Samuel Pepys and the World He Lived In

Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine.”

Another Sun, that behind the Exchange, was a famous house frequented by Pepys; it was rebuilt after the Fire by John Wadlow, the host of the Devil Tavern, and son of the more famous Simon Wadlow whom Ben Jonson dubbed “Old Sym, the King of Skinkers.” Pepys often went with his colleagues to the Dolphin, and drank “a great quantity of sack” there. On April 25th, 1661, he “went to an ordinary at the King’s Head, in Tower Street, and there had a dirty dinner.” On June 21st, of the same year, we read, “This morning, going to my father’s, I met him, and so he and I went and drank our morning draft at the Samson, in Paul’s Churchyard.” On October 9th, he went after the theatre “to the Fleece tavern, in Covent Garden, where Luellin, and Blurton, and my old friend, Frank Bagge, was to meet me, and there staid till late, very merry.” This was the chief tavern in Covent Garden, but being the resort of bullies, it obtained a very unenviable notoriety. The Green Dragon, on Lambeth Hill, the Golden Lion, near Charing Cross, the Old Three Tuns at the same place, and the Pope’s Head, in Chancery Lane, are among the other taverns mentioned by Pepys. The Rhenish Wine-house, in the Steelyard, Upper Thames Street, was a favourite resort, and is frequently mentioned by the old dramatists. Pepys went there sometimes, but he more often visited another house so called in Cannon Row. All kinds of drinks were alike agreeable to our Diarist, and he did not even disdain “mum,” a strong beer brewed from wheat, which was once popular and sold at special mum-houses.

These constant visits to taverns were not very conducive to temperate habits of life, and we therefore read much of the midday revellings of the business men. One day, Pepys being a little more sober than Sir W. Penn, has to lead that worthy knight home through the streets, and on another occasion he resolves not to drink any more wine,—a rash vow which he forthwith breaks. Sometimes with amusing casuistry he tries to keep his vow to the letter while he breaks it in the spirit; thus, to allude again to the characteristic entry, on October 29th, 1663, we read, “Went into the Buttery, and there stayed and talked, and then into the Hall again; and there wine was offered, and they drunk, I only drinking some hypocras,[152 - Hippocras, a drink composed of red or white wine, with the addition of sugar and spices.] which do not break my vow, it being, to the best of my present judgement, only a mixed compound drink, and not any wine. If I am mistaken, God forgive me! but I hope and do think I am not.”

We have seen Pepys dividing his time pretty equally between the City and Westminster, and doing official work in both places. In Westminster Hall he was on friendly terms with all the shopkeepers who formerly kept their little stalls in that place, and most of the watermen at the different stairs, who recognized his genial face, were emulous of the honour of carrying him as a fare. There is an entry in the “Diary” which records a curious custom amongst the stationers of the Hall. Pepys went on January 30th, 1659–60, to “Westminster Hall, where Mrs. Lane and the rest of the maids had their white scarfs, all having been at the burial of a young bookseller.”

Two of the most important events in the history of Old London,—viz., the Plague and the Fire,—are very fully described in the “Diary.”

On the 7th of June, 1665, Pepys for the first time saw two or three houses marked with the red cross, and the words “Lord have mercy upon us” on the doors; and the sight made him feel so ill at ease that he was forced to buy some roll tobacco to smell and chew. Then we read of the rapid increase in the numbers of those struck down; of those buried in the open Tuttle-fields at Westminster; and of the unfriendly feelings that were engendered by fear.

Pepys remained either in town or in its neighbourhood during the whole time of the raging of the pestilence; and on the 4th of September, 1665, he wrote an interesting letter to Lady Carteret, from Woolwich, in which he said: “The absence of the court and emptiness of the city takes away all occasion of news, save only such melancholy stories as would rather sadden than find your ladyship any divertissement in the hearing. I have stayed in the city till above 7,400 died in one week, and of them above 6,000 of the plague, and little noise heard day or night but tolling of bells; till I could walk Lumber Street and not meet twenty persons from one end to the other, and not fifty upon the Exchange; till whole families, ten and twelve together, have been swept away; till my very physician, Dr. Burnet, who undertook to secure me against any infection, having survived the month of his own house being shut up, died himself of the plague; till the nights, though much lengthened, are grown too short to conceal the burials of those that died the day before, people being thereby constrained to borrow daylight for that service; lastly, till I could find neither meat nor drink safe, the butcheries being everywhere visited, my brewer’s house shut up, and my baker, with his whole family, dead of the plague.”

He then relates a romantic incident which had just occurred, and a note of which he also inserted in his “Diary:” “Greenwich begins apace to be sickly; but we are, by the command of the king, taking all the care we can to prevent its growth; and meeting to that purpose yesterday, after sermon with the town officers, many doleful informations were brought us, and, among others, this, which I shall trouble your ladyship with the telling. Complaint was brought us against one in the town for receiving into his house a child brought from an infected house in London. Upon inquiry, we found that it was the child of a very able citizen in Gracious Street, who, having lost already all the rest of his children, and himself and wife being shut up, and in despair of escaping, implored only the liberty of using the means for the saving of this only babe, which, with difficulty, was allowed, and they suffered to deliver it, stripped naked, out at a window, into the arms of a friend, who, shifting into fresh cloathes, conveyed it thus to Greenwich, where, upon this information from Alderman Hooker, we suffer it to remain.”

On the 20th of this same month of September we read in the “Diary:” “But, Lord! what a sad time it is to see no boats upon the River, and grass grows all up and down White Hall court, and nobody but poor wretches in the streets.” And on October 16th, Pepys is told that, in Westminster, “there is never a physician, and but one apothecary left,—all being dead.”

In the following January, the question of attending to the overcrowded churchyards had begun to agitate the public mind; and those who lived in their immediate neighbourhood were anxious that they should be covered with lime.[153 - “Diary,” Jan. 31, 1665–66.] Not many months after this the greater portion of the city had become a void.

On the 2nd of September, 1666, Pepys was called up at three o’clock to see a fire; but not thinking much of it, he went to bed again. When, however, he got up, he found that about 300 houses had been burnt in the night. All were now busy in moving their property from place to place; and the women worked as hard as the men in doing what was needed. Some almost incredible instances of meanness are recorded in the “Diary,” respecting those rich men who gave shillings grudgingly to those who saved their all. Alderman Starling, whose house was saved by the Navy Office men, while the next house was burning, gave 2s. 6d. to be divided among thirty of them, and then quarrelled with some that would remove the rubbish out of the way of the fire, on the score that they came to steal. Sir William Coventry told Pepys of another case which occurred in Holborn. An offer was made to one whose house was in great danger, to stop the fire for a sum that came to about 2s. 6d. a man, but he would only give 1s. 6d.[154 - Sept. 8, 1666.]

Clothworkers’ Hall burnt for three days and nights, on account of the oil in the cellars; and so intense was the heat caused by extension of the fire over a large space, that the ground of the City continued to smoke even in December.[155 - Dec. 14, 1666.]

Moorfields was the chief resort of the houseless Londoners, and soon paved streets and two-storey houses were seen in that swampy place, the City having let the land on leases of seven years.

It was said that this national disaster had been foretold, and the prophecies of Nostrodamus and Mother Shipton were referred to.

Sir Roger L’Estrange, the Licenser of Almanacs, told Sir Edward Walker that most of those that came under his notice foretold the fire, but that he had struck the prophecy out.[156 - Ward’s “Diary,” p. 94.] Lady Carteret told Pepys a curious little fact, which was, that abundance of pieces of burnt papers were driven by the wind as far as Cranborne, in Windsor Forest; “and, among others, she took up one, or had one brought her to see, which was a little bit of paper that had been printed, whereon there remained no more nor less than these words: ‘Time is, it is done.’”[157 - “Diary,” Feb. 3, 1666–67.]

It is well known that the unfortunate Roman Catholics were charged with the crime of having set London on fire, and there appears to have been a very sufficient reason why the people should persist in affirming this fable. The judges determined, in the case of disputed liability between landlord and tenant, that the tenants should bear the loss in all casualties of fire arising in their own houses or in those of their neighbours; but if the fire was caused by an enemy they were not liable. As one poor man was convicted and hanged for the crime, it was held that the landlords must be mulcted.[158 - Nov. 5, 1666.] Public opinion shifted about in this matter, for we read that on September 16th, 1667, Pepys saw “a printed account of the examinations taken, touching the burning … showing the plot of the Papists therein, which it seems hath been ordered to be burnt by the hands of the hangman, in Westminster Palace.”[159 - The title of this very rare pamphlet is—“A true and faithful account of the several Informations exhibited to the Honourable Committee appointed by the Parliament to inquire into the late dreadful burning of the City of London. Printed in the year 1667.” 4to. pp. 35.]

London remained in ruins for many months, and as late as April 23rd, 1668, Pepys describes himself as wearily walking round the walls in order to escape the dangers within. At last new streets of houses arose from the ruins, but, unfortunately, in spite of the proposals of Wren, Hooke, and Evelyn for erecting a handsome and well-arranged city, the old lines were in almost every case retained.

A passage in the “Diary” in which Pepys remarks on the great streets “marked out with piles drove in the ground,” and expresses the opinion that, if ever so built, they will form “a noble sight,” would seem to show that at one time a better plan of building was contemplated.[160 - “Diary,” March 29, 1667.]

Had the plan suggested in Parliament by Colonel Birch been carried out, great difficulties would have been avoided. His proposal was, that the whole ground should be sold and placed in trust. Then the trustees were to sell again, with preference to the former owners, by which means a general plan of building might have been adopted; but an unequalled opportunity of making London into a fine city was let slip.[161 - “Diary,” Feb. 24, 1666–67.]

At one time it was supposed that the Fire would cause a westward march of trade, but the City asserted the old supremacy when it was rebuilt.

Soon after the conclusion of the “Diary,” Pepys left the Navy Office, and the latter years of his life were spent partly in York Buildings and partly at Clapham. It was after the Restoration that the West End grew into importance, and the house at the foot of Buckingham Street, from the windows of which Pepys could look out upon the river, was not built when the Diarist was settled in Crutched Friars. It was erected upon part of the site of York House, whose last resident was the worthless Buckingham:—

“Beggar’d by fools, whom still he found too late,
He had his jest, and they had his estate.”

This house, in which Pepys was pleased to find “the remains of the noble soul of the late Duke of Buckingham appearing, in the door-cases and the windows,”[162 - June 6, 1663.] was sold by his son and demolished in 1672.

As Pepys left London so it remained in its chief features for more than one hundred years, and it was not until the beginning of the present century that the vast extension of the town to the north and south began to make itself felt.

CHAPTER VII.

PEPYS’S RELATIONS, FRIENDS, AND ACQUAINTANCES

“If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life he will soon find himself left alone; a man should keep his friendship in constant repair.”—Dr. Johnson.

FAMILY feeling was strong in Pepys, and we therefore find him in constant communication with persons in all degrees of relationship. These relations varied greatly in social position, from the peer to the little shopkeeper. Thus we find that one Pepys was a Lord Chief Justice of Ireland; another a Member of Parliament; another a Doctor of Divinity; another a goldsmith, and another a turner.

In later life, when Pepys had risen greatly in social importance, the relations were not so much associated with, and a more distinguished circle of friends make their appearance. This gradual dropping away of the relations may have been caused by decrease of the family, for the Diarist on one occasion writes: “It is a sad consideration how the Pepys’s decay, and nobody almost that I know in a present way of increasing them.”[163 - “Diary,” April 26, 1664.]

The members of Pepys’s immediate family have already been alluded to, and we have seen how his father, John Pepys, the tailor, retired to Brampton in 1661. The old man died in 1680, and desired by his will that all the lands and goods left him by his brother Robert should be delivered up to his eldest son. He also left £5 to the poor of Brampton, and 40s. to the poor of Ellington, and the remainder of his property to be divided amongst his three children—Samuel and John and Paulina Jackson. John, however, died before him.

Of the numerous cousins who figure in the “Diary,” the Turners and the Joyces are the most frequently referred to. Serjeant John Turner and his wife Jane, who lived in Salisbury Court, were not very highly esteemed by Sir William Baker, who called the one a false fellow and the other a false woman, and Pepys does not appear altogether to have disliked hearing him say so.[164 - Oct. 10, 1664.]

Their daughter Theophila was, however, a favourite with Pepys, and on March 3, 1662–63, she showed him his name on her breast as her valentine, “which,” he observes, “will cost me 20s.” Four days afterwards he bought her a dozen pairs of white gloves.

The Joyces were never much liked by Pepys, but at one time he thought it well to be friends with them, as he writes on the 6th of August, 1663,—“I think it convenient to keep in with the Joyces against a bad day, if I should have occasion to make use of them.” William Joyce was good-natured, but Pepys wearied of his company because he was “an impertinent coxcomb” and too great a talker. As is often the case with our Diarist, he gives a different character of the man on another occasion. He writes, “A cunning, crafty fellow he is, and dangerous to displease, for his tongue spares nobody.”[165 - “Diary,” Aug. 14, 1664.]

Anthony Joyce was in business, and on one occasion he supplied Pepys with some tallow, payment for which he was unduly anxious about, so that the purchaser was vexed.[166 - May 31, 1662.] Anthony gave over trade in 1664, but was ruined by the Fire; and afterwards kept the “Three Stags” at Holborn Conduit. William was greatly disgusted when his brother became a publican. Pepys says he ranted about it “like a prince, calling him hosteller and his sister hostess.”[167 - Dec. 6, 1666.]

In January, 1667–68, Anthony threw himself into a pond at Islington, but being seen by a poor woman, he was got out before life was extinct. “He confessed his doing the thing, being led by the devil; and do declare his reason to be, his trouble in having forgot to serve God as he ought since he came to this new employment.”[168 - Jan. 21, 1667–68.] He died soon after this, and his friends were in great fear that his goods would be seized upon on the ground that he was a suicide. Pepys used all his influence to save the estate, and obtained the King’s promise that it should not be taken from the widow and children. Those who were likely to benefit by the confiscation gave much trouble, and managed to stop the coroner’s verdict for a time. At last, however, the widow’s friends on the jury saved her from further anxiety by giving a verdict that her husband died of a fever. “Some opposition there was, the foreman pressing them to declare the cause of the fever, thinking thereby to obstruct it; but they did adhere to their verdict, and would give no reason.”[169 - “Diary,” Feb. 18, 1667–68.]

Kate Joyce (Anthony’s widow) was a pretty woman, and caused Pepys some trouble. She had many offers of marriage, and after a short period of widowhood she married one Hollingshed, a tobacconist.[170 - May 11, 1668.] Pepys was disgusted, and left her to her own devices with the expression, “As she brews let her bake.”

Mrs. Kite, the butcher, was another of Pepys’s aunts whose company he did not greatly appreciate. He was, however, her executor, and at her death he calls her daughter ugly names, thus: “Back again with Peg Kite, who will be I doubt a troublesome carrion to us executors.”[171 - Sept. 15, 1661.] A few days after she is called “a slut,”[172 - Oct. 2, 1661.] and when she declares her firm intention to marry “the beggarly rogue the weaver,” the executors are “resolved neither to meddle nor make with her.”[173 - Nov. 7, 1661.]

Few of these family connections were left when Pepys himself died, for in the long list of persons to whom rings and mourning were given the following relations only are noticed:—Samuel and John Jackson, sons of Pall Jackson (born Pepys), the two nephews; Balthazar St. Michel, brother-in-law, and his daughter Mary; Roger Pepys, of Impington, Edward Pickering, Tim Turner, the minister of Tooting; Mr. Bellamy, Mr. and Mrs. Mathews, Dr. Montagu, Dean of Durham; and the Earl of Sandwich.

Dr. Daniel Milles, the minister of St. Olave’s, Hart Street, was one of Pepys’s life-long acquaintances—we can hardly call him friend, for the Diarist never seems to have cared much for him. We read how he “nibbled at the Common Prayer,” then how he took to the surplice, and gradually changed from the minister under the Commonwealth to the Church of England rector under Charles. A year or two after he ought to have been accustomed to the Prayer-Book, he made an extraordinary blunder in reading the service. Instead of saying, “We beseech Thee to preserve to our use the kindly fruits of the earth,” he said: “Preserve to our use our gracious Queen Katherine.”[174 - “Diary,” April 17, 1664.] In 1667 he was presented to the rectory of Wanstead, in Essex, and in order to qualify him for holding two livings at the same time, he was made one of the Duke of York’s chaplains.[175 - May 29, 1667.]

It is often amusing to notice how frequently Pepys changed his opinion of certain persons: for instance, in 1660, he calls Mr. Milles “a very good minister,”[176 - “Diary,” Aug. 19, 1660.] while in 1667 he styles him “a lazy fat priest.”[177 - June 3, 1667.]

Two men who occupy a considerable space in the “Diary” are the two clerks, Thomas Hayter and William Hewer. Most of those who were in anyway connected with Pepys were helped on by him in the struggle of life, and his clerks were no exception to this rule. Hayter was appointed Clerk of the Acts in 1674, and Secretary of the Admiralty in 1679; and subsequently Hewer was a Commissioner of the Navy and Treasurer for Tangier. Some of those whose fortunes had been made by Pepys turned out ungrateful when their patron was out of power; but Hewer continued to be a comfort to the old man to the last.

Allusion has already been made to Pepys’s helpers in the arrangement of his books and papers, and therefore much need not be said about them here. While the “Diary” was being written, Pepys obtained help from his wife and brother-in-law and servants; but when he became more opulent he employed educated men to write for him. One of these was Cesare Morelli, an Italian, recommended by Thomas Hill. He arranged Pepys’s musical papers, and in 1681 he acknowledged the receipt of £7, which made a total of £85 17s. 6d. received from Pepys during a period extending from November 4th, 1678, to August 13th, 1681.[178 - Smith’s “Life, Journals, &c., of Samuel Pepys,” vol. i. p. 270.] This friendship, which does Pepys much credit, caused him some trouble, as Morelli was a Roman Catholic, and the zealots falsely affirmed that he was also a priest.

Pepys early made the acquaintance of Dr. Petty, who was a member of the Rota Club; and he frequently mentions him and his double-bottomed boat (named “The Experiment”) in the “Diary.” Many anecdotes are told of Petty by Aubrey—how he was poor at Paris, and lived for a week on three pennyworth of walnuts; how, while teaching anatomy at Oxford, he revived Nan Green after her execution, and how he obtained the Professorship of Music at Gresham College by the interest of Captain John Graunt, author of “Observations on the Bills of Mortality.” At the Restoration Petty was knighted, and made Surveyor-General of Ireland, where he gathered a large fortune. Pepys considered Sir William Petty to be one of the most rational men that he ever heard speak with tongue;[179 - “Diary,” Jan. 27, 1663–64.] and he was also an excellent droll. The latter character was proved when a soldier knight challenged him to fight. He was very short-sighted; and, having the privilege of nominating place and weapon for the duel, he chose a dark cellar for the place, and a great carpenter’s axe for the weapon. This turned the challenge into ridicule, and the duel never came off.

Petty was a prominent Fellow of the Royal Society, and about 1665 he presented a paper on “The Building of Ships,” which the President (Lord Brouncker) took away and kept to himself, according to Aubrey, with the remark, that “’twas too great an arcanum of State to be commonly perused.” Aubrey also relates an excellent story apropos of the Royal Society’s anniversary meeting on St. Andrew’s Day. The relater had remarked that he thought it was not well the Society should have pitched upon the patron of Scotland’s day, as they should have taken St. George or St. Isidore (a philosopher canonized). “No,” said Petty, “I would rather have had it on St. Thomas’s Day, for he would not believe till he had seen and put his fingers into the holes, according to the motto, Nullius in verba.”

Among the City friends of Pepys, the Houblons stand forward very prominently. James Houblon, the father, died in 1682, in his ninetieth year, and was buried in the church of St. Mary Woolnoth, his epitaph being written in Latin by Pepys. His five sons are frequently mentioned in the “Diary,” but James and Wynne were more particularly his friends, and were among those who received mourning rings after his death. In 1690, when Pepys was committed to the Gate-house, and four gentlemen came forward to bail him, James Houblon was one of these four.[180 - Smith’s “Life, &c., of Pepys,” vol. ii. p. 352.]

Alderman Backwell, the chief goldsmith of his time, had many dealings with Pepys, who went to him at one time to change some Dutch money, and at another to weigh Lord Sandwich’s crusados.[181 - A Portuguese coin worth from 2s. 3d. to 4s.:—“Believe me, I had rather lost my purseFull of cruzados.”—Othello, iii. 4.] Probably our Diarist was rather troublesome at times, for once he bought a pair of candlesticks, which soon afterwards he changed for a cup, and at last he obtained a tankard in place of the cup. In 1665 there was a false report that Backwell was likely to become a bankrupt; but in 1672, on the closing of the Exchequer, the King owed him £293,994 16s. 6d., and he was in consequence ruined by Charles’s dishonest action. On his failure many of his customers’ accounts were taken over by the predecessors of the present firm of Child and Co., the bankers.

We shall have occasion to allude in the next chapter (#x15_x_15_i3) to some of those who were brought in contact with Pepys in the way of business; but it is necessary to say a few words here about two men who were both official acquaintances and personal friends. Sir Anthony Deane was one of the most accomplished shipbuilders of his time, and a valuable public servant, but he did not escape persecution. A joint charge of betraying the secrets of the British navy was made against Pepys and Deane in 1675. In 1668 Deane had held the office of shipwright at Portsmouth, and afterwards he was appointed a Commissioner of the Navy. In 1680 he resigned his post, but in 1681 he again formed one of the new Board appointed by James II., and hoped to help in improving the condition of the navy, which was then in a very reduced state. After the Revolution he sought retirement in Worcestershire, and the two old men corresponded and compared notes on their states of mind. Deane wrote to Pepys: “These are only to let you know I am alive. I have nothing to do but read, walk and prepare for all chances, attending this obliging world. I have the old soldier’s request, a little space between business and the grave, which is very pleasant on many considerations. As most men towards their latter end grow serious, so do I in assuring you that I am,” &c.[182 - Smith’s “Life, &c. of Pepys,” vol. ii. p. 291.] Pepys replied: “I am alive too, I thank God! and as serious, I fancy, as you can be, and not less alone. Yet I thank God too! I have not within me one of those melancholy misgivings that you seem haunted with. The worse the world uses me, the better I think I am bound to use myself. Nor shall any solicitousness after the felicities of the next world (which yet I bless God! I am not without care for) ever stifle the satisfactions arising from a just confidence of receiving some time or other, even here, the reparation due to such unaccountable usage as I have sustained in this.”[183 - Ibid., vol. ii. p. 238.]

Mr. (afterwards Sir Henry) Sheres is frequently referred to in the latter pages of the “Diary,” but the friendship which sprang up between him and Pepys dates from a period subsequent to the completion of that work. Sheres accompanied the Earl of Sandwich into Spain, where he acquired that Spanish character which clung to him through life. He returned to England in September, 1667, carrying letters from Lord Sandwich. Pepys found him “a good ingenious man,” and was pleased with his discourse.

In the following month Sheres returned to Spain, being the bearer of a letter from Pepys to Lord Sandwich.[184 - Smith’s “Life, &c. of Pepys,” vol. i. p. 117.] Subsequently he was engaged at Tangier, and received £100 for drawing a plate of the fortification, as already related.[185 - “Diary,” Jan. 18, 1668–69.] He was grateful to Pepys for getting him the money, and had a silver candlestick made after a pattern he had seen in Spain, for keeping the light from the eyes, and gave it to the Diarist.[186 - Jan. 28, 1668–69.] On the 5th of April, 1669, he treated the Pepys household, at the Mulberry Garden, to a Spanish olio, a dish of meat and savoury herbs, which they greatly appreciated.

On the death of Sir Jonas Moore, Pepys wrote to Colonel Legge (afterward Lord Dartmouth) a strong letter of recommendation in favour of Sheres, whom he describes “as one of whose loyalty and duty to the King and his Royal Highness and acceptance with them I assure myself; of whose personal esteem and devotion towards you (Col. Legge), of whose uprightness of mind, universality of knowledge in all useful learning particularly mathematics, and of them those parts especially which relate to gunnery and fortification; and lastly, of whose vigorous assiduity and sobriety I dare bind myself in asserting much farther than, on the like occasion, I durst pretend to of any other’s undertaking, or behalf of mine.”[187 - Smith’s “Life, &c. of Pepys,” vol. i. p. 303.] Sheres obtained the appointment, and served under Lord Dartmouth at the demolition of Tangier in 1683. He appears to have been knighted in the following year, and to have devoted himself to literature in later life. He translated “Polybius,” and some “Dialogues” of Lucian, and was the author of a pretty song. His name occurs among those who received mourning rings on the occasion of Pepys’s death.