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'N Pepys' Diary we have 'one of the most curious records of the seventeenth century.' It covers, it is true, only ten years, but they are years of great interest to all who love to linger over the pages of England's history. During that period the Commonwealth passed away, and Charles ascended the throne of his fathers; the great plague devastated the metropolis one year, and an ever-memorable fire buried it in ashes the next; in England the Act of Uniformity became law, and Episcopacy triumphed ; in Scotland the popular voice denounced prelacy, as it had before denounced popery, and hill-side and valley were dyed with the blood of the adherents of the Covenant. The de cade covered by this journal is excelled in importance by few decades in our history since the days of Egbert, perhaps only by those in which a Norman Conqueror assumed the kingship, a Papal usurpation was cast off, and an Oliver Cromwell raised his native land to the rank of a great and powerful nation. We may justly, then, expect to find much in the pages of one such as Pepys to instruct and edify.

Not only is there a value attached to this work from the fact of its dealing with so interesting a period, but it has a peculiar worth besides. Clarendon wrote his 'History of the Rebellion,' and Burnet his History of His Own Time,' from personal and party standpoints. They may both be very trustworthy works in the main, but the colouring would be far

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from acceptable to every one. Pepys is not writing history. He has nothing to do with the past or with the future, but with an individual present. Day by day he writes a brief account of what he has seen, and heard, and done, simply for his own benefit, and it would seem without a thought or an intention of its ever being read by any other eye than his own. We have thus, as it were, a view into the inner self of the man. The work may be, as Charles Knight says, 'the most amusing exhibition of garrulous egotism that the world has seen;' but we feel that we can trust it. There no political or ecclesiastical shadings to mislead one; nothing to compel one to read with caution akin to that which is necessary to be observed when walking amid pitfalls or near quicksands. I admit we shall find much in these pages to smile at many weaknesses, many foolish ideas; we shall miss the spirit of piety so refreshing in Evelyn, and the love of God's world of nature so delightful in Gilbert White, but it is because Pepys does not assume that which he has not. He is not a pious man nor a naturalist, and does not claim to be either. He is just a simple-hearted, honest, vain, and, I fear I must add, selfish old fellow, that you may learn from and laugh over to your heart's content.

Samuel Pepys lived in an age not so remote from the present in time as differing from it in its social and national life. In his day there were no

railways, no telegraphs, no steamboats, no penny post, few newspapers and little travel. England was a quiet, restful country. The silence of its forests and valleys was unbroken by the noise of commerce. Ancient villages and noble mansions lay secluded in the deep, dark woods. Stately rivers flowed undisturbed and gracefully through bright, green glade and solitary wilderness, by lordly castles and ivy-clad churches and quiet farmhouses, on to the sea. The old stagecoach rolled heavily along the turnpike road. Now much is changed. Railways have joined villages and towns together and covered the country with a network of bustling life. Trade has laid its hand upon the valley stream. Wild moor and swampy fen are fast disappearing. The stage-coach has gone and with it the famous roadside inns. Old customs and habits are forgotten. The England of the ancient days has been changed as by a magician's wand. Its old, quiet life has passed away. New manners, new ideas, new laws have wrought a revolution vast and great, not only in political matters, but particularly in things social. Then the people had but few longings and these easily satisfied; now their ambitions are boundless, their wants unlimited. Then conservatism clung to the past and contentment hallowed the present; now the past is forgotten, the present restless and ever changing. Then men lived quietly, did their business, took their rest and went through life enjoying some of its pleasures; now men have barely time to exist. Whether the changes which an advanced age has brought upon us are for better or for worse, each man must judge for himself, and escape the charge of old foggyism' or a lack of conservatism as best he may.

The first introduction Pepys affords us is, on New Year's Day, 1659-60. He was then about 27 years of age, and had been married some five years. His private condition, he says, at this time was very poor. It seems he had

taken as a wife a very beautiful girl only fifteen years of age, whose handsome appearance and good looks were her only fortune. Poverty marred the joys of the first years of their married life, and they were obliged to become pensioners on the bounty of a wealthy relative. On the day he commences his Diary, he tells us he dined at home in the garret on the remains of a turkey, and in better times he often looked back to the days when his poor young wife used to make the fire and wash his clothes with her own hands. I am afraid, from the fact that she burned her hand over that turkey, she was not as successful a housewife as our average Canadian young lady makes. In truth, sundry intimations I find scattered through the Diary, would lead me to suppose nearly all her qualifications were summed up in her beauty. Pepys, indeed, never appears to have thought of any thing else. If ever man was proud of a wife's good looks, he was of her's. After his return from a great wedding party, he writes, among all the beauties there, my wife was thought the greatest.' Once, when in company with some gentlemen who were discussing pretty women, he says he was not a little glad to hear his wife spoken of as a great beauty. And when he presented her to the Queen, he mentally compared her with the king's younger sister. Mrs. Pepys wore little black patches on her face, which in those days were supposed to enhance a lady's beauty, and her husband says of this occasion: The Princess Henrietta is very pretty, but much below my expectation; and her dressing of herself with her hair frizzed short up to her ears did make her seem so much the less to me. But my wife standing near her with two or three black patches on and well dressed, did seem to me much handsomer than she.'

Speaking of Mrs. Pepys reminds one that Mr. Pepys' early blunder, which, to do him credit, he tried to make the best of, did not incapacitate

him from making matches for other people. He undertook, the dear good gossip, to settle the marriage destinies of many a couple. He had a sister, Paulina, who was a great deal of trouble to him. She was, he says, proud and idle, and not over friendly to his wife. Moreover, he adds, 'I find her so ill-natured that I cannot love her, and she so cruel an hypocrite that she can cry when she pleases.' Her father and brother kept her, but Pepys writes: God knows what will become of her, for I have not anything yet to spare her, and she grows now old and must be disposed of, one way or other.' 'Disposed of ' meant married, and Pepys set to work to find her a husband. This was no easy task. His wife tried to help him in the matter. She adroitly proposed to a gentleman, her husband's chief clerk, to take Miss Pepys for a wife, but, writes Pepys, he received (the advice) with mighty acknowledgebut says he had

ments no intention to alter his condition.' Sometime after this a young country clergyman, Richard Cumberland, afterwards Bishop of Peterborough, paid him a visit, and, says Pepys, 'a most excellent person he is as any I know, and one that I am sorry should be lost and buried in a little country town, and would be glad to remove him thence; and the truth is, if he would accept of my sister's fortune, I should give £100 more with him than to a man able to settle her four times as much as, I fear, he is able to do; and I will think of it, and a way how to move it, he having in discourse said he was not against marrying, nor yet engaged.' But the parson was not caught. And time rolled away and yet no husband for Paulina. Poor Pepys was much distressed. He talked with his father in the garden early one autumn morning, 'about,' says he, a husband for my sister whereof there is at present no appearance; but we must endeavour to find her one now, for she grows old and ugly.'

And they did endeavour,' and by and bye we are told that she had a match on foot with one Jackson, and Pepys determined to have her married at his house and to be merry at it, ' and do resolve to let it be done as soon as I can.' He tells us when he met this Jackson he found him to be

a plain young man, handsome enough for Pall, one of no education nor discourse, but of few words, and one altogether that I think will please me well enough.' At last the sister was married, and, says Pepys, 'that work is, I hope, well over.'

It was not always Pepys found so much difficulty as in the case of his sister, but then it must be remembered she was proud and idle,' and 'old and ugly.' Generally speaking, he must have been very successful or he would hardly have enjoyed the reputation he did. Even his cousin Roger, he says, 'bids me to help him to some good rich widow, for he is resolved to go and retire wholly into the country.'

But the most interesting and important match in which he was employed was one between the eldest son of Sir George Carteret and the daughter of the Earl of Sandwich. Mr. Pepys and the mothers arranged all the preliminaries; the young people were not consulted till everything was settled. Then arrangements were made to bring them together. One Saturday in July the young lady was visiting at a friend's house in the country, where a large company was assembled, and thither Pepys undertook to accompany the, intended bridegroom. On the way he talked with him of the important affair in hand, but, says our Diarist, 'what silly discourse we had as to lovematters, he being the most awkward man ever I met with in my life as to that business.' After their arrival, a nobleman, Lord Crewe, engaged Philip (that was the name of the youth) in conversation, and, says Pepys, 'he answered him well enough

in a few words; but nothing to the lady from him at all.' Then 'to supper, and after supper to talk again, he yet taking no notice of the lady. My lord,' continues Pepys, would have had me have consented to leaving the young people together to-night to begin their amours, his staying being but to be little. But I advised against it, lest the lady might be too much surprised. So they led him up to his chamber (by-the-way, he was lame), where I stayed a little to know how he liked the lady, which he told me he did mightily; but, Lord! in the dullest insipid manner that ever lover did. So I bid him good night;' and as things were rather discouraging so far, went to consult with his friends what

to do. It was agreed, at last, to have them go to church together on the next day.

Early on Sunday morning Pepys dressed, and finding Philip, took him apart for an hour or two to give him special instructions; but the account given in the Diary is so amusing that I may be pardoned for transcribing a whole page. 'I taught him,' says Pepys, 'what to do; to take the lady always by the hand to lead her, and telling him that I would find opportunity to leave them together, he should make these and these compliments, and also take a time to do the like to Lord Crewe and Lady Wright. After I had instructed him, which he thanked me for, owning that he needed my teaching him, my Lord Crewe come down and family, the young lady among the rest; and so by coaches to church four miles off. Thence back again by coach, Mr. Carteret having not had the confidence to take his lady once by the hand, coming or going, which I told him of when we come home, and he will hereafter do it. So to dinner. By and by my Lady Wright and I go out, and then my Lord Crewe, he not by design, and lastly my Lady Crewe come out, and left the young people together. And a little pretty daughter of my Lady Wright's most inno

cently come out afterwards, and shut the door to, as if she had done it, poor child, by inspiration, which made us without have good sport to laugh at. They together an hour, and by and by church time, whither he led her into the coach and into the church. Home again, and to walk in the gardens, where we left the young couple a second time; and my Lady Wright and I to walk together, who tells me that some new clothes must of necessity be made for Lady Jemimah, (the bride elect) which and other things I took care of.' What a busy Sunday! And yet that same evening, after all his anxiety and care over this party, ‘I spoke,' he says, 'with Mrs. Carter, an old acquaintance, that hath lived with my Lady these twelve or thirteen years, the sum of all whose discourse and others for her is, that I would get her a good husband; which I have promised, but know not when I shall perform.'

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The next day the company broke Pepys advised young Carteret to give the servants £10 among them, which he did. Before we went, I took my Lady Jemimah apart, and would know how she liked this gentleman, and whether she was under any difficulty concerning him. She blushed, and hid her face awhile; but at last I forced her to tell me. She answered, that she could readily obey what her father and mother had done; which was all she could say, or I expect.' So Pepys and Philip left together for London. In our way, Mr. Carteret did give me mighty thanks for my care and pains for him, and is mightily pleased, though the truth is, my Lady Jemimah hath carried herself with mighty discretion and gravity, not being forward at all in any degree, but mighty serious in her answers to him, as by what he says and I observed, I collect.' However, notwithstanding the evident reluctance of the principal parties to the match, there was 'mighty mirth,' among the friends on both sides when the 'good