Wheatley Henry Benjamin
Samuel Pepys and the World He Lived In
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 lavished upon the worthless Countess of Castlemaine. He is always delighted when he can get a glimpse of her; and he usually finds the play to be insipid if she does not grace the theatre with her presence. Even the sight of her clothes gives him pleasure, for he tells us that one day, in passing the Privy Garden at Whitehall, he saw her smocks and linen petticoats hanging out to dry, and it did him good to look upon them.68
Pepys was a pretty regular attendant at church, and he seems to have enjoyed a good sermon; but his chief delight was to look about for pretty women: thus, on the 26th of May, 1667, he went (alone, by-the-bye) to St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster, and there, he says, “Did entertain myself with my perspective glass up and down the church, by which I had the great pleasure of seeing and gazing at a great many very fine women; and what with that, and sleeping, I passed away the time till sermon was done.”
Our hero was very fond of pretty Betty Michell, and would take some trouble to get a sight of her; and there is a most ludicrous passage in the “Diary” in which he describes a mistake he made once at church. He went again to St. Margaret’s, in hopes of seeing Betty, and stayed for an hour in the crowd, thinking she was there “by the end of a nose” that he saw; but at last, to his great disgust, the head turned towards him, and it was only her mother; he naturally adds, “which vexed me.”69 Although he gave his wife much cause to be jealous, he was inclined, without any cause, to be jealous of her; and, from his own account, he seems often to have treated her in a very boorish manner. One would have liked to have read the lady’s account of the constant little squabbles which occurred; but Pepys was not of the same opinion, for on one occasion, when he found a paper which his wife had written on the “disagreeables” of her life, he burnt it, in spite of her remonstrances.70
Pepys’s nature was singularly contradictory, and in summing up the chief points of his character, we can do little more than make a catalogue of his various qualities, giving the bad ones first, and then enumerating the good ones as a set-off. Thus, he was unfaithful to his wife, and a coward, yet he knew his faults, and could try to amend them. He was vain, ignorant, credulous, and superstitious; yet he had scholarly tastes, and his orderly and business habits were so marked that they alone would point to him as a man out of the common run. He was mean, and yet he was also generous. This seems a harsh verdict, but it can easily be proved to be true, and we will proceed to notice the several points seriatim.
As to his unfaithfulness, his own description of his conduct towards several women makes it probable; but, in the instance of Deb Willett, there can be no doubt. This episode, which occurred in October and November, 1668, is by far the most painful one in the “Diary.”71 Pepys appears to have been infatuated, and, in spite of his struggles, he fell. He repented, and prayed fervently in his chamber that he might not fall again. He resolved not to give any new occasion for his wife’s jealousy, and he found great peace in his mind by reason of this resolution.72
He was a coward, for on one occasion he was so angry with the cookmaid that he kicked her. He was not sorry for doing this, but he was vexed that Sir William Penn’s footboy saw him, and would probably tell the family.73
His vanity may be taken for granted, as every line of the “Diary” shows it. He was ignorant of history, for he expected to find an account of England’s dominion on the sea in “Domesday Book.”74 As to his credulity, he appears to have believed everything that was told him, however absurd. His superstition is shown in his belief in charms and in most of the popular delusions of his time; and also by his subterfuges, as when he opens a letter, and does not look at it until the money has fallen out, so that he may be able to say that he saw no money in the paper, if he should be questioned about it.75
He was mean, for he grudges money for his wife, while he spends liberally on himself; he is stingy to his father, and dislikes lending money to the benefactor from whom all his prosperity originally came. Yet he could be singularly generous at times. He gave £600 to his sister Paulina as her marriage portion;76 and, after quarrelling with his wife because she had spent twenty-five shillings on a pair of earrings without his leave,77 he pays £80 for a necklace which he presents her with.78 Of his scholarly tastes and business habits we shall have an opportunity of saying somewhat further on.
Perhaps, on the whole, the most remarkable characteristic of the man was his total want of the imaginative faculty. Here was one who had been well educated, and had kept up his learning through life; who had an artistic taste, and was a thorough musician; who could not so much as understand true wit or the higher poetry. “Midsummer Night’s Dream” was insipid and ridiculous to him,79 and he found “Hudibras” so silly that he was ashamed of it.80
I must leave my readers to answer the question why it is that, in spite of all that has been said, Pepys can stand the ordeal through which we have passed him; and why it is that, with all his faults, we cannot put his book down without some sort of affection for the man?
CHAPTER III.
PEPYS AFTER THE “DIARY.”
“Truly may it be said that this was a greater and more grievous loss to the mind’s eye of his posterity, than to the bodily organs of Pepys himself. It makes me restless and discontented to think what a Diary, equal in minuteness and truth of portraiture to the preceding, from 1669 to 1688 or 1690, would have been for the true causes, process, and character of the Revolution.”—Coleridge’s MS. note in his copy of the “Diary” (“Notes and Queries,” 1st S. vol. vi. p. 215).
WE have seen in the previous chapter how Pepys wrote the last line of his “Diary” on the 31st of May, 1669; and how, by the physical defect which had then increased to alarming proportions, we have suffered what Coleridge calls “this grievous loss.” In treating of Pepys’s life after the “Diary,” we at once find the difference between dealing with a few isolated facts and condensing from the living record of the man’s own life. Moreover, Pepys as painted by his friends and as painted by himself, appears like two different men. The question is—would the highly-respected Secretary of the Admiralty and the dignified President of the Royal Society have proved himself of the same nature as was the officious Clerk of the Acts if the “Diary” had been continued for some twenty or more years? or did time and domestic affliction mellow and settle the somewhat turbulent affections of the Diarist? There seems to be some reason for taking the latter view, and it is probable that, when he attained a more mature age, the dross of meanness was refined away, leaving the native ore of generosity pure and undefiled. When Pepys had obtained his leave of absence, he set out on a tour through France and Holland, accompanied by his wife. He carried with him on his journey the love which he always evinced for the occupation of his life, and he attempted to improve his knowledge of nautical affairs, making at the time collections respecting the French and Dutch navies. Some months after his return he spoke of his journey as having been “full of health and content,” but no sooner had they returned to London than his wife became seriously ill with a fever. The disease took a fatal turn, and on the 10th of November, 1669, Elizabeth Pepys died, at the early age of twenty-nine years, to the great grief of her husband. She died at their house in Crutched Friars, and was buried in St. Olave’s Church, where Pepys erected a tablet to her memory.
Mrs. Pepys occupies so prominent a position in the “Diary,” and her husband, in spite of his faults, was so truly fond of her, that we must believe her death gave him a shock from which he would be long in recovering. He had no child nor near connection to be with him, and therefore, after this sad event, the whole current of his home life must have been changed.
In this same year, 1669, Sir Robert Brooke, member of Parliament for the borough of Aldborough, in Suffolk, died, and Pepys came forward as a candidate to fill his place. The Duke of York was favourable, and used all his influence to obtain the return of the Clerk of the Acts, but without success. When the election came on, Pepys was in distress, and his loss prevented him from taking part in the proceedings; so that, in spite of all that friends could do for him, he was defeated, and John Bence was elected on the 9th of November. In the following year he quarrelled with Sir James Barkman Leyenburg, the Swedish Resident in this country, and a duel between them was only prevented by an order from the King, given in a letter from Matthew Wren to Pepys, commanding him not to send or receive a challenge. This incident is not easy to be understood, as from what we know of Pepys he was not a man who would be very wishful to rush into a hostile encounter. Lord Braybrooke suggests that, as Leyenburg married the widow of Sir William Batten, the quarrel may have related to some money which was owed to Pepys by Batten, and for which the widow was liable; but this suggestion can only be taken for what it is worth.
We do not know the exact date of Pepys’s appointment to the Secretaryship of the Admiralty, but in a document found among his manuscripts, and dated November 3, 1672, he is described as holding that office.81 When he was thus raised in his official position he was able to obtain his old place of Clerk of the Acts for his own clerk, Thomas Hayter, and his brother, John Pepys, who held it jointly. The latter does not appear to have done much credit to Samuel. He took holy orders in 1666,82 and was appointed clerk to the Trinity House in 1670. When he died, in 1677, he was in debt £300 to the corporation, which Samuel had to pay.
Pepys’s kind patron and kinsman the Earl of Sandwich died heroically in the naval action in Solebay, and on June 24, 1672, his funeral was performed with some pomp. There were eleven earls among the mourners, and Pepys, as the first among “the six Bannerrolles,” walked in the procession. This same year there was some talk of the elevation to the peerage of Sir Robert Paston, M. P. for Castle Rising, and the Duke of York at once thought of Pepys as a candidate for his seat. The influence of Lord Howard, who had done what he could at Aldborough, was pre-eminent at Castle Rising; and James at once spoke to him to obtain his interest. Lord Howard was, however, in somewhat of a fix, for according to a letter which Thomas Povey wrote Pepys on August 31st, 1672, “he stands engaged to the King for Sir Francis North, to the Duchess of Cleveland for Sir John Trevor, her counsel and feoffee, and to the Duke for” Pepys. Time, however, got the peer out of his dilemma. First of all, Sir Robert Stewart, a Master of Chancery and the other member for the borough, died, and Trevor was elected in his place; then North was put in for King’s Lynn; and lastly, when Paston was created Viscount Yarmouth, Pepys was chosen to succeed him, on the 4th of November, 1673. Mr. Offley, his unsuccessful opponent, petitioned against the return, and the Committee of Privilege determined the election to be void; but Parliament being prorogued shortly afterwards, before any decision had been come to by the House, Pepys was permitted to retain his seat. The journals of the House83 contain a full account of the proceedings, which chiefly consisted of evidence respecting a frivolous charge made against Pepys. It was reported that a person of quality (who turned out to be Lord Shaftesbury) had seen an altar with a crucifix upon it in his house. When called upon, Shaftesbury denied that he had ever seen “an altar in Mr. Pepys’s house or lodgings; as to the crucifix,” he said he had “some imperfect memory of seeing somewhat which he conceived to be a crucifix.”84 Pepys stood up in his place and flatly denied “that he had ever had any altar, or crucifix, or the image or picture of any saint whatsoever in his home from the top to the bottom of it.”85 He further explained what might have given cause for the aspersion. “Because he could not go much abroad, he has made his home as pleasant to himself as he could, embellishing it with painting. He has a small table in his closet, with a Bible and Common Prayer-book upon it, and ‘The Whole Duty of Man,’ a bason and an ewer, and his wife’s picture over it, done by Lombard. This is the whole thing talked of for an altar.”86
It appears from the endorsement of a letter from Balthasar St. Michel to Pepys, to which allusion has already been made, that the latter was actually charged with having turned Mrs. Pepys from a Protestant to a Roman Catholic. Pepys therefore obtained from her brother an account of the fortunes of their family, which shows the utter absurdity of any such imputations.87 He was always a true Protestant, although there is some reason for believing that Mrs. Pepys was a Catholic at heart.88 On the passing of the Test Act, in 1673, the Duke of York resigned all his employments; and the Admiralty being put in commission, Pepys, as secretary, was brought in immediate correspondence with Charles II.
In 167789 he was elected Master of the Clothworkers’ Company, when he presented a richly-chased silver cup, which is still used at their dinners. He was not long allowed to remain in peace, for the charge of popery, which was first made in 1673, was frequently repeated, and in 1679 he was accused, on the depositions of Colonel John Scott, of betraying the navy, by sending secret particulars to the French Government; and also of a design to dethrone the King and extirpate the Protestant religion. He and Sir Anthony Deane were committed to the Tower under the Speaker’s warrant on May 22nd, and Pepys’s place at the Admiralty was filled up by the appointment of Thomas Hayter. When the two prisoners were brought to the bar of the King’s Bench on the 2nd of June, the Attorney-General refused bail; but subsequently they were allowed to find security for £30,000. At length, after several months of delay, it was found that Colonel Scott refused to acknowledge to the truth of the original deposition; and the prisoners were relieved from their bail on February 12th, 1679–80. Scott turned out to be a blackguard. He is said to have cheated the States of Holland out of £7,000, in consequence of which he was hanged in effigy at the Hague, in 1672; and in 1681 he fled from England to escape from the law, as he had been found guilty of wilful murder for killing a coachman. James, a butler, previously in Pepys’s service, confessed on his deathbed, in 1680, that he had trumped up the whole story relating to his former master’s change of religion at the instigation of Mr. Harbord, M.P. for Launceston, a leading enemy of Pepys.90
Evelyn visited Pepys in the Tower, and expressed his belief in the unjustness of the charge. While he was in custody Pepys kept up a correspondence with the Duke of York, who was then abroad, and he received an application from a Mr. D’Oyly for a loan of £50; but he was obliged to answer that he himself had been forced to borrow £100 from friends, to pay his fees and defray his expenses while in durance. It is impossible not to respect Pepys for his conduct towards James when the Royal Duke was in disgrace. He certainly made enemies by his action, and one of these was Andrew Marvell, who is reputed to have published a “Black Book” entitled, “A List of the principal labourers in the great design of Popery and arbitrary Power,” which contains the following vituperative entry: “Castle Rising—Samuel Pepys Esquire, once a taylor, then a serving man to Lord Sandwich, now Secretary to the Admiralty, got by passes and other illegal wages £40,000.” We know these assertions to be untrue, but they probably did the victim as much harm as if they had been true.
Pepys was chosen by the electors of Harwich as their member in the short Parliament that sat from March to July, 1679, his colleague being Sir Anthony Deane; but both members were superseded in the next Parliament, that met on the 17th of October, 1679.
In 1680 Pepys attended on Charles II. at Newmarket, and there he took down, from the King’s own mouth, the narrative of his escape after the Battle of Worcester, which now remains in the Pepysian Library, both in shorthand and longhand.
Sir Thomas Page, the Provost of King’s College, Cambridge, died in August, 1681; and S. Maryon, a Fellow of Clare, wrote at once, suggesting that Pepys was a fit and proper person for the post, and urging him to apply to the King for it. Pepys replied that he believed Colonel Legge (afterwards Lord Dartmouth) wanted to get the office for an old tutor. Although he pretended unfitness, he evidently liked the idea; and in a letter to Legge, while recommending an early application for the tutor, he expresses himself as willing to take the Provostship if the tutor cannot get it. He also promises, if he should be chosen, to give the whole profit of the first year, and at least half of that of each succeeding year, to “be dedicated to the general and public use of the college.”91 In the end Dr. John Copleston was appointed to the post.
In May, 1682, Pepys accompanied the Duke of York to Scotland, and narrowly escaped shipwreck by the way. Before letters could arrive in London to tell of his safety, the news came of the wreck of the “Gloucester” (the Duke’s ship), and of the loss of many lives. His friends’ anxiety was relieved by the arrival of a letter which Pepys wrote from Edinburgh to Hewer on the 8th inst., in which he detailed the particulars of the adventure. The Duke invited him to go on board the “Gloucester,” but he preferred his own yacht, in which he had more room, and in consequence of his resolution he saved himself from the risk of drowning. On the 5th of May, about five in the morning, the frigate struck upon the sand called “The Lemon and the Oar,” about sixteen leagues from the mouth of the Humber, through the carelessness of the pilot, it was said. The Duke and his party were all asleep at the time, and after they were awoke it is supposed that they remained so long on board in the hope of saving the ship, that more men were drowned than otherwise need have been. It is said that the sinking sailors gave a loud huzza for the Duke, although they perhaps owed their deaths to an error of judgment on his part. Pepys writes that, had the said wreck occurred two hours earlier, and the accompanying yachts been at the distance they had previously been, not a soul would have escaped. Pepys on his arrival in Edinburgh was allowed by the Duke to attend one or two of the councils, and he was greatly struck with the union of absoluteness and gentleness by which James maintained his authority. He then made a tour through some of the Scottish towns with Colonel Legge, being most pleased with the “beauty and trade” of Glasgow. The people were not to his liking, for he writes to Hewer: “The truth is, there is so universal a rooted nastiness hangs about the person of every Scot (man and woman) that renders the finest show they can make nauseous, even among those of the first quality.”92
The time was now coming when Pepys was to be again employed officially, and on July 30, 1683, he left London for Portsmouth, in order to join his old friend Colonel Legge (now Lord Dartmouth) in his expedition to Tangier for the purpose of demolishing that place. Pepys kept a journal of his proceedings, which is now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and has been printed by the Rev. John Smith in his “Life, Journals, &c., of Pepys.” As the next chapter is devoted particularly to Tangier, it is not necessary to do more here than remark that, although this journal is of considerable interest, it falls very far short of the naïveté and charm of the original “Diary.” On March 29th, 1684, Lord Dartmouth and his party (including Pepys) arrived in the English Channel.
Shortly after this, Charles II. made some further alterations at the Admiralty, and appointed Pepys to his old place of Secretary, possession of which he kept until the Revolution, when friends of the banished prince were not likely to be in favour. This same year he was elected President of the Royal Society, an office which he held for two years, apparently with credit to himself and general satisfaction to the Fellows. He certainly was not a scientific man, but at that period most of the subjects discussed could be understood by an intelligent man; and Pepys had a sincere love for curious learning which made him peculiarly fitted to act the part of an imitation Mecænas. In 1685 Charles II. died, and James came to the throne. We have already seen how Pepys was a spectator at Charles’s coronation, now he was to take the position of an actor. We find that he marched in the procession at James’s coronation, immediately behind the King’s canopy, as one of the sixteen barons of the Cinque Ports. A Parliament was summoned to meet on the 19th of May, and Pepys was elected both by the burgesses of Harwich and by those of Sandwich. He chose to serve for Harwich, and Sir Philip Parker, Bart., was elected to fill his place at Sandwich. This Parliament was dissolved by proclamation, July 2nd, 1687, and on August 24th, the King declared in Council that another Parliament should be summoned for November 27th, 1688, the writs to bear date September 5th; but they were recalled on news being received of the Prince of Orange’s design. On December 10th, James ordered those writs which had not been sent out to be burned; and the same night, on his going away from Whitehall, he threw the Great Seal into the water. The Rev. Alexander Mills, a friend of Pepys, wrote to him from Sandwich in July, 1687, after the news of the dissolution had arrived, to say that he thought that Pepys might again be chosen if he felt inclined to stand for the town. In the next few months a great change had come over public affairs, and when the Convention Parliament was called together in January and February, 1689–90, Pepys found no place in it. In 1688 he had some correspondence with the Mayor of Harwich respecting the removal of the Custom-house from Ipswich to Harwich, and his chances of election seemed good at that time; but a few months changed all that, and the corporation did not care to be represented by an official of the late King: so when the election came on, someone called out in the street, “No Tower men, no men out of the Tower!” His public career was closed soon after this, for an order was made out by the Commissioners of the Admiralty on the 9th of March, 1688–89, commanding him to give up his books, &c., to Phineas Bowles, the newly-appointed Secretary of the Admiralty. He still retained hopes of a return to public life, and on the 8th of February, 1689–90, he wrote to the proud Sir Edward Seymour for “his interest anywhere, by which I might compass an election” for the new Parliament.93 What Seymour’s answer was we do not know, but we do know that a few months afterwards (June, 1690) Pepys was committed to the Gate-house at Westminster, upon pretence of his being affected to King James; but he was soon permitted to return to his own home on account of ill-health. On this occasion four stanch friends—Sir Peter Palavicini, Mr. James Houblon, Mr. Blackburne, and Mr. Martin—were bail for him. Soon after, he published his “Memoirs of the Navy,” to show what he had done for its improvement and government, but although he was on all sides looked up to as the greatest authority on naval affairs, he continued, even in 1692, to apprehend some fresh persecution.
Pepys had never been a healthy man, and as years began to tell upon him he suffered much. One day, when he was at Tangier, he was frightened by the old swimming in the head coming over him, and this made him melancholy.94 In December, 1686, he was again troubled with pain night and day, caused by the complaint for which he was successfully operated upon before the “Diary” commences. In a letter to his brother-in-law, St. Michel, he expresses the opinion that a general decay of his stomach and system will soon bring his life to an end; but he had several years still to live.
