the literary man talked of it, without having read it; and now, even the title is unknown to multitudes.

Page 31. and that the King's fondness to the little duke do occasion it." Perhaps the vilest feature in the vile character of that vilest of miscreants, Charles II., is his conduct towards the "little duke" of Monmouth. His training him up as a legitimate and royal personage, ultimately sent the wretched duke to the scaffold!

Page 52.

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in our way, saw my Lady Castlemaine, who, I fear, is not so handsome as I have taken her for, and now she begins to decay something. This is my wife's opinion also." That is, his wife said so: a fine stroke of character.

Page 126. " this morning I put on my best black cloth suit, trimmed with scarlet ribbon, very neat; with my cloak lined with velvett, and a new beaver, which altogether is very noble, with my black silk wrist canons." The tailor's son breaks out perpetually in Master Pepys. Dressing himself-and curiosity seem to be his ruling passions.

Page 132.

the King hath emduked twelve dukes, only to show his power." The editor might have conjectured that the inexplicable word " emduked" was, in the original, un-duked.

Page 187. "Mr. Coventry, discoursing this noon about Sir W. Batten, (what a sad

me how the King told him," &c.

parenthesis, as printed, is not

fellow he is!) told

This sentence, in

creditable to the

acumen of the editor. The obvious meaning of the

passage is that, Mr. Coventry discoursed about what a sad fellow Sir W. Batten was.

Same page.

"Opiniastrement." A French word, never naturalized; and which should have been printed in italics.

Page 188. "He tells me above all of the Duke of York, that he is more himself, and more of judgment is at hand in him, in the middle of a desperate service," &c. The Duke of York was indisputably brave, as his naval career proved. He lost the day at the Boyne through the inferiority of his troops; and, in fact, gave up his crown from excess of sensibility, excited by the perfidy of those who deserted him in the hour of need.

Page 210. Note. "Edward Cocker, the wellknown writing master and arithmetician."

one wrote an epitaph on Cocker:

"Immortal Cocker-who to dust art gone,

No works can show thee truly-but thine own."

66

Some

Page 242. "He (Lord Fitzharding) observed also from the Prince, that courage is not what men take it to be, a contempt of death; for says he, how chagrined the Prince was the other day when he thought he should die." Chagrined" is a strange word to use on such an occasion; time must have diminished its force. As Pepys applies it, it reads to us as if Lord Fitzharding had said that Prince Rupert was rather incommoded by dying. Page 364. "

and in spite too, ill people would breathe in the faces (out of their windows), at well

people going by." This fact, recorded in 1665, during the great plague, shows human nature in a very amiable point of view.

Page 372. "But he do complain that her nose hath cost him as much work as another's face, and he hath done it finely indeed." This passage refers to a portrait by Hales of P.'s wife, who, judging by the engraving prefixed to this (second) volume, was a stupid, mindless slug, fond of eating, sleeping, &c. Page 293. " which I shall do, and unless my too much addiction to pleasure undo me, will be acute enough for any of them." Here Pepys uses will for shall; as was frequently done by writers before his time: by Shakspeare particularly.

Page 419. the King is going to borrow some money of the city; but I fear it will do him no good, but hurt." This record is made in 1666-the year after the plague; the year in which London was burnt; and in the heat of a disastrous Dutch war. Thus, in the awful moment of his country's calamities and struggles, and, possibly, of her ruin, this licentious and unfeeling villain, Charles II., was thinking of borrowing money from his embarrassed and mourning people, to defray the cost of his debaucheries.

Vol. iii. page 49. they, trusting to St. Fayth's, and the roof of the church falling, broke the arch down into the lower church, and so all the goods burned." This alludes to the great fire in 1666, when the booksellers round St. Paul's, in their alarm, conveyed their stock of curious old books, and books

in quires, to St. Faith's, under the cathedral; but by the accident which Pepys mentions, many works of a rare kind were altogether lost.

Page 79. ". never more was said of, and feared of, and done against the Papists, than just at this time." The attempt to fix the great fire on the Romanists, was too base and too absurd to gain general credence, even at the time. The insinuation was an act of party virulence to the last degree infamous. Pope has forcibly stigmatized the contemptible inscription on the Monument :

"Where London's column, pointing to the skies,

Like a tall bully-lifts the head, and LIES."

Were it not a disinterested and almost philanthropic deed, I am inclined to believe, as many do, that London was set on fire with the connivance, if not by order, of Charles himself.

Pages 120, 121. "

and saw Macbeth,'—a most excellent play in all respects, but especially in divertisement, though it be a deep tragedy; which is a strange perfection in a tragedy, it being most proper here, and suitable." From this it might almost be conjectured, that the witch-scenes in Macbeth were performed, as they should be, not ludicrously, but with ghastly solemnity: but the passage in the text is equivocal.

Page 141. a play in Italian for the Opera, which T. Killigrew do intend to have up." Query, does this expression mean what, in modern usage, is termed "got up?"

Page 151. "I did find the Queene, the Duchesse of York, and another or two, at cards; which I was amazed at to see on a Sunday." Here the Puritan breaks out on the part of worthy Master Pepys, who censures the immorality of a card assembly on Sunday; but can admire and bepraise the king's filthy concubines; and allow his own fat, fulsome wife to associate with a peer's mistress !

Page 176. ".

the painting of his new boat, on which shall be my arms." His arms! The arms of Pepys should have been a tailor's goose proper: his crest, a pair of shears; and his motto, borrowed from Cicero's famous quibble, Tetigi rem acu.

Page 178. "Received from my brother the news of my mother's dying on Monday." Mr. Pepys's filial sorrow did not last very long. On the 27th of the month, he hears of his parent's death; on the 29th he is busy buying, "Perriwigges, mighty fine indeed;" and on the 30th, he goes to the theatre, that he may laugh at, and criticise a bad play, written by that incomparable old fool, the Duchess of Newcastle.

Page 187. ".

discoursed of the wisdom of dividing the (enemy's) fleet." May not this mean the breaking of the line, about the inventor of which manœuvre, so much dispute has arisen in our time?

Page 209. " and saw pretty Nelly standing at her lodging's door in Drury Lane, in her smock sleeves and bodice, looking upon one." All this is wonderfully graphic: one sees the forms of Nell