Part 6

Few readers probably will rise from the perusal of the Diary, dismissing it with such an entry as this as the closing note, without regretting that the end should have come just when it did; for we would well have liked to know how Pepys responded to some of his later experiences, and especially in what spirit he accepted the tragic accidents which presently forced his manhood to the test. About these matters we can now only speculate, with the feeling that had the journal been continued for even a few years longer, we should perhaps have been brought into contact with a deeper, stronger, more earnest side of the writer’s character than actually makes itself apparent in the narrative. We little guess what resources of courage and power lie somewhere mysteriously stored up in men and women seemingly the least heroic, to be drawn upon only when the great and decisive moments of a lifetime come; and it might well give us, we fancy, a certain sense of satisfaction if we could follow the vain and garrulous Pepys through his season of growing wealth and prosperity onward to the time when he fell on evil days, and watch him in the enveloping darkness, bowing his head amid reverses of fortune, or standing face to face with death beside his wife’s open grave. But it is useless to indulge in hypothesis. We must accept the Diary as it is, and be thankful that the years covered by it were so full of matters of private interest and public importance.

And if we only think for a moment of all that happened in a public way during these ten critical years, and remember that Pepys, by virtue of his official position, was often drawn into very close relations with some of the moving forces and figures of the time—“names that in their motion were full-welling fountain-heads of change,”—we can realize at once that on the historical side this Diary has immense value. I do not dwell upon this side now, for time is limited, and there are other matters, not so frequently dealt with, to which I want to direct attention. Yet it is necessary just to say that, as documentary evidence concerning the inner life of the court and society, the inconceivable, the unutterable profligacy of the King and his followers, the irresponsibility of those in charge of public affairs, the complete demoralization of the upper classes during the early years of the Restoration, Pepys’s chronicle furnishes a record that we cannot afford to overlook. His simplicity, insouciance, and habitual self-possession are often more telling than the most eloquent descriptions of historians, the most fervid denunciations of moralists. An accidental word of his will often lay bare a condition of things which lengthy analysis, supported by innumerable references to authorities will hardly make us realize, a few passing sentences, penned _au jour le jour_, having frequently the power of throwing some circumstance, otherwise almost incredible, into sudden and lurid relief. Indeed, the mere fact that the temper of moral indignation is not one to which Pepys often or easily gives way, itself lends added force to all he writes, and intensifies the meaning of his rare exclamations of horror or protest. If Pepys had any political convictions at all, they were of the most flexible kind; he did not cultivate the sort of conscience which has the troublesome faculty of interfering at unexpected times with its owner’s chances of worldly advancement and success. Brought up under the Commonwealth, and, for a time at least, marked by Roundhead proclivities, he readily and rapidly transferred his allegiance to the new _régime_, his only anxiety being, it would seem, lest his earlier opinions should be resuscitated, with unpleasant practical results. Oddly enough, though the Diary opens in the midst of a great political crisis—when Monk was marching from Scotland, and English affairs were hanging poised in the balance of fate,—it nowhere contains any utterance of strong party feeling, any distinctly enunciated wish, either for the restoration of the Stuarts or for the preservation of the Commonwealth. When the Merry Monarch was settled upon the throne, Pepys quietly accepted the fact—along with the very desirable office in the Admiralty secured thereby. You say that the spirit thus shown is not a manly, not a noble one. Alas! no. Pepys, I am afraid, had but one firmly rooted political principle—the principle proverbially associated with the celebrated Vicar of Bray, of looking out for himself and his own welfare. Here, of course, we are strongly tempted to indulge by the way in a little conventional moralizing, and to congratulate ourselves that in our own days, in enlightened America, the low aims and sordid ambitions of poor old Pepys are quite unknown. But I restrain my eloquence, having other matters on hand. The point I want to dwell on for the moment is, that testimony to the political and social corruption following the Restoration, coming from such a man as this, is testimony of almost unique value, on account of the very character of the witness. To lead you through the miry places of the Diary is no part of my present plan; but let me just say that when such a man, albeit unused to the chiding mood, bursts out with the exclamation, “So they are all mad!—and thus the kingdom is governed!”—when, as sometimes happens, he speaks with genuine sorrow of what he has heard, or perhaps seen, in the high places of the land; when he scatters among his small talk and frivolous details sentences full of dismal apprehension concerning the country’s position and outlook,—then things must have come to a pretty pass indeed. Pepys was professionally committed to the Stuart dynasty; yet, as has been well said, a splendid eulogy of Cromwell could be gathered from the _obiter dicta_ of his pages. Certainly, we need hardly travel outside the Diary itself, if we seek only to understand and estimate the iniquities and political short-sightedness of those who succeeded Cromwell in place and power.

* * * * *

But now we will descend from the dignity of history—if these things belong to the dignity of history—to the plane of common every-day life. Abandoning our quest for edification, we will wander for a little while about the Diary, for no other purpose than that of deriving what amusement we may from its personal banalities and social tittle-tattle. Pepys tempts us to be as unsystematic and inconsequential as himself. We will assume, therefore, the privilege which, according to Hazlitt, Coleridge so constantly abused in his conversational monologues—that of beginning nowhere in particular, and ending, if we see fit, in the same place.

It has been said that in Pepys’s ten years’ record there are more than five hundred references to dress and personal decoration. I have not checked the statement, but I can easily believe it. This gives, roughly speaking, an average of one such notice to each week covered by the journal. Dress and the affairs of the toilet were indeed for Pepys always matters of serious importance, not to be disregarded in the midst of the greatest strain of public events. We learn that at times Mrs. Pepys’s feminine desire for a new gown or some expensive bit of finery gave rise to domestic bickering and husbandly reproof, and that the money laid out on tailoring and haberdashery occasionally caused an uneasy hour. Yet, with all his thrift, Pepys seems to have had a remarkably free hand when questions of this kind stood in the way. He reports, without remorse, the payment of twenty-four pounds for a single suit—the best, he adds, “that I ever wore in my life”; and later on, notes the spending of eighty pounds for a necklace for his wife—though in this case he has misgivings. It is sad to relate that, on the whole, our diarist was much less concerned about his own personal extravagances than about the extravagances of his better-half—a fact which shows us that husbands, like other conveniences of life, have been improved by the course of civilization. At any rate, once noting, to his great sorrow and alarm, a month’s outlay of seventy-seven pounds on dress and its accompaniments, he adds that about twelve pounds of this had gone for his wife, and the small remaining balance—some fifty-five pounds—for himself. Charity begins at home; but economy, like justice, often starts next door. Pepys’s marital parsimoniousness frequently manifests itself in very petty ways; as when, for example, under date 14th February, 1666-7, he writes—“I am also this year my wife’s valentine, and it will cost me £5; _but that I must have laid out if we had not been valentines_.”

Once upon a time, Mr. and Mrs. Pepys went to the theatre together, and there they saw “Mrs. Stewart, very fine, with her locks done up with puffs, as my wife calls them, and several other great ladies had their hair so, though I do not like it; but my wife do mightily; but it is only because she sees it is the fashion.” This is all very well as a piece of superior masculine judgment; but unfortunately our moralist betrays no such scruples when social opinion prescribes a new departure in his own accoutrement. We notice with interest in the jottings of the journal the first appearance, or early reappearance, of several curious customs in dress. Patches were used by Mrs. Pepys, for the first time “since we were married,” on 30th August, 1660; and on 12th June, 1663, after observing the growth of the practice then indulged in by ladies, of wearing vizards, or masks, at the theatre—a practice we can understand better as we come to know more of the character of the performances given on the Restoration stage,—Mr. Pepys goes forthwith to the Exchange “to buy things with my wife; among others, a vizard for herself.” On 3d November, in this same year, he reports the adoption by himself of the new mode of wearing a periwig in place of the natural hair. It went a little to his heart, we find, to part with his own head-gear. However, he was somewhat reassured when, causing all his maids to look upon him, he observed their satisfaction with the result; though he notes intense self-consciousness and some embarrassment when, the next day, he went abroad for the first time in his new guise. About the same period he begins to shave himself—a performance which pleases him “mightily,” as promising to save both time and money. “Up betimes and shaved myself,” so runs a later entry, “after a week’s growth; but Lord! how ugly I was yesterday, and how fine to-day.”

One is sorely tempted here to reproduce a few of the many passages in which the vain old chronicler gloats over his handsome clothing, and the imposing figure cut by him at the theatre, or on the promenade, or in church. But one or two must suffice as specimens:—

“July 10, 1660. This day I put on my new silk suit, the first that ever I wore in my life.”

“Feb. 3, 1661, (Lord’s Day). This day I first begun [sic] to go forth in my coat and sword, as the manner now among gentlemen is.”

“April 22, 1661. Up early, and made myself as fine as I could.”

“Oct 19, 1662, (Lord’s Day). Put on my first new lace-band; and so neat it is, that I am resolved my great expense shall be lace-bands, and it will set off anything else the more.”

“May 17, 1668, (Lord’s Day). Up and put on my new stuff suit, with a shoulder belt, according to the new fashion, and the bands of my vest and tunique laced with silk lace of the colour of my suit; and so very handsome to church.”

Alas, poor Pepys! Where be your lace-bands now? your shoulder-belts? your rich silk vests?

The prominence of dress in the Diary may well surprise us, but we are scarcely less astonished by the amount of space given by our busy man of affairs to the most various kinds of pleasure and simple merrymaking. Amongst the games in which Mr. Secretary Pepys seems to have found special satisfaction, tennis, ninepins, and billiards hold high place; but these, after all, never yielded him a tithe of the pure enjoyment that he derived from his more intellectual pastimes, reading and music. Pepys was a genuine musician; and we get the impression from the journal that his love of music reached the proportions of a real passion—the only passion, indeed, of his life. On the other hand, he was not a systematic scholar, though he devoured books with avidity, keeping in touch with the literary output of his day, and at least tasting all sorts of things, from Cicero, the Hebrew grammar, and Hooker’s “Ecclesiastical Polity,” downward to Audley’s “Way to be Rich,” and the last-published comedy of the popular playwrights of his time. Here are a couple of sample entries:—

“Feb. 10, 1661-2. To Paul’s Churchyard, and there I met with Dr. Fuller’s ‘England’s Worthys,’ the first time that ever I saw it; and so I sat down reading in it; being much troubled that (though he had some discourse with me about my family and arms) he says nothing at all, nor mentions us either in Cambridgeshire or Norfolke. But I believe, indeed, our family were never considerable.”

“July 1, 1666. ... Walked to Woolwich, reading ‘The Rivall Ladys’[4] all the way, and find it a most pleasant and fine writ play.”

Footnote 4:

This is a tragi-comedy by Dryden, written partly in blank verse, partly in rhyme. Pepys had seen it performed some two years before, and had then pronounced it “a very innocent and most pretty witty play.”

Pepys’s passing opinions have not much critical value, but they are his own, which is more than can be said of many literary _dicta_ far more pretentious than his. It is rather instructive to follow some of his fluctuations in taste. We notice—to take a single illustration only—that when the first part of “Hudibras” was issued, he bought a copy for half a crown, having heard it much cried up for its pungent wit; but was so much disappointed when he came to dip into it, that he sold it again the same afternoon for eighteen-pence. Still every one talked of the poem, and Pepys began to wonder whether he had given it a fair trial. So a few days later he purchased another copy, resolved on closer study. Now, I will venture to say that in this emergency poor Pepys kept himself by no means free from the sham admiration and cuckoo-criticism which is the bane of our drawing-rooms, and, for that matter, of some of our college classrooms, at the present day. Had you met him in social gatherings, and had the talk turned on “Hudibras,” as it would almost certainly have done, then, doubtless, you would have found that Pepys, fearful of appearing deficient in acumen or taste, would have little or nothing to say about his adverse judgment, and might even consent to laugh perfunctorily at jokes he really did not think funny, and at doggerel rhymes which in his heart of hearts he held to be simply stupid. Meanwhile, he confides to his Diary the expression of his honest opinion, promising himself that, on the appearance of the second part of the poem, he will borrow it from some friend, and buy it only if, on inspection, it should turn out to be better than the first part. All this is surely edifying.

Here we ought perhaps to add that, in an ill-advised moment, Mr. Pepys undertook to learn to dance. “The truth is, I think it a thing very useful for a gentleman, and sometimes I may have occasion of using it, and though it cost me what I am heartily sorry it should,” (he deeply deplores the payment of ten shillings entrance fee to the class,) “yet I am resolved to get it up some other way.... So, though it be against my stomach, yet I will try it for a little while.” The subsequent introduction of a dancing-master, whose name was Pemberton, turned out, however, to be the introduction of a serpent into Pepys’s matrimonial Paradise. Mrs. Pepys, crazy over the new accomplishment, insisted on his coming twice a day, which, as Mr. Pepys properly protested, was “a folly.” Moreover, he by and by grew jealous of his wife’s attention to the said Pemberton, and some heartache and much petulance were the result. Pepys gives us one graphic description of himself, too angry to join his wife at her lesson, yet walking up and down in his own chamber, “listening to hear whether they danced or no.” But he presently became an adept in the art, and danced his own part, infinitely to his satisfaction, in many a corranto and jig.

For Pepys, as we have said, was a highly convivial person, and abandoned himself to the pleasure of the moment with an ardor and whole-heartedness which fill the grimly serious modern reader with something like amazement. The thought of the morrow rarely for him disturbed the enjoyment of to-day, though with the coming of the morrow he sometimes found that he had applied himself to the good things of this life not wisely but too well. Accounts of suppers, of social festivities kept up until ever so much o’clock in the morning, of mirthmaking of the most boisterous kind, abound in his pages, mixed up with matters of more serious import in quite a bewildering way. Pepys will often round off some such detailed report with a characteristic comment expressive of deep satisfaction; as, for example, “mighty merry,” or “so home, mighty pleased with this day’s sport.” _Carpe diem_ was evidently his counsel of perfection. There is something charming about the man’s juvenile capacity for enjoyment, though we are frequently inclined to wonder how he managed in certain emergencies to keep his clear head and his steady hand. Yet only occasionally does the journal record any marked reaction from even the most roistering overnight carousal. Here, however, is just one case in point. On 14th August, 1666,—in the midst, be it noted, of a good deal of mental disturbance caused by a misunderstanding between himself and Lord Peterborough,—Pepys describes at length an evening of wild frolic and buffoonery. After dinner, with his wife and wife’s maid, Mercer (who played a rather prominent part in subsequent domestic unpleasantnesses), he takes a turn at the Bear Garden, where there is much wine-drinking.

“Then we supped at home, and very merry. And then about 9 o’clock to Mrs. Mercer’s gate, where the fire and boys expected us, and her son had provided abundance of serpents and rockets; and there mighty merry (my Lady Pen and Pegg going thither with us, and Nan Wright) till about 12 at night, flinging our fireworks and burning one another and the people over the way. At last our businesses being most spent, we into Mrs. Mercer’s, and there mighty merry, smutting one another with candle-grease and soot, till most of us were like devils. And that being done, then we broke up, and to my house, and there I made them drink; and upstairs we went, and there fell into dancing (W. Batelier dancing well), and dressing him and I and one Mr. Banister ... like women; and Mercer put on a suit of Tom’s like a boy, and mighty mirth we had; and Mercer danced a jig, and Nan Wright and my wife and Pegg Pen put on periwigs. Thus we spent till three or four in the morning, mighty merry; and then parted and to bed.”

Do we wonder that the next day’s entry should significantly open—“Mighty sleepy; slept till past eight of the clock”?

As wine-bibbing, and even downright drunkenness, occupy so large a space in our record, it may be proper to note indications contained in it of the rise of domestic forces destined to do much in a quiet way towards the gradual improvement of general manners in this particular respect. From the point of view of social history, there is much to interest us in Pepys’s occasional references to tea, coffee, and chocolate. These three beverages found their way into England within a few years of one another, about the middle of the seventeenth century, cocoa leading the way, and tea bringing up the rear. We have seen that on one occasion our diarist spoilt his bands by spilling chocolate upon them. The coffee-house was an accomplished fact in his time. There he often met distinguished men on business; there he passed many a chatty hour; there he once reports seeing “Dryden the poet ... and all the wits of the town.” For tea he never seems to have acquired special fondness. I have marked but two references to it in the Diary. Once, on 28th September, 1660, he notes: “I did send for a cup of tea (a China drink), of which I never had drank before,”—and unfortunately, for a wonder, he does not tell us how he liked it. And again, on 28th June, 1667, he chronicles returning home to find his wife “making of tea, a drink which Mr. Pelling, the Potticary, tells her is good for her cold.” Tea, by the way, was enormously dear in those days, and was supposed to possess astonishing and mysterious medicinal properties, concerning which we may read much in a broadside issued by Thomas Garway, the coffee-man of Change Alley,—a rare and curious document, a copy of which is still preserved in the British Museum.

It does not, of course, surprise us to learn that this pleasure-loving man of the town was a regular attendant at all the public amusements of his time. He visited the cockpit, the bear-garden, the gambling-room, the prize-ring; though, much to his credit, he found little pleasure in these places of popular resort—a fact which makes it harder for us to understand his frequent presence at public executions, in witnessing which, as many entries serve to show, he found a curious kind of satisfaction. On the other hand, his enthusiasm for everything connected with the theatre was simply unbounded; his Diary remaining to-day an important source of first-hand information on all matters pertaining to the drama of the Restoration. From his miscellaneous jottings we gain a wonderfully vivid impression of the manners and customs of the playhouse of the period, together with a sense of life in things otherwise dead beyond recall. For Pepys saw the great Betterton in all his glory, and was bewitched by the beautiful and fascinating Nell Gwynne. When his record opens, boys were still playing female parts, as they had done in Shakspere’s time, and the introduction of women to the English stage is duly registered by him as an event. He details, after his manner, all the odds and ends of scandal concerning prominent theatrical people; was himself on very friendly terms—somewhat too friendly at times for domestic peace—with various pretty actresses; and was an occasional visitor to that mysterious realm which lies behind the scenes. Once in a while, however, he acknowledges the disillusion caused by such excursions. The extremely human proportions into which the heroes and heroines of that magic stage-land dwindled when seen at close quarters,—the dust, noise, confusion, paint, powder, and general dinginess of the dressing-rooms and coulisses,—these are subjects of frequent remark. Perhaps his most disenchanting experience was one connected with Nell Gwynne—“pretty, witty Nelly,” as he fondly calls her,—(we will not forget that the Diary was written in cipher). He finds her once behind the curtain,—alas, that we should have to repeat it!—swearing like a trooper because of the smallness of the audience. Now, a small house is a trial sufficient to tax the philosophy of any actress; but we are sorry that pretty, witty Nelly, should have behaved herself in this way. Pepys confesses that on this occasion he went home a sadder and a wiser man.