Samuel Pepys and the World He Lived In. Wheatley Henry Benjamin

country had suffered by the presence of De Ruyter’s fleet in the Medway, they naturally looked round for someone to punish. It was the same feeling, only in a much intensified degree, which found expression at the time of the Crimean war in the cry, “Whom shall we hang?” A Parliamentary Committee was appointed in October, 1667, to inquire into everything relating to this business, at Chatham. Pepys is warned to prepare himself, as there is a desire to lay the blame upon the Commissioners of the Navy, and a resolution “to lay the fault heavy somewhere, and to punish it.”61 He therefore gives as clear a statement as possible, and satisfies the Committee for a time; but for months afterwards he is continually being summoned to answer some charge, so that he is mad to “become the hackney of this Office in perpetual trouble and vexation, that need it least.”62 Then breaks out a storm in the House of Commons against the Principal Officers of the Navy, and some members demand that they be put out of their places. The result is, that they are ordered to be heard in their own defence at the Bar of the House. The whole labour of defence falls upon Pepys, and he sets to work with a will to collect his evidence, and to display it in the most satisfactory manner. He is somewhat annoyed that the other officers can do little to help him; but he is proud that they, in spite of themselves, must rely upon him. The eventful day (5th March, 1667–68) at last arrives, and, having first fortified himself with half a pint of mulled sack and a dram of brandy, our Diarist stands at the Bar with his fellow-officers. But here we must use his own words, for it would be presumptuous to paraphrase the vivid account he himself gives:—“After the Speaker had told us the dissatisfaction of the House, and read the Report of the Committee, I began our defence most acceptably and smoothly, and continued at it without any hesitation or loss, but with full scope, and all my reason free about me, as if it had been at my own table, from that time (about twelve o’clock) till past three in the afternoon; and so ended without any interruption from the Speaker; but we withdrew. And there all my Fellow-officers and all the world that was within hearing, did congratulate me, and cry up my speech as the best thing they ever heard; and my Fellow-officers were overjoyed in it.” 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 addresses him the next day with the words, “Good morrow, Mr. Pepys, that must be Speaker of the Parliament-house;” and the Solicitor-General protests that he spoke the best of any man in England. One man says that he would go twenty miles to hear such another speech; and another, although he had sat six-and-twenty years in Parliament, had never heard anything like it before; and there is much more to the same effect.

      I do not find that Pepys ever distinguished himself by another speech, although he sat for several years in the House of Commons; and there is therefore reason to doubt his oratorical powers. In fact, it is easy to explain the secret of his success, for he was speaking on a subject that he thoroughly understood to an audience that understood it but imperfectly. Still we must give Pepys due credit for his achievement. He had a bad case, and yet he seems to have converted his audience. It was here that his clear-headedness and remarkable powers of arrangement were brought into play, and having at the same time his whole soul in the matter, he easily carried his hearers with him.

      The praises he received raised up a strong desire in his breast to become a Parliament-man. He hints at this design on the 5th of December, 1668, and again, on the 19th of February, 1668–69, he opens the matter to his friend, Sir William Coventry, who likes the idea mightily, and promises to speak about it to the Duke of York. A few more months, and his eyes—which already, as we have seen, had given him trouble—become so much worse that he begins to think seriously of taking rest. On the 16th of May, 1669, he draws 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, the Duke takes him to the King, who expresses his great concern at the state of his eyes, and gives him the leave he desires.63 On the 31st of May, 1669, the pen that has written so much to amuse us is put to the paper for the last time; and the “Diary” ends with these words of deep but 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 therefore resolve, from this time forward to have it kept by my people in longhand, and must be contented to set down no more than is fit for them and all the world to know; or if there be any thing, which cannot be much, now my amours are past, and my eyes hindering me in almost all other pleasures, I must endeavour to keep a margin in my book open, to add here and there, a note in short-hand with my own hand. And so I betake myself to that course, which is almost as much as to see myself go in to my grave: for which and all the discomforts that will accompany my being blind, the good God prepare me!” The “Diary” is one of the most curious of psychological studies, and surely no other man has so relentlessly laid bare his secret motives. When he does a good action from a good motive, he cannot forbear to add a dirty little motive as well. There is no posing for effect, such as the writers of confessions adopt, and herein consists the chief charm of the book.

      I cannot pretend to draw the character of the Diarist, for he has done that himself in his own vivid manner; but a few of his leading characteristics may be set down here. Two of the most prominent of these characteristics are his money-grubbing and his love of women.

      1. Money-grubbing. His paramount anxiety is to get money, and we find him constantly making up his accounts in order to see how much better off he is this month than he was in the last. He takes care that no opportunity of money-getting shall be allowed to slip, and he certainly succeeds in his endeavours; for whereas, at the opening of the “Diary,” he is only worth about £40, he makes £3,560 in the year 1665, while his salary as Clerk of the Acts remains at £350. In the following year he only made £2,986.64

      The same prudent habits that made Pepys so careful in casting up his accounts induced him to make a new will as changes were required. On the 17th of March, 1659–60, he bequeathed all that he possessed (but this was not very much at that time) to his wife, with his French books, the other books being left to his brother John. Another will was made on August 10th, 1665, because the town was so unhealthy “that a man cannot depend upon living two days.” We have fuller particulars of the will of May 27th, 1666, by which Pall Pepys, the Diarist’s sister, was to have £500, his father £2,000, and his wife the rest of his estate—“but to have £2,500 secured to her though by deducting out of what I have given my father and sister.” Another will was prepared in the following year, by which Pepys left all he possessed to be equally divided between his wife and father.65

      2. Admiration for women. Some of the oddest passages in the “Diary” grew out of this trait in Pepys’s character; and one can only marvel that he thought it well to set down such passages on paper. When he came to Gravesend, after Charles II.’s landing, he kissed “a good handsome wench,” because she was the first he had seen for a great while;66 and, at another time, the widow of a naval officer came to see him, apparently on business, when he had “a kiss or two of her, and a most modest woman she is.”67 His gallantry was so great as even to cause him to kiss the mouth of Katherine of Valois, whose body was exposed at Westminster Abbey. He seems to have performed this act with great content, for he notes particularly that on his birthday, February 23rd, 1668–69 (being then thirty-six years of age), he “did first kiss a queen.” Although he was always ready to kiss the ladies he met, his admiration was often quite disinterested; this was peculiarly the case with regard to the two Court beauties, the Duchess of Richmond and the Countess of Castlemaine, to neither of whom, apparently, he ever spoke. There is an odd little entry which he made on the 9th of September, 1668, that well illustrates this feeling of his. The Duke of Richmond wanted to consult Pepys about his yacht, and sent for him to his lodgings in Whitehall. Pepys hoped to have seen the Duchess, but found that she was in the country; so he adds, “I shall make much of this acquaintance, that I may live to see his lady near.” But the Clerk of the Acts’ chief admiration was

61

“Diary,” Oct. 21, 1667.

62

Feb. 11, 1667–68.

63

“Diary,” May 24, 1669. “To Whitehall where I attended the Duke of York and was by him led to the King.” To this passage Lord Braybrooke added this note: “It seems doubtful whether the expression of being led to the King has any reference to the defective state of Pepys’s vision. Perhaps he might wish to make the most of this infirmity, in the hope of strengthening his claim for leave of absence.” It is rather too absurd to think that the Duke of York would lead Pepys by the hand through the corridors of the palace. If a guide had been needed, the services of a less august personage could surely have been obtained.

64

The particulars of his accounts, as given in the “Diary,” are very curious, and it may be worth while here to tabulate some of them.

About this time he appears to have made but little extra money, for his monthly balances vary only a few pounds, sometimes more and sometimes less:—

This year he made money by prizes and fees for victualling, so that by Dec. 31 he had raised his estate to £4,400.

After this he did not pay so much attention to these details, and on Jan. 23, 1668–69, he says that he is two years behindhand.

65

“Diary,” June 13, 1667.

66

June 8, 1660.

67

Dec. 21, 1665.