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will join you." The poor young fellow, not only not a Stoic, but ignorant of his father's adopted principles, and of the stern laws of the school of Zeno, was, by this unlooked-for reception, "there, where he had garnered up his heart," totally subdued. He left a letter expressive of his disappointment and his anguish, fled from his native roof and city, rejoined his regiment, then in England, and in the following year was killed at the taking of Guadaloupe.

My memory does not serve me as to what I heard of the unhappy parent's fate; but I think it was that at last he shot himself,-not that he might die like a Stoic, but because he could no longer lead the Stoic life; had strayed too far from "the ways of pleasantness, and paths of peace," and was a stranger to that philosophy which teaches humility and resignation.

MEMOIRS OF SAMUEL PEPYS.*

Vol. i. page 6. "It became absolutely necessary to curtail the MS. materially." It is scarcely possible to conceive a more ill-judged and tasteless act on the part of a person employed in editing such a work as Pepys's inimitable and inestimable Diary; of which the trifles are the beauties; the lights, by which the

* In 5 vols. second edition; London, 1828.

reader of after times is to view the writer's inmost mind, and the manners of by-gone days. Not one word of the precious original should have been suppressed.

Page 13. "In justice to the Rev. John Smith, (with whom I am not personally acquainted,) it may be added, that he appears to have performed the task allotted to him, of deciphering the short-hand Diary, with diligence and fidelity, and to have spared neither time nor trouble in the undertaking." This is most surprisingly tame and thankless language! The Rev. John Smith has, at least, as great claims to the admiration and gratitude of the British public, for what he has done, as the noble editor.

Vol. i. Diary, page 64, note. " Sir John Greenville, created Earl of Bath, 1661, son of Sir Bevil Grenville, killed at the battle of Newbury." This is unpardonable in the editor and annotator. Sir Bevil Granville was killed at the battle of Lansdown, July 5, 1643. See Clarendon, folio edition, vol.

ii. page 2, and vol. iii. page 282, of the octavo edition.

Page 172. " but the ways are dusty, and the flyes fly up and down, and the rose-bushes are full of leaves, such a time of the year as was never known in this world before here." The editor having, throughout the entire work, omitted to state the month in each page, along with the day, and year, the reader is, in consequence, obliged perpetually to

turn back in search of what is often essential. The month in question is January.

Page 183. " This day my wife and Pall went to see my Lady Kingston, her brother's lady." To this the editor has a note: "Balthazer St. Michel is the only brother of Mrs. Pepys, mentioned in the Diary." But it is pretty evident that Pepys means the wife of Pall's brother. Page 212. ". Roger Pepys told me how basely things have been carried in parliament by the young men, that did labour to oppose all things that were moved by serious men." It is probable that a parliament of youths would determine on many points less wisely than one consisting of elders. But in a house of representatives of five or six hundred men, each of twenty-two or twenty-three years of age, there would be found infinitely more moral worth, than in a senate of sexagenarians. Men grow vicious as they advance in life.

"It is not too much for me now-to keep a coach, but contrarily, that I am almost ashamed to be seen in a hackney.

"To Hackney church. A knight and his lady very civil to me when they came, being Sir George Viner, and his lady rich in jewells, but most in beauty; almost the finest woman that ever I saw. That which I went chiefly to see was the young ladies of the schools, whereof there is great store, very pretty."

It would be no easy matter to find on the part of any one else, so much of laughable vanity and fleshly

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propensities as worthy Pepys here exhibits. He assigns special godly motives for going to church!

Page 218. "We seated ourselves close by the King, and Duke of York, and Madam Palmer, which was great content." This is a singular trait

Pepys, a decorous and

of character, and of the age. religious man, and his wife, a woman of virtue, accompanied by young ladies, go to the public theatre, proverbially licentious, and are gratified by having the honour of sitting near that shameless debauchee, Charles II., and his mistress!

Again, as to moral and religious feeling: in page 266, "The King took the sacrament upon his knees : a sight very well worth seeing."

Page 267. "The King and she (Lady Castlemaine, another mistress,) did send for a pair of scales and weighed one another; and she, being with child, was said to be heaviest." On which characteristic facts Pepys makes no comment whatever.

Page 287. "But methought it lessened my esteem of a king, that he should not be able to command the rain." As a sneer, this would be admirable; but, alas! honest Pepys records this loyal sentiment in pure simplicity!

Page 299. "We saw many trees of the King's ahewing." This participle is genuine English. The modern usage, countenanced, if not invented, by Southey, &c." being hewed," and so forth, is absurd. Page 309. "Here I also saw Madam Castlemaine, and, which pleased me most, Mr. Crofts, the King's

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bastard, a most pretty sparke of about fifteen years old," &c. This and the following page presents a most extraordinary picture of the morals and manners of the times. The newly-married queen of England, the king's mother, who had been queen consort, his Majesty's mistress, his base-born son, his brother, the Duke of York, with his lawful wife-and -the king himself; all perfectly at ease with one another; and, in the presence of many of the nobility, &c. indulging in very vulgar jocularity; and, as Pepys says, very merry;" and admiration, not censure, of all he witnessed, expressed by the methodical, discreet, decent, and church-going Samuel Pepys ! Page 355. " and we falling into discourse of a new book of drollery in use, called Hudebras, I would needs go find it out, and met with it at the Temple: cost me 2s. 6d. But when I come to read it, it is so silly an abuse of the presbyter knight going to the warrs, that I am ashamed of it; and by and by meeting at Mr. Townsend's at dinner, I sold it to him for 18d." Pepys, in a subsequent page, somewhat relaxes in his censure of Hudibras; the poem is, nevertheless, such as, on first reading, he intimates; gross, abstruse, tasteless, and wearisome. The progress of this work towards the ocean of oblivion is amusing. For thirty or forty years after its first appearance, party spirit and an affectation of loyalty kept it alive. After that, Hudibras was on every one's shelf for fifty or sixty years more. Then

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