Samuel Pepys and the World He Lived In

Pepys’s collections have a special interest, because he collected his books himself, knew all about them, and registered them with loving care. His various catalogues and indexes are marvels of neatness, and living as he did in a pre-bibliographical age, he deserves the greatest credit for the judgment exercised in their production. In the fifth volume of the little collection of books on Shorthand, there is an index of authors, with dates of publication and references to the volume in which each will be found; and the following, which is the title of one of the appendixes to the catalogue, will show how much labour was willingly expended in the production of these helps to research: “A chronological Deductions of the Variations of Stile (to be collected from y

Alphabet of my books) in y

language of England between ann. 700 & y

attempt last made towards its refinement by Sir Phil

Sidney in his ‘Arcadia,’ between 1580 and 1590.”

Neatness and the love of accuracy were ruling passions with Pepys, and when a catalogue was filled up with additional entries he had it re-arranged and copied out. On “A Catalogue and Alphabet to my books of Geography and Hydrography, 1693–95,” is the following memorandum: “Before this Index be transcribed far to collect and alphabet the particulars contained in the List of additional Books inserted at the end, and that being done To incorporate both them and the four particular Indexes preceding into the Principal, and so as to unite the whole.”

This is an interesting list: “Bibliotheca Nautica, 1695. Catalogue of Authors (the perfectest I can arrive at) upon the art and practice of Navigation, with a Chronological Catalogue of the most eminent Mathematicians of this Nation, Antient and Modern, to the year 1673.” Some papers show how all this was arrived at, thus: “Memorandum, to look over y

Epistles and Prefaces to all the Bookes in this Collection, of which I am not maister, and y

other allsoe, and apply what is usefull through y

whole.” Mr. Mount, “son-in-law and successor to the late Mr. Fisher, master of the ancient shopp and our only magazine of English Books of Navigation at the Postern on Tower Hill,” prepared a list, and tried to answer Pepys’s queries. The Diarist was well known to all the booksellers, and he doubtless was a good customer, although he must have troubled them sometimes with his fastidiousness. A note intended for Mr. Mount may be looked upon as a good sample of many more such memorandums, “To get me the ‘Invention of y

Art of Navigation,’ a fair one for y

dirty one I bought of him.”

Robert Scott, the famous bookseller of Little Britain, when sending Pepys four scarce books, the total cost of which was only £1 14s., writes, “But without flattery I love to find a rare book for you.” Herringman, of the “Blue Anchor,” at the New Exchange in the Strand, Joseph Kirton, of St. Paul’s Churchyard, who was ruined by the Fire of London, and Bagford, the title-robber, were some among the booksellers with whom Pepys had dealings.

Pepys was not a producer of marginalia, but some of his books contain an occasional note of interest; thus, in Cotton’s “Compleat Gamester” (1674), “cocking” is described at page 206 as a “game of delight and pleasure,” and Pepys added a manuscript note in the margin, “of barbarity.” Not only does this give us Pepys’s opinion of the sport very pithily, but it also illustrates a passage in the “Diary,” where he describes his visit to the cock-fighting in Shoe Lane, and says he soon had enough of it.[133 - “Diary,” Dec. 21, 1663.]

All the books in the Library have a bookplate in the inside cover. These are of different design, two having Pepys’s portrait (one large and the other small), and one having S. P. and two anchors interlaced. Dr. Diamond writes in “Notes and Queries,” that he once met with a large quantity of these bookplates in four varieties. Two were beautifully engraved by Faithorne, as is supposed, and two were by White. Some of them had a rough margin, and others were cut close up to the mantle on the arms.[134 - “Notes and Queries,” 1st S. vi. 534.]

The motto which Pepys adopted, Mens cujusque is est quisque, was criticized by some of the Admirals in 1690, and the Diarist desired his friend Hewer to point out to them, through Mr. Southerne, that it was a quotation from Cicero’s “Somnium Scipionis,” and that the thought was derived from Plato and wrought upon by St. Paul. The whole passage is, “Tu vero enitere, et sic habeto te non esse mortalem, sed Corpus hoc. Nec enim is est quem forma ista declarat; sed mens cujusque is est quisque, non ea figura quæ digito monstrari potest.”

In concluding this notice of the Pepysian Library, it will be necessary to say a few words about the Musical collections. Pepys was not a mere amateur in music, but understood both theory and practice thoroughly, and he found consolation from it when troubles came upon him.[135 - “The little knowledge in music which I have, never was of more use to me than it is now, under the molestations of mind which I have at this time more than ordinary to contend with.”—Smith’s “Life, &c., of Pepys,” vol. i. p. 199.] On November 2nd, 1661, he tried “to make a song in praise of a liberal genius,” which he took his own to be, but the result did not prove to his mind; and on March 20th, 1668, he endeavoured to invent “a better theory of music than hath yet been abroad.”

We have references in the “Diary” to four songs which he composed, and a notice of one which he only attempted.[136 - “Diary,” Nov. 30, 1667.] On January 30th, 1659–60, he sang Montrose’s verses on the execution of Charles I. beginning,—

“Great, good, and just, could I but rate,”

which he had set to music. He composed “Gaze not on Swans,” on the 11th of February, 1661–62; but his grand achievement was the setting to music of the song,

“Beauty retire; thou doest my pitty move,
Believe my pitty, and then trust my love,” &c.,

from Davenant’s Second Part of “The Siege of Rhodes,” (act iv. sc. 2). Mrs. Knipp sang the song so well that the composer is forced to exclaim, that it seems to be a very fine song, and Captain Downing, “who loves and understands music,” “extols it above everything he had ever heard.”[137 - “Diary,” Dec. 6, 1665; Feb. 23, 1665–66; Nov. 9, 1666.] Further evidence of the pride of the composer is seen in the fact that he had his portrait painted with the music of “Beauty retire” in his hand.

On April 6th, 1666, he began “putting notes” to Ben Jonson’s song,

“It is decreed—nor shall thy fate, O Rome!
Resist my vow, though hills were set on hills,”

but he did not finish it until November 11th, 1666. He thought himself that it was even better than “Beauty retire,” but the opinion of others is not given.

In the Pepysian Library is a volume of music, entitled, “Songs and other Compositions, Light, Grave and Sacred, for a single voice adjusted to the particular compass of mine; with a thorough base on y

ghitare, by Cesare Morelli,” which contains, among others, “Beauty retire,” “It is decreed,” and “To be or not to be.” We find in the “Diary” that on November 13th, 1664, Pepys was learning to recite this speech of Hamlet.

In the present day, when few instruments besides the piano are heard in private houses, it is somewhat surprising to find how many were familiar to our ancestors in the seventeenth century, and a note of some of these will perhaps be thought interesting.

The lute was a favourite instrument when Pepys was young, and a good lutenist was in high esteem among his fellows. Lady Wright’s butler gave Pepys a lesson or two, and in the first two years of the “Diary,” there are several references to the hours the Diarist spent in practising; but for a time he was unable to play, as his lute was in pawn. Various forms of the violin were much used by Pepys, who rose by candlelight on the 3rd of December, 1660, and spent his morning in fiddling, till it was time to go to the office.

He and Mr. Hill were engaged for an hour or two in stringing a theorbo; and, on another occasion, he had it mended at a cost of twenty-six shillings. The flute and flageolet were always handy, as he could put them in his pocket, and use them as occasion required, particularly if he were in the neighbourhood of an echo. He mentions the guitar twice in the “Diary,” but did not play on it, as he thought it a bauble. He afterwards altered his opinion, for he expressly charges Morelli, the arranger of his musical papers, to set a certain French song to the guitar; and, as may be seen above, many others were treated in the same way.[138 - Letter dated Sept. 25, 1679, in Smith’s “Life, &c., of Pepys,” vol. i. p. 200.] He is at one time angry with The. Turner because she will not give him a lesson on the harpsichord; and afterwards he buys a spinet.[139 - References to the “Diary” where the several instruments are mentioned:—Lute, Jan. 25, 31, Feb. 4, March 18, 1659–60; Oct. 21, Nov. 9, 21, 1660; May 26, 1662.Viol, Jan. 4, March 4, 6, Feb. 17, 1662–63; Sept. 28, 1664.Lyre viol, Nov. 17, 1660; Oct. 16, Nov. 20, 1666.Bass viol, July 5, 1662; April 17, 1663.Arched viol, Oct. 5, 1664.Treble, April 23, 1660.Violin, March 6, 1659–60; April 6, 10, Nov. 21, 1660; April 23, June 6, 1661; June 15, 1663.Theorbo, March 5, 1569–60; Nov. 24, Dec. 30, 1660; Oct. 9, 28, Dec. 7, 1661; Aug. 21, 1663; July 30, 1666.Guitar, June 8, 1660; July 27, 1661.Cittern, June 5, 1660; Jan. 17, 1660–61.Bandore, Oct. 15, 1662.Recorder, April 8, 1668.Flageolet, Jan. 16, 30, Feb. 8, 9, 27, 1659–60; May 14, June 21, 1660; June 5, 1661; Jan. 20, 1667–68.Triangle, March 18, 1662–63; April 1, 15, June 21, 1663.Triangle virginal, June 14, 1661.Virginals, Dec. 8, 1660; Sept. 2, 1666.Spinet (espinette), April 4, July 10, 13, 1668.Harpsichord, March 17, 1659–60; Feb. 26, 1660–61; April 31, June 18, 1661; Sept. 9, 1664; April 4, 1668.Dulcimer, June 23, 1662.Trumpet marine, Oct. 24, 1667.]

I here end the portion of this book which deals with the life of Pepys himself.

The “Correspondence” discovers a more dignified character than the “Diary,” but we cannot say for certain whether, if we had a diary of the later years, we should not read such a confession as this on the 27th of January, 1666–67:—“Went down and sat in a low room (at Sir Philip Warwick’s), reading ‘Erasmus de scribendis epistolis,’ a very good book, especially one letter of advice to a courtier, most true and good, which made me once resolve to tear out the two leaves that it was writ in, but I forbore it.”

CHAPTER VI.

LONDON

“I have vow’d to spend all my life in London. People do really live no where else; they breathe and move and have a kind of insipid dull being, but there is no life but in London. I had rather be Countess of Puddle-dock than Queen of Sussex.”—T. Shadwell’s Epsom Wells, 1676.

HAVING concluded that portion of our subject which relates more particularly to the personal character of Pepys, we now pass on to the general consideration of the component parts of the world he lived in. As Pepys was a thorough Londoner, and as most of the circumstances related in the “Diary” refer to London, I propose to commence with a notice of some parts of the capital at the time of the Restoration.

The almost constant use of the River as a highway is a marked feature of the habits of the time, which is illustrated by the fact that Pepys makes a point of mentioning that he went to a place “by land,” when from some cause or other he did not take a boat; thus, on March 8th, 1659–60, we read, “Home about two o’clock, and took my wife by land to Paternoster Row, to buy some paragon for a petticoat, and so home again.” When Pepys was appointed Clerk of the Acts, and he was settled in his house in Seething Lane, he found that a constant communication was necessary between the Navy Office in the City, and the Admiralty at Whitehall. In his frequent journeys by boat from place to place, he often stopped at Blackfriars, in order to visit Lord Sandwich at the “Wardrobe,” where the royal clothes were kept. Sometimes, when there were shows and pageants on the Thames, it was no easy matter to get a boat, and on the occasion of the Queen’s coming to town from Hampton Court, when her barge was attended by ten thousand barges and boats, Pepys in vain tempted the watermen with a bribe of eight shillings.[140 - “Diary,” Aug. 23, 1662.] One of the chief dangers of boat traffic was found in “shooting” London Bridge, and it was generally considered good policy to get out of the boat and pass from side to side on foot instead of going through the arches. One Sunday night,[141 - April 20, 1662.] however, our Diarist passed through the “rapids,” and did not like the sensation he experienced. “And so to Whitehall to Sir G. Carteret, and so to the Chappell, where I challenged my pew as Clerke of the Privy Seale, and had it, and then walked home with Mr. Blagrave, to his old house in the Fishyard, and there he had a pretty kinswoman that sings, and we did sing some holy things, and afterwards others came in, and so I left them, and by water through the bridge (which did trouble me) home, and so to bed.” It was not, however, much safer on the bridge than under it, for on one occasion Pepys nearly broke his leg there. He had been in Southwark, spending the evening at the well-known inn, the “Bear at the bridge foot,” and when he wished to get home he could not find his coach, so he was forced to go over the bridge through the darkness and the dirt. His leg fell into a hole, although there was a constable standing by to warn persons away from the dangerous spot. At first he thought his leg was broken, but when he was pulled up he was found not to be much hurt.[142 - “Diary,” Oct. 26, 1664.]

One of the advantages which our forefathers possessed over us, was to be found in the nearness of the fields and country lanes to their offices and shops. Pepys often indulged himself in a walk or a romp over the grass, in places that are now covered with bricks. On July 29th, 1669, he writes: “I dined, and in the afternoon, with Dick Vines and his brother Payton, we walked to Lisson-greene and Marybone and back again.” On October 9th, 1660, he says, “I met with Sir W. Pen again, and so with him to Redriffe by water, and from thence walked over the fields to Deptford, the first pleasant walk I have had a great while.” One Sunday he goes to Clerkenwell Church, and walks home across the fields.[143 - Oct. 2, 1664.] At another time he takes the air in the fields beyond St. Pancras.[144 - April 23, 1665.] There is, however, another side to this pleasing picture; for these places were not always safe, and the pleasure-seekers were sometimes alarmed. One day Pepys and a friend were walking from Chelsea into town, when they were joined by a companion, and we read that, “coming among some trees near the Neate houses he began to whistle, which did give us some suspicion, but it proved that he that answered him was Mr. Marsh (the Lutenist) and his wife, and so we all walked to Westminster together.”[145 - “Diary,” Aug. 19, 1661.] In the following year Pepys walked from Woolwich to Rotherhithe on a fine moonshiny night, but he was accompanied by three or four armed men.[146 - Sept. 19, 1662.] It gave him much satisfaction to be thought of enough importance to have such an escort provided for him unasked.

So much for the country parts near the town, but the streets appear to have been even less safe after dark. Those who wanted to find their way had to carry links,[147 - Sept. 10, Nov. 15, 1661.] as those without them fared but badly. The gates of the City were shut at night, but this had the effect of shutting in some of the ill-disposed as well as in shutting out others. Pepys and his party on coming home one night from the play found the gates closed. He goes on to say in the “Diary,” “At Newgate we find them in trouble, some thieves having this night broke open prison. So we through and home; and our coachman was fain to drive hard from two or three fellows which he said were rogues that he met at the end of Blowbladder Street.”[148 - “Diary,” Aug. 1, 1667.]

A London mob has never been famed for politeness, and we do not gain a very pleasing view of those in Pepys’s day from some of the entries in the “Diary.” On the 27th of November, 1662, the Russian Ambassador entered the city, and the trained bands, the King’s Life Guards, and wealthy citizens clad in black velvet coats with gold chains were ready to receive him. Pepys did not see the Ambassador in his coach, but he was pleased with the “attendants in their habits and fur caps, very handsome, comely men, and most of them with hawks upon their fists to present to the King.” He adds, however, “But, Lord! to see the absurd nature of Englishmen, that cannot forbear laughing and jeering at everything that looks strange.”

The high road of Newgate Street was formerly crowded in a most inconvenient degree by the shambles of the butchers, and our Diarist once got into trouble while driving past them. The account of this adventure is amusing, from the ease with which he got out of his difficulty. “My coach plucked down two pieces of beef into the dirt, upon which the butchers stopped the horses, and a great rout of people in the street, crying that he had done him 40s. and £5 worth of hurt; but going down I saw that he had little or none; and so I give them a shilling for it, and they were well contented.”[149 - Dec. 15, 1662.]

The following is a good sample of the quarrels that were constantly occurring; there being no authority to put a stop to such exhibitions. “Great discourse of the fray yesterday in Moorfields; how the butchers at first did beat the weavers (between whom there hath been ever an old competition for mastery), but at last the weavers rallied and beat them. At first the butchers knocked down all for weavers that had green or blue aprons, till they were fain to pull them off and put them in their breeches. At last the butchers were fain to pull off their sleeves, that they might not be known, and were soundly beaten out of the field, and some deeply wounded and bruised; till at last the weavers went out triumphing, calling £100 for a butcher.”[150 - “Diary,” July 26, 1664.] Moorfields, now occupied by Finsbury Square and Circus and the surrounding streets, was at this time one of the chief recreation grounds outside the City walls. It was partly given up to the laundresses and bleachers; and boxers and cudgel-players found in it a congenial sphere for their amusements. On an emergency, the troops were mustered on the fenny ground.

None of Pepys’s days passed without a visit to some tavern, for a morning draught, or a pint of wine after dinner. The notice of these little jovialities has preserved to us the names of several old inns, such as the Star, Half Moon, Harp and Ball, Swan, Bull Head, Plough, Lion, Cock, Greyhound, Globe, Mitre, Cardinal’s Cap, King’s Head, Hercules Pillars, Trumpet, &c. We read in the “Diary,” that on March 6th, 1659–60, there was a friendly meeting at one of these places: “While we were drinking, in comes Mr. Day, a carpenter in Westminster, to tell me that it was Shrove tuesday, and that I must go with him to their yearly club upon this day, which, I confess, I had quite forgot. So I went to the Bell, where were Mr. Eglin, Veezy, Vincent, a butcher, one more, and Mr. Tanner, with whom I played upon a viall and viallin, after dinner, and were very merry, with a special good dinner, a leg of veal and bacon, two capons and fritters, with abundance of wine.” On January 10th, 1659–60, Pepys “drank a pint of wine at the Star, in Cheapside,” and on May 24th, 1662, he took his “morning draft” at the same house. These entries show how rapidly our forefathers went from place to place, and how little they thought of the distance between the City and Westminster; this facility being evidently caused by the water carriage. On a certain day Pepys starts from Axe Yard, drinks his morning draught with a friend, at the Sun, in Chancery Lane, and then goes to Westminster Hall. At noon he visits the Swan, in Fish Street; then goes back to Westminster, looking in at the Coffee Club and the Hall before going home.[151 - “Diary,” Jan. 20, 1659–60.] The Swan, in Old Fish Street, is mentioned in an inquisition held before the mayor and aldermen in 1413, as “The Swan on the Hoop.” The house was destroyed in the Great Fire, but was rebuilt and advertised to be let in the “Spectator” of April 25th, 1712.

King Street, Westminster, was full of inns. Pepys’s favourite haunt was the Leg, where an ordinary was held. On December 6th, 1660, he and Mr. Moore went there, and “dined together on a neat’s tongue and udder.” Again, on April 6th, 1661, “with Mr. Creed and More to the Leg, in the Palace, to dinner, which I gave them, and after dinner I saw the girl of the house, being very pretty, go into a chamber, and I went in after her and kissed her.” Two other King Street taverns were visited by Pepys, in July and August, 1660—viz., the Sun and the Dog. These houses of entertainment are both noted as haunts of Ben Jonson, in Herrick’s Address to the Shade of “Glorious Ben.”

“Ah, Ben!
Say how or when
Shall we, thy guests,
Meet at these lyric feasts
Made at the Sun,
The Dog, the Triple Tun?
Where we such clusters had
As made us nobly wild, not mad!
And yet such verse of thine