similarity,
at the other end with Dryden. In his copious critical work,
passages of definite prosodic bearing are extraordinarily few, and
mostly slight and vague. There is, indeed, one exception, in the
Dedication of the Aeneisl. This contains a disclaimer of hiatus
caused by the want of a caesura' (as he oddly calls elision),
which disclaimer is extended into a valuable general rule that
'no vowel can be cut off before another when we cannot
sink the pronunciation? ; some curious comparisons of English
with French and Italian prosody; a commendation of the occa
sional alexandrine (warranted by Jonson and Cowley); and one
or two other things. But the most important sentence is, again, a
pain of Tantalus. ' 'I have long had by me the materials of an
English Prosodia containing all the mechanical rules of versifica-
tion, wherein I have treated, with some exactness, of the feet, the
quantities and the pauses. ' Alas! either these materials were
never worked up (though 'I have treated' looks positive enough)
or else both they and the working up were lost. It may, indeed,
be observed in passing, that the absence of any remains' or
6
1 Essays, vol. II, p. 217, ed. Ker, W. P.
? It should be observed that this rule is far reaching; and that, in particular, it cuts
at those systems of Miltonic and other prosody which would dissociate pronunciation
from metrical value.


## p. 240 (#262) ############################################

240 The Prosody of the Seventeenth Century
>
6
posthumous publication of any kind in the case of a writer so
prolific and industrious as Dryden is remarkable.
But, however this may be, the English Prosodia, apparently, is
in limbo with A Discourse of Poesy; and, in this case, as in the
other, we can only conjecture what the contents would have been.
By an odd sequence, however, which was probably not a coin-
cidence merely, Dryden had been but a few months in his grave
when the first book deserving the name of an English Prosodia'
appeared. The work of Bysshe does not belong to this chapter;
but it is evidently deduced-imperfectly, pedantically and one-
sidedly enough—from the practice of the period of Dryden him-
self, though it excludes or depreciates, and sometimes explicitly
condemns, many of the saving graces and enfranchising easements
which characterise Dryden's work. But its faults look forward
rather than backward and, therefore, we must not say any more
of it for the present.
It is, however, worth while to point out that even Dryden,
with his remarkable acuteness and catholicity of appreciation,
would have been hard put to it to devise a Prosodia which should
do equal justice to the verse of the generation before him and
that of his own youth, as well as to his own and that of his
contemporaries. The changes were not only too great but too
intricate and too gradual to be discriminatingly allowed for by
anyone without larger assistance from what one of his own
admirable phrases calls 'the firm perspective of the past. ' That
assistance has been utilised here as much as possible ; and it is
hoped that the result may at least help some readers to do some-
thing like the justice which even Dryden could hardly have done
to the verse of the whole period covered in the present chapter.
6


## p. 241 (#263) ############################################

CHAPTER X
MEMOIR AND LETTER WRITERS
I. EVELYN AND PEPYS
DIARIES are usually written for the writer's own private in
formation, and their production has been common in most ages.
They have sometimes been made use of as the foundation for
subsequently published reminiscences; but very few have been
printed as they were originally written. The two great exceptions
to this general rule are the diaries of John Evelyn and Samuel
Pepys, and these may be ranked as distinguished illustrations of
two distinct classes of diary. The one is a record of occurrences
in the life of the writer, and the other a relation of a mixture of
incidents and confessions.
The latter must be the rarer of the two, and Pepys's work is
supreme in its class. Of the former class, two examples covering
somewhat the same period as that occupied by Evelyn and Pepys
are known. The Diurnall of Thomas Rugge, which covers the
years 1659 to 1672, still remains unprinted; but Narcissus Luttrell's
Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs (1678–1714) was pub-
lished in 18571. It ends abruptly, with an unfinished sentence, on
1 April 1714. As Luttrell lived more than eighteen years after this
date, dying on 27 June 1732, it is possible that some volumes of
the diary have been lost. He was well known as a collector of
books, broadsides and manuscripts; but Thomas Hearne, in his
diary, gives a very unflattering portrait of the man. Luttrell's
diary contains passages of interest concerning Evelyn, Pepys,
Dryden and many of their contemporaries. These two books are
of historical value, but they are largely compiled from the news-
letters of the time and are not of any literary value. The diaries
1 Luttrell's original MS (in 17 vols. 8vo), which was bequeathed (towards the end of
the eighteenth century) to All Souls college, Oxford, by Luttrell Wynne, is preserved in
the college library.
16
E. LVIII.
CH. x.


## p. 242 (#264) ############################################

242
Memoir and Letter Writers
.
of Evelyn and Pepys, besides being of great historical interest as
contemporary records, also hold a high position among literary
works.
In face of the fact that both Evelyn and Pepys were men of
mark, it seems strange that these valuable historical documents,
although known to be in existence, were allowed to remain in
manuscript until the first quarter of the nineteenth century.
If, for one moment, we consider what the history of the restoration
era would be if all we have learned from these two writers were
blotted out, we shall see at once how greatly their writings have
added to our knowledge of that period. It will be remembered,
how Macaulay once dreamt that a niece of his had forged Pepys's
diary, and that the news, as well it might, plunged him into the
greatest dismay:
It was primarily due to the intelligence of William Upcott, biblio-
grapher and devoted lover of autographs, that Evelyn's diary first
saw the light. On Upcott's being employed by lady Evelyn, the
owner of Wotton, to inspect her collection of manuscripts, his
attention was particularly attracted to the original manuscript of
the diary. When, by his advice, its publication was decided upon,
it was thought expedient to obtain the services of the Surrey anti-
quary and topographer William Bray as editor. Bray, who was an
elderly man when he undertook the task, did not do very much
towards the illustration of the book; but Upcott continued his
interest in the work and was an able assistant to him. The diary
and correspondence was published in 1818, and received by the
public with great satisfaction; a second edition appeared in the
following year, and the diary has continued to be reprinted as a
standard work in a large number of different forms.
The two volumes issued in 1818 contain several references to
Samuel Pepys, and these seem to have directed the practical
attention of the master of Magdalene college, Cambridge (George
Grenville), to the somewhat mysterious six volumes written in
shorthand which were carefully preserved in the Pepysian library.
He took the opportunity of a visit by his distinguished kinsman
lord Grenville, who, as secretary of state for foreign affairs, was
well acquainted with secret characters, to bring the MS under
his notice. Lord Grenville, puzzling over its pages, left a trans-
lation of a few of these, an alphabet and a list of arbitrary signs
for the use of the decipherer that was to be. These aids to his
work were handed to John Smith, then an undergraduate of
1 Trevelyan, Sir G. O. , Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, 1878, vol. 11, p. 428.


## p. 243 (#265) ############################################

Diaries of Evelyn and Pepys Compared 243
St John's college (afterwards rector of Baldock, Herts), who under-
took to decipher the whole. He began his labours in the spring of
1819 and completed them in April 1822, having thus worked for
nearly three years, usually for twelve or fourteen hours a day.
This was a great and difficult undertaking, carried out with
complete success. The decipherer, writing on 23 March 1858,
gave the following particulars as to his work:
The MS. extended to 3012 quarto pages of shorthand, which furnished
9325 quarto pages in longhand and embraced 314 different shorthand charac-
ters, comprising 391 words and letters, which all had to be kept continually
in mind, whilst the head, the eye and hand of the decipherer were all engaged
on the MS.
Smith says that the eminent shorthand writer William Brodie
Gurney assured him that neither he nor any other man would ever
be able to decipher it, and two other professors of the art confirmed
his opinion'. The shorthand used by Pepys was the system of
Thomas Shelton, author of Tachygraphy, 1641, although Lord
Braybrooke was under the impression that it resembled Rich's
system. This opinion put some persons on a wrong scent, and it is
affirmed that two friends in America, who usually practised two
modern and briefer systems, corresponded with each other in
Rich's, which they had mastered out of interest in Pepys.
Evelyn and Pepys were lifelong friends, and they had many
business relations in connection with the navy which were carried
on in a spirit of mutual esteem. There was a certain likeness
between the two men in public spirit and literary tastes; but
there was, perhaps, still more divergence in their characters, as
shown by their respective diaries. Both were of gentle birth, but
Evelyn belonged to the class of 'men of quality, and was a
frequenter of courts, while Pepys had to make his own way in the
world by his tenacity of purpose and great abilities. Although the
two diaries are closely united in popular esteem, they differ greatly
in the length of the periods which they cover as well as in the
character of their contents. Evelyn's work practically deals with
the whole of his life, having been begun at a comparatively early
age and continued until a short time before his death, while Pepys's
(although of considerably greater length) only occupies a little
over nine years of his busy career.
a
The figure of John Evelyn stands out in our history as a repre-
sentative of the model English country gentleman-a man of the
1 See The Eagle, a magazine supported by members of St John's college, Cambridge,
March 1898, pp. 238–43.
16-2


## p. 244 (#266) ############################################

244
Memoir and Letter Writers
world, of culture and of business—and his occupation in later life,
- at Wotton, the beautiful old Surrey country house, with its woods
planted by himself, has formed an appropriate background for his
picturesque figure. He was a calm and dignified man, largely
taken up by the duties of his family and his social position, for,
although peculiarly fitted for the contemplative life, he did not
shirk the responsibilities of his station, but consistently carried
out in an efficient and thoroughly businesslike manner the impor-
tant duties undertaken by him. All the many books he produced
during his life are of interest; but Evelyn was not a professed
author, and his publications were mostly intended to meet some
particular want which he had descried. That his judgment was
not often at fault is seen by the fact that several of his books
went through many editions.
Evelyn’s diary really tells the history of his life, and tells it
well. The diarist is contented to relate facts and seldom analyses
his feelings or gives his opinions; nevertheless, his fine character
is exhibited in lifelike proportions. Southey said of him that
Satire from whom nothing is sacred, scarcely attempted to touch him
while living; and the acrimony of political and religious batred, though it
spares not the dead, has never assailed his memoryl,
John Evelyn's father, Richard Evelyn, kept a diary, and the son
began to follow the father's example in the year 1631; but the
diary we possess cannot have been undertaken until a much later
period of his life, although his birth at Wotton on 31 October 1620
begins the record. After some unconnected teaching, which began
when he was four years old, he was placed in the free school
of Southover in January 1630, where he remained until he was
entered, in 1637, as a fellow-commoner of Balliol college, Oxford.
In 1640, his father died, and, at the age of twenty, he was left his
own master. Richard Evelyn was a man of ample means, his estate
being estimated as worth about £40,000 a year; and, when high
sheriff of Surrey and Sussex, he distinguished himself by his
princely hospitality. John was the second son; but George, the
eldest, was attached to his brother and always encouraged him to
feel that Wotton was his home. The growing political troubles
caused Evelyn to leave England for a time; so he embarked for
Holland on 21 July 1641, and made good use of his time in visiting
some of the chief continental towns. He returned to England on
12 October and, at Christmas, was appointed one of the comp-
trollers of the Middle Temple revels; but, wishing to spend the
· The Quarterly Review, XIX, 53.


## p. 245 (#267) ############################################

Evelyn's Younger Days and Travels 245
holidays at Wotton, he obtained leave to resign his staff of
office.
Evelyn was a cavalier and a hearty royalist; but, as Sir Leslie
Stephen says, “his zeal was tempered with caution. ' This may be
seen in the instance of the battle of Brentford (12 November 1642)
between the royal and parliamentary troops. Evelyn came in with
his horse and arms just at the retreat, and he only stayed with the
royal army until the 15th, because it was about to march to
Gloucester. Had he marched with it, he and his brothers would
have been exposed to ruin, without any advantage to the king.
So he returned to Wotton, and no one knew that he had been with
the royal army.
)
In spite of his attempts to live in retirement at Wotton, he
was forced to leave the country, in order to escape the constant
pressure upon him to sign the covenant. Therefore, in November
1643, he obtained from Charles I a licence to travel, and he
made an extensive tour on the continent, the particulars of which
are recorded in the diary in an interesting narrative. The
diarist tells just the things we want to know, and many bits of
information given by him help us to form a vivid picture of the
places which he visited, both in France and Italy. The galleys at
Marseilles and the beauty of malls at Blois and Tours (where 'pall
mall' was played) are specially noted. He passed across the Alps
from Italy to Geneva, and, after travelling along many miles of
level country, came suddenly to the mountains. He remarks that
nature seemed to have swept up the rubbish of the earth in the
Alps, to form and clear the plains of Lombardy. Bears and wolves
abounded in the rocky fastnesses; and, the accommodation for
travellers being of the most meagre description, they had some
excuse for speaking of the horrid mountains' in what is now the
playground of Europe. '
On Thursday 27 June 1647, Evelyn was married by John Earle
(afterwards bishop of Salisbury) to Mary, daughter of Sir Richard
Browne, Charles I's resident at the French court, with whom, on
his first visit to Paris, Evelyn became very intimate. His newly
married wife was a mere child of fifteen, and when, after an
absence of four years, he returned to England, he left her 'under
the care of an excellent lady and prudent mother. ' On 10 October
1647, he kissed the captive king's hand at Hampton court, and gave
him an account of certain things he had in charge to tell. He also
went to see Sayes court at Deptford, then inhabited by a brother-
in-law of its owner, Sir Richard Browne. A little over a year after


## p. 246 (#268) ############################################

246
Memoir and Letter Writers
this, Evelyn himself took up his residence at Sayes court, which
was associated with him for many years of his life.
About the same time (January 1648—9) appeared his first publi-
cation, a translation from the French of an essay by François de la
Mothe Le Vayer, entitled Liberty and Servitude. In the preface,
Evelyn was overbold in his reference to the captive king; and, in
his own copy of this little volume, he wrote the following pencil
note: 'I was like to be call'd in question by the Rebells for this
booke, being published a few days before His Majesty's decollation. '
At midsummer of the same year (1649), he left England for a time,
as it was not then a place where a pronounced royalist could
live with comfort. In September 1651, he visited Hobbes of
Malmesbury in Paris, from whose window he saw the procession
of the young king Louis XIV (then in his fourteenth year) to
parliament, where he took upon himself the government. After-
wards, Evelyn accompanied Sir Richard Browne to an audience
with the king and his mother. The news of the decisive battle of
Worcester, fought on 3 September, did not reach Paris until the
twenty-second of the month. This event dashed all the hopes of
the royalists, and Evelyn decided to settle with his wife in England.
He went first, at the beginning of 1652, Mrs Evelyn following in
June. It was an adventurous journey; for, at the time when the
party escaped from Paris, that city was being besieged by Condé.
Thus ended Evelyn's travels abroad, which occupied nearly ten
years of his life, and the account of which takes up more than a
third of the diary. He now quietly settled with his wife in
England. In January 1653, he sealed the writings connected with
his purchase from the commonwealth of Sayes court, for which he
paid £3500. When the property was securely in his own possession
(though, in 1672, the king would only renew the lease of the pastures
for 99 years), Evelyn began to set out the oval garden, which, he
says, was the beginning of all succeeding gardens, walks, groves,
enclosures and plantations. Before he took it in hand, the place
was nothing but an open field of one hundred acres, with scarcely
a hedge in it, so that he had a fine scope for his skill in the art of
horticulture.
There is little to record of his experiences during this com-
paratively quiet period of his life, besides the birth and death of
some of his children, and the production of the children of his
brain, a notice of which will be found in the bibliography. His
eldest child Richard was born in 1652 and died in 1658. The father
was very proud of his boy, who was so filled with the ardour of
2


## p. 247 (#269) ############################################

Evelyn's Later Life and Activities 247
a
knowledge that, when he was told that Terence and Plautus were
too difficult for him, he wept for very grief and would hardly be
pacifiedDuring these years, Evelyn was in the constant practice
of sending abroad intelligence to Charles II; and he mentions, in
his diary for 22 October 1657, that he had contracted a friendship
with the Dutch ambassador, whose information he found of great
use in his correspondence with the king.
We now come to the period when the diaries of Evelyn and
Pepys cover somewhat the same ground; thus, there is much about
the newly-founded Royal Society in both, for the two men were
greatly interested in its proceedings. In December 1660, Boyle,
Oldenburg, Denham, Ashmole and Evelyn were elected fellows,
and, in the following January, Evelyn was one of those whom the
king nominated as members of council. From this time forward,
the records of the society prove how constant an attendant he was
at the meetings. Pepys did not join the society until 1664.
In 1672, Evelyn was elected secretary, in place of his friend
Thomas Henshaw; but he only held the office for a single year.
Ten years afterwards, he was importuned to stand for election as
president; infirmities were, however, growing upon him, and he
desired his friends to vote, in his stead, for Sir John Hoskins, who
was elected. Eleven years later, he was again importuned to take
the presidentship, but he again refused? Pepys was president for
two years from 1684; and, after his retirement, he continued to
entertain some of the most distinguished fellows.
34
Immediately after the restoration, Evelyn's public life became
a very busy one. He was employed on many important com-
missions, without slackening in his literary labour. In 1661, he
published, by the king's special command, Fumifugium, or The
inconvenience of the Air and Smoke of London dissipated.
Charles was pleased with the book, and commanded the author
to prepare a bill for the next session of parliament to make certain
provisions for the prevention of evils caused by smoke in London;
but the royal interest cooled, and nothing was done.
A curious instance of the value of these diaries in respect to
notices of passing events may be found in the narrative of the
adoption of a special costume by the king and his court, in
opposition to the fashions of the French. The whole story is
1 Diary, 27 January 1657/8; and see Evelyn's translation of The Golden Book of
St John Chrysostom, 1658.
. Cf. , as to Evelyn's interest in science, and his connection with the Royal Society,
post, chap. xv.


## p. 248 (#270) ############################################

248
Memoir and Letter Writers
amusing, as showing how an international quarrel may arise out
of a very small matter. In 1661, Evelyn published a booklet
entitled Tyrannus, or the Mode, in which he condemns the
tyranny of a foreign fashion, and urges Charles II to form a
standard for his people, writing, we have a Prince whose shape
is elegant and perfect to admiration. ' Henrietta, duchess of
Orleans, was of the same opinion as to her brother doing justice
to the costume she suggested. She wrote to him on 8 April 1665:
Madame de Fiennes having told me that you would be glad to see a
pattern of the vests that are worp here, I take the liberty of sending you
one, and am sure that on your fine figure it will look very welli,
On 10 October 1666, Evelyn wrote:
To Court. It being the first time His Majesty put himself solemnly into
the Eastern fashion of vest, changing doublet, stiff coller, bands and cloake
into a comely dress, after the Persian mode, with girdle, or straps and shoe
strings and garters into boucles, of which some were set with precious stones:
resolving never to alter it.
The courtiers wagered the king that he would not persist in his
resolution, and they soon won their bets. Evelyn, in his book,
takes credit for having suggested this change of costume. Pepys
gives an account (22 November 1666) of the sequel of the story,
which is that Louis XIV caused all his footmen to be put into
vests like those adopted by Charles II. Pepys adds: 'It makes
me angry to see that the King of England has become so little as
to have this affront offered to him. '
After the restoration, special attention was paid to the wants
of the navy, and the officers of the navy found great difficulty in
obtaining the timber required in shipbuilding. There had been a
serious destruction of woods caused by the glassworks, the iron
furnaces and, partly, by the increase of shipping; and this destruc-
tion had culminated during the period of the civil wars. Not only
was destruction rampant, but cultivation was neglected. In its
difficulty, the navy office propounded certain queries to the Royal
Society, who gave them to Evelyn to answer. Thus originated
that noble book Sylva (1664), which revived the spirit of planting
in England, and exerted an enormous influence upon the future of
the country. Evelyn was able to say, in his dedication to the king:
'Many millions of timber trees have been propagated and planted
at the instigation and by the sole direction of this work. '
Evelyn obtained his first public appointment in May 1662,
when he was chosen one of the commissioners for reforming the
buildings, ways, streets and encumbrances, and regulating the
i Cartwright, Julia (Mrs Henry Ady), Madame, p. 210.


## p. 249 (#271) ############################################

Evelyn's Public Services
249
hackney coaches, in London. About the same time, he was appointed
on a commission for the purpose of enquiring how the revenues of
Gresham college had been disposed of, and why the salaries of
the professors were not improved. Little came of either of these
commissions. He was appointed on others; but he was not in full
public employment until 1664, when he was named one of four
commissioners for dealing with the sick and wounded in the Dutch
war. This was a most onerous duty, which caused him immense
anxiety, not only in providing accommodation and food, but as to
meeting the difficulty of obtaining money. In May 1665, Evelyn was
called into the council chamber before the king, when he explained
why the expenses of the commission were not less than £1000
a week. In June, he asked for £20,000, and he obtained the use
of Savoy hospital, where he fitted up fifty beds. The plague was
then raging in London; and he was left single-handed to deal with
the vast business of providing for the sick and wounded prisoners.
It is interesting to note that, when others fled, Pepys, as well as
Evelyn, remained to do their duty in the plague-stricken city.
On 17 September 1666, Evelyn received news of the defeat of
the Dutch by lord Sandwich, and learned that 3000 prisoners had
been sent to him to dispose of. He was at a loss how to deal with
this great responsibility, but proposed the erection of an infirmary
at Chatham, and made an elaborate estimate of the cost, which he
sent to Pepys. The commissioners of the navy encouraged the
scheme, but they were without money, and the project fell through.
At this time, Evelyn required £7000 for the weekly expenses of his
charge, but he had great difficulty in obtaining it. Money was still
owing to him long after the revolution, and he had to petition for
his rights so late as March 1702, when some of his just charges
were disallowed. The highest office held by Evelyn was that of
one of the commissioners appointed to execute the office of lord
privy seal, in September 1685, when the second earl of Clarendon
was sent to Ireland as lord lieutenant. Evelyn took the test in
February 1686, and went to lodge at Whitehall, in the lord privy
seal's apartments. It was not an easy position for him, as he was
unable to agree to James II's arbitrary proceedings; and he refused
to put his seal to certain documents for purposes forbidden by acts
of parliament. In March 1687, the commissioners were relieved
of their duties. Evelyn was highly gratified by his appointment
as treasurer of Greenwich hospital in 1695, and laid the first stone
of the new building on 30 June of the following year. At the time
of the great fire of London, he was ready with help; and, like
7


## p. 250 (#272) ############################################

2 50
Memoir and Letter Writers
Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke, he prepared a plan of con-
siderable merit for the improved building of London. To the two
great diaries we owe many vivid pictures of this great calamity,
which was turned into a blessing by the self-reliant courage of the
men and women of London.
Evelyn was in every way admirable in his public life; but our
interest in him centres in his private virtues. He was a fast friend,
who stood by those he loved through good report and evil report.
He was not ashamed to visit those who were in disgrace, and, as
bishop Burnet tells us, was always ready to contribute everything
in his power to perfect other men's endeavours. ' His charity was
not of the kind which costs nothing; for we find that, when Jeremy
Taylor was in want, Evelyn settled an annual allowance upon him.
Both his benevolence and his taste were exhibited in his patronage
of Grinling Gibbons. The large correspondence which he left
behind him shows him to have been in relations of close intimacy
with some of the most worthy persons of his time. Clarendon
consulted him respecting the magnificent collection of portraits
which he gathered together, and Tenison asked his advice when
projecting a library for the parish of St Martin in the Fields.
A matchless collection of manuscripts which he had once possessed
and greatly valued gradually passed out of his custody through
the carelessness of borrowers. Some were lent to the duke of
Lauderdale, and, as he omitted to return them, were sold with
his library. Burnet borrowed others for his History of the Re-
formation, and asserted that they had been lost by the negligence
of the printers. Still more were borrowed by Pepys, and these are
now in the Pepysian library at Magdalene.
The best known of his friends was the beautiful Margaret
Blagge (afterwards Mrs Godolphin), who, in October 1672 (when
she was twenty years of age), gave him a signed declaration of
'inviolable friendship. ' Evelyn says in the diary (3 September
1678) that she regarded him as a father, a brother and what is
more a friend. . . . She was most deare to my wife and affectionate
to my children. ' Her Life, which he wrote some years after her
death and left in manuscript, first saw the light in 1847, under the
editorship of bishop Samuel Wilberforce. This volume has estab-
lished itself in popular esteem as the revelation of a beautiful
soul, by one who knew his subject thoroughly, and who was
able, with exquisite taste, to make the purity of a woman's life,
lived not in seclusion but in the midst of a vicious court, reveal
itself.


## p. 251 (#273) ############################################

Evelyn's Life of Mrs Godolphin 251
Lady Sylvius, to whom Evelyn afterwards addressed his Life
of Mrs Godolphin, introduced Margaret Blagge to Evelyn. She
was married privately to Sidney Godolphin (afterwards earl of
Godolphin), at the Temple church, on 16 May 1675; on which
Evelyn remarks, 'Her not acquainting me with this particular
of a good while after, occasioned a friendly quarrel between us. '
On 3 September 1678, she gave birth to a son, and she died of
puerperal fever on the 9th of September following. Evelyn's
expression of his grief occupies some space in the diary; but he
adds, 'It is not here that I pretend to give her character, having
design to consecrate her worthy life to posterity. ' Her husband
was so completely overcome by his grief at her loss that the entire
care of the funeral was committed to Evelyn? The two men who
loved her best looked over and sorted her papers, and they were
astonished 'to see what she had written, her youth considered. '
We have great cause to be grateful for the Life of Mrs
Godolphin, a book which, written with fidelity and charm, presents
to us a portrait of a woman who lived for those around her, and,
while always seeking heavenly guidance in her difficult position at
court, was never austere, but moved in her proper sphere with an
air of bright cheerfulness seasoned with witty speech. Her life,
however, was a great trial, and, when, at last, she was allowed to
take leave of the king and queen, her biographer tells us
the moment she sett foote in the coach her eyes sparkled with joy . . . the
roses of her cheeks were soe fresh and her countenance soe gay as if with the
rest of her perfections she had caryed all the beautyes as well as all the virtue
of the court away with her too. As she left the presence chamber a whisper
went round the circle-'the court had never such a starre in all its hemi-
sphere.
Evelyn was a good husband and a fond father, and the most
pathetic portions of the diary are devoted to the troubles which
came upon him owing to the early deaths of many of his children.
His widow thus testified in her will to her husband's devotion
to her:
•
His care of my education was such as might become a father, a lover, a
friend and a husband, for instruction, tenderness, affection and fidelity to
the last moment of his life; which obligation I mention with a gratitude to
his memory, ever dear to me; and I must not omit to own the sense of my
parent's care and goodness in placing me in such worthy hands.
1 Lady Sunderland, a woman of a different type, wrote to her favourite correspondent
Henry Sidney: «Mr Godolphin, I believe, will best like your saying nothing to him on
that subject, for dare swear there neither is, nor will be, any such thing as his
marriage. ' Diary of Henry Sidney, ed. Blencowe, R. W. , vol. I, p. 209.
>


## p. 252 (#274) ############################################

252 Memoir and Letter Writers
The publication of Evelyn's diary only increased the fame
of the writer, and added a fuller portraiture of one who was well
known before the new material appeared. On the other hand,
the fame of Pepys had so far escaped recognition at the time
of the publication of his diary that it was an entirely new man
who was now presented to public notice. The enthralling interest
of the diary has had the effect of urging lovers of Pepys to obtain
further information respecting him, with the result that we have
come to know much more respecting his life-history, and this know-
ledge has added greatly to our appreciation of the importance of the
author. The reputation of Samuel Pepys had much changed at
various times. When he died, his great qualities were generally
recognised, although he was half forgotten as years rolled by; but
it is to the credit of the admiralty that his name has always been
honoured there. Thus, his reputation remained the property of
an intelligent few until the end of the first quarter of the nine-
teenth century, when readers were startled by the appearance
of a work in which the inner life of the diarist is portrayed in a
manner absolutely unique and without either precedent or parallel.
Confessions have frequently been made in writing; but their
authors wrote them for the public eye, and their disclosures are
made in such a manner as to attract the reader's sympathy. This
was not so with Pepys's diary, for there can be no doubt that its
pages were never intended to be seen by other eyes than those of
the writer. Everyone read and was entertained. A new man was
added to the circle of our intimate friends a man whose con-
fessions are ever fresh and can never tire. Can we be surprised
that, for a time, little was thought of Pepys outside the diary?
With a revived public interest in the history of the navy came
the rediscovery of Pepys's great work at the admiralty.
Samuel Pepys went into the navy office without any knowledge
of any particular ships or of the navy as a whole; and yet, in
a few years, according to high authority, he had become the right
hand of the Navy,' and not only understood more of administration
than all the other officers (some of them brilliantly successful
admirals) put together, but, in spite of opposition, was able to
carry on the work of his office with no small success. Pepys was
a historical character of mark, for he figured in all the most
important scenes that occurred during his official life. He acted
with vigour during the Dutch war; and, when the Dutch fleet was
in the Medway, in 1667, he was among the few who, during a time
of national humiliation, deserved credit for their conduct. His
1
.
>
1
.


## p. 253 (#275) ############################################

Pepys's Early Life
253
name, too, stands out among those who performed their duty
during the terrible times of the plague and the fire of London.
He suffered during the reign of terror caused by the action of the
promoters of the trials of persons supposed to be involved in
the so-called popish plot. He was committed to the Tower in
May 1679; but, when brought before the privy council to answer
charges against him, he covered his influential enemies with con-
fusion, and his defence was so complete that he was ordered to be
set free without a trial. His last great work, as secretary of the
admiralty, was to reform the navy, which had been brought into a
dangerous state by an incompetent commission.
Samuel Pepys was born on 23 February 1632/3, probably in
London, since he tells us that, as a small boy, he went to school
with his bow and arrows across the fields to Kingsland. Later,
it is fair to suppose that his kinsman and patron through life,
Sir Edward Montagu, first earl of Sandwich, the 'My lord' of the
diary, sent him to school, first to Huntingdon grammar school,
then to St Paul's school, and, afterwards, to the university of
Cambridge. We may take it for certain that John Pepys never
had sufficient money for the satisfactory education of his son.
Samuel seems to have done fairly well at St Paul's, and he always
retained an affection for the school. At Cambridge, he was first
entered at Trinity hall; but, subsequently, he was transferred to
Magdalene college, of which, in after life, he became one of the
best friends? In 1655, he married Elizabeth St Michel, a pretty
girl, the daughter of an impecunious Frenchman and his English
wife. Mr and Mrs Pepys were a young and inexperienced couple,
the bridegroom being twenty-two years old and the bride only
fifteen? . The newly-married pair went to live at Sir Edward
Montagu's London house, and Pepys seems to have acted as a
sort of steward or factotum to‘My lord. ' On 26 March 1658,
Pepys underwent an operation for the stone, which was removed;
and, afterwards, he kept the anniversary of the operation as a
festival. In the same year, he became clerk (at a salary of £50)
to George Downing (who gave his name to Downing street).
1 See Purnell, E. K. , History of Magdalene College, Cambridge, chap. IX.
In connection with the date of this marriage, there is a most incomprehensible
confusion. Both Pepys and his wife believed that they were married on 10 October,
and they kept that day as the anniversary of the wedding. The register, however, gives
the date of the marriage as December 1. In the absence of further information on this
curious point, it seems that the only possible explanation is that a religious ceremony
of some sort was performed on 10 October 1655, just before the banns were published,
And that the civil marriage took place, as above stated, on 1 December.


## p. 254 (#276) ############################################

2 54
Memoir and Letter Writers
The diary opens on 1 January 1660, when Pepys was no longer
living at Sir Edward Montagu's, but in Axe yard, Westminster
(which stood on part of the site of the present India office), in a
very humble way of life, his family consisting of himself, his wife and
one servant named Jane. During the frosty weather, they have
not a coal in the house, and Samuel is forced to dine at his father's,
or to make himself as comfortable as he can in the garret. That
the larder is not very plentifully supplied is seen by the fact that,
on 1 February, he and his wife dine on pease pudding-a very
different meal from most of those recorded in the diary; but a
great change soon occurred in Pepys's condition. He had every
reason for welcoming the restoration, as it was through the change
of government that he obtained a comfortable income. This was
the turning-point of his career, when he became a prosperous
man.
Through Montagu's influence, he was appointed secretary to
the two generals of the fleet (Monck and Montagu). On 30 March
1660, Montagu and his party went on board the 'Naseby,' the ship
in which he had sailed to the Sound, Pepys accompanying him,
in the previous year. Things went slowly as well as surely; so
the ships remained in the neighbourhood of Deal, and it was not
until 3 May that Montagu received the king's declaration, and
a letter to the two generals. He dictated to Pepys the words in
which he wished the vote of the fleet in favour of the king to be
couched. The captains all came on board the 'Naseby,' and Pepys
read the letter and declaration to them; and, while they were
discoursing on the subject, he pretended to be drawing up the
form of vote, which Montagu had already settled. When the
resolution was read, it passed at once; and the seamen cried 'God
bless King Charles,' a cry that was echoed by the whole fleet.
About the middle of May, the English fleet was off the Dutch
coast, and, on the 22nd, the dukes of York and Gloucester came
on board the 'Naseby. Pepys took the opportunity to bespeak
the favour of the former, and was overjoyed when the duke called
him 'Pepys. ' This was the beginning of their long friendship.
Again through Montagu's influence, Pepys was appointed clerk
of the privy seal (which, for a time, turned out to be a very
profitable appointment) as well as clerk of the acts. Montagu
told Pepys: We must have a little patience, and we will rise
together; in the meantime I will do you all the good jobs I can'
(2 June 1660). Pepys's salary was fixed at £350 a year; at this
time, however, fixed salaries bore little relation to actual income,


## p. 255 (#277) ############################################

Pepys's Progress
255
9
which was largely obtained from fees. At the opening of the diary,
Pepys was only worth £40 and, at one time, found it difficult to
pay his rent; but, by June 1667, he had accumulated £6900.
Besides his salary, he had the advantage of a house in the navy
office, Seething lane, which he found very comfortable after the
little home at Westminster. The diary contains many particulars
of the new apartments, and of those belonging to his colleagues.
He lived here during all the time the diary was being written,
and he did not leave until he obtained the more important post
of secretary of the admiralty. One of the most interesting pas-
sages in the diary relates to the great speech he made at the bar
of the House of Commons on 5 March 1667-8. A storm of in-
dignation had been stirred up against the navy office, and this
storm burst in parliament when some members demanded that
officers should be put out of their places. The whole labour of
defence fell upon Pepys, and he presented his case with such
success, in a speech which occupied more than three hours in
delivery, that the House received it as a satisfactory defence, and
his fellow-officers, who were unable to assist him, were naturally
overjoyed at the result. The orator was congratulated on every
side, and the flattery he received is set down in the diary in all
good faith. Sir William Coventry addressed Pepys the next day
with the words 'Good morrow Mr Pepys that must be Speaker
of the Parliament House,' and the solicitor-general protested that
he spoke the best of any man in England. No report of this
important speech is known, and The Commons Journals merely
contain a statement that the principal officers of the navy appeared
at the bar, Pepys's name not being mentioned.
This was his first great public achievement; but he had
previously (1665) shown what grit was in him. One of the most
unsatisfactory divisions of the naval accounts related to the
pursers. He was early interested in the victualling department,
out of which he afterwards made much money; and, on 12 Sep-
tember 1662, we find him trying 'to understand the method of
making Purser's accounts, which is very needful for me, and very
hard. ' On 22 November 1665, he was pleased to have it demon-
strated that a Purser without professed cheating is a professed
loser twice as much as he gets. ' Pepys received his appointment
of surveyor general to the victualling office chiefly through the
influence of Sir William Coventry; and, on 1 January 1665/6, he
addressed a letter and New Yeares Guift' on the subject of the
pursers to his distinguished friend. He relates, in the diary, how


## p. 256 (#278) ############################################

256
Memoir and Letter Writers
he wrote the letter, and how Sir William praised his work to the
duke of York.
Pepys's habit of sitting up late reading and writing by candle-
light began to tell upon his eyesight, and, in January 1663/4, he
found that his sight failed him for the first time. On 5 October 1664,
he consulted the celebrated Edmund Cocker as to the glass which
would best suit his eyes at night; but the weakness of the eyes con-
tinued to trouble him, and he proposed to get some green spectacles.
How the eyesight became weaker, so that the diary had to be
discontinued, we all know to our great cost. On 16 May 1669,
Pepys drew up a rough copy of a petition to the duke of York for
leave of absence for three or four months. A few days after this
entry, the duke took him to the king, who expressed his great regret
for the cause of his trouble and gave him the leave he desired. On
31 May 1669, Pepys made his last entry; and the diary ends with
these words of deep and subdued feeling:
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 so I
betake myself to that course, which is almost as much as to see myself go into
my grave; for which, and all the discomforts that will accompany my being
blind, the good God prepare me! S. P.
We know that Pepys did not become blind, and that he lived for
over thirty-three years after the closing of the diary; but, having
closed the manuscript, he does not appear to have had the courage
to continue his record
The life of Pepys after the finish of the diary must be told in
brief, although it forms a most important period of his career.
He took advantage of his leave of absence to make a tour with
his wife in France and Holland, which seems to have done him
permanent good; but it was fatal to Mrs Pepys, who died shortly
after their return home on 10 November 1669, at the early age of
twenty-nine. Pepys suffered greatly from the death of his wife, to
whom he was beyond doubt deeply attached. He returned to the
navy office, but only for a short space of time; for, at the end of the
year 1672, he was appointed secretary of the admiralty, the duke
of York being suspended and king Charles taking over the office
of lord high admiral with the help of a commission. When Pepys
entered upon the office of greater honour, he, no doubt, annexed
to the admiralty much of the work he had previously done at the
navy office, and the latter did not regain the power which it had


## p. 257 (#279) ############################################

Pepys and the Popish Plot
257
possessed when under Pepys's superintendence. He made great
improvements in the personnel and business of the office; and,
during six years, he exercised a wise authority, causing officers to
be smart and constant to their duty.
Disaster came suddenly, without fault on Pepys's part, and
his career was closed for a time. In 1678, the popish plot was
invented, and the death of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey drove the
public mad with alarm, while unprincipled men took the oppor-
tunity of compromising their enemies in order to bring about
their condemnation on false issues. Pepys had enemies who
sought to sacrifice him by means, chiefly, of the fictitious evidence
of a miscreant named John Scott (calling himself colonel Scott).
He was first attacked through his clerk Samuel Atkins; but, when
the latter was brought to trial, in December 1678, as an accessory
in the supposed murder of Godfrey, he was able to prove an alibi.
Then, his enemies opened fire upon Pepys himself; and, on 22 May,
he and Sir Anthony Deane, his fellow member of parliament for
Harwich, were sent to the Tower on a baseless charge. Pepys,
with his usual thoroughness, set to work to obtain evidence against
Scott and sent agents to the continent and to the plantations in
North America, who returned with a large number of certified
documents proving the untrustworthiness of Scott's evidence and
his general dishonesty. These, when presented to the privy council,
were sufficient to allow the prisoners to be relieved of their bail
and set free on 12 February 1679/80. Scott refused to acknow-
ledge the truth of his original deposition, and John James,
previously a butler in Pepys's service, confessed, on his death-bed
in 1680, that he had trumped up the whole story relating to his
former master's change of religion at the instigation of William
Harbord, member of parliament for Thetford, one of the diarist's
most malignant enemies.
Pepys was now out of office, and remained unemployed for
some time, although he retained the confidence of the king. He
was sent to Tangier with lord Dartmouth, in 1683, and wrote a
diary of his proceedings during his stay there, which gives an
interesting picture of the condition of the place and a vivid
account of its maladministration. In 1684, he was again appointed
secretary to the admiralty, when the greatest undertaking of his
life was begun. The navy had been brought to a most serious
condition of decay by the neglect of an incompetent commission.
When he took office, he determined to reform the administration
and to supply the country with a sufficient number of thoroughly
17
E. L. VIII.
CH. X


## p. 258 (#280) ############################################

258
Memoir and Letter Writers
.
sound ships, and this intention he carried out with triumphant
success. Then came the revolution, and the man who had not
spared any pains in his endeavour to place the country in a proper
condition of national defence was sent by the new government to
the Gatehouse in Westminster as an enemy to the state. After a
time, he was released by the help of stalwart friends, and he now
entered into a period of honourable retirement, in which all his old
friends and his pupils and followers gathered round him, so that,
for the rest of his life, he was considered and treated as 'the Nestor
of the Navy,' his advice always being respectfully received. He
wrote his Memoires of the Navy (1690), which book contains full
particulars of the great work he had done, and kept up his general
interest in intellectual pursuits, for some years holding social
gatherings of fellows of the Royal Society at his home on Saturday
evenings. In 1700, he removed from York buildings (Buckingham
street) to what Evelyn calls his 'Paradisian Clapham. ' Here, he
lived with his old clerk and friend William Hewer; but his in-
firmities kept him constantly in the house. On 26 May 1703, he
breathed his last in the presence of the learned George Hickes,
the non-juring dean of Worcester, who bears witness to the big-
mindedness of the man, his patience under suffering and the fervent
piety of his end. He died full of honour—a recognition thoroughly
deserved by his public conduct through life; but he was shabbily
treated by the men in power. The last two Stewart kings were
many thousands of pounds—£28,007. 28. 11dn, to be exact-in his
debt, and the new government did not see that they were called to
help him in recovering it. They might, however, have considered
how much the country was indebted to him for a strong navy, and
remembered that most of the money owing to him had been spent
upon the state.
Pepys's diary is so various in its interest that it is not easy in a
few words to indicate where its chief distinction lies. The absolute
sincerity and transparent truth of the narrative naturally explains
much, but the vitality of the man and his intense interest in the
pageant of life supplies the motive power. Important events gain
by the strength of their presentment, and trivialities delight us
by the way in which they are narrated. Here is not only a
picture of the life and manners of the time, but, also, the
dissection of the heart of a man, and the exposure suggests a
psychological problem difficult of solution. We naturally ask how
it came to pass that the writer of the diary arrived at a perfection
of style suitable to the character of what he had to relate. Is it


## p. 259 (#281) ############################################

Secret of the Charm of Pepys's Diary 259
possible that he had previously practised the writing of a journal ?
We see the man grow in knowledge and power as the diary pro-
ceeds; but the narrative is equally good at the beginning and at
the end. Pepys apparently made notes on slips of paper and then
elaborated them without any unnecessary delay. It is remarkable
that there should be few or no corrections in the written manuscript.
He wrote in secret, and, when he unguardedly (at the time of his
detention in the Tower) told Sir William Coventry that he kept a
diary, he was immediately afterwards sorry for his indiscretion.
It is also matter for wonder that he should have trusted a binder
with the precious book. Was the binder brought into the house to
bind the pages under the writer's eye?
J
The brilliancy of the narrative and the intimacy of the
confessions so thoroughly charm the reader that, in many cases,
he overlooks the fact that, although Pepys was devoted to pleasure,
he was not absorbed by it, but always kept in view the main
object of his life—the perfection of the English navy. Pepys was
not a man of letters in the same way that Evelyn was one. When
the latter was interested in a subject, he wanted to write upon it,
and not only wanted to, but did write, as is shown by the list of
his works in our bibliography. This was not the case with Pepys.
Early in his official life, he proposed to write a history of the navy,
and collected materials for the purpose; but, although he talked
about the project, he never got at all forward with it.