LITMIR.BIZ

      The library and the original book-cases were not transferred to Magdalene College until 1724, and there they have been preserved in safety ever since.

      A large number of Pepys’s manuscripts appear to have remained unnoticed in York Buildings for some years. They never came into Jackson’s hands, and were thus lost to Magdalene College. Dr. Rawlinson afterwards obtained them, and they were included in the bequest of his books to the Bodleian Library.

      Pepys was partial to having his portrait taken, and he sat to Savill, Hales, Lely, and Kneller. Hales’s portrait, painted in 1666, is now in the National Portrait Gallery, and an etching from the original forms the frontispiece to this volume. The portrait by Lely is in the Pepysian Library. Of the three portraits by Kneller, one is in the hall of Magdalene College, another at the Royal Society, and the third was lent to the First Special Exhibition of National Portraits, 1866, by the late Mr. Andrew Pepys Cockerell. Several of the portraits have been engraved, but the most interesting of these are those used by Pepys himself as book-plates. These were both engraved by Robert White, and taken from paintings by Kneller.

      The church of St. Olave, Hart Street, is intimately associated with Pepys both in his life and in his death, and for many years the question had been constantly asked by visitors, “Where is Pepys’s monument?” On Wednesday, July 5th, 1882, a meeting was held in the vestry of the church, when an influential committee was appointed, upon which all the great institutions with which Pepys was connected were represented by their masters, presidents, or other officers, with the object of taking steps to obtain an adequate memorial of the Diarist. Mr. (now Sir) Alfred Blomfield, architect of the church, presented an appropriate design for a monument, and sufficient subscriptions having been obtained for the purpose, he superintended its erection. On Tuesday afternoon, March 18th, 1884, the monument, which was affixed to the wall of the church where the gallery containing Pepys’s pew formerly stood, was unveiled in the presence of a large concourse of visitors. The Earl of Northbrook, First Lord of the Admiralty, consented to unveil the monument, but he was at the last moment prevented by public business from attending. The late Mr. Russell Lowell, then the American Minister, took Lord Northbrook’s place, and made a very charming and appreciative speech on the occasion, from which the following passages are extracted:—

      “It was proper,” his Excellency said, “that he should read a note he

       had received from Lord Northbrook. This was dated that day from the

       Admiralty, and was as follows:

       “ ‘My dear Mr. Lowell,

       “ ‘I am very much annoyed that I am prevented from assisting at the

       ceremony to-day. It would be very good if you would say that

       nothing but very urgent business would have kept me away. I was

       anxious to give my testimony to the merits of Pepys as an Admiralty

       official, leaving his literary merits to you. He was concerned with

       the administration of the Navy from the Restoration to the

       Revolution, and from 1673 as secretary. I believe his merits to be

       fairly stated in a contemporary account, which I send.

       “ ‘Yours very truly,

       “ ‘NORTHBROOK.

       “The contemporary account, which Lord Northbrook was good enough to

       send him, said:

       “ ‘Pepys was, without exception, the greatest and most useful

       Minister that ever filled the same situations in England, the acts

       and registers of the Admiralty proving this beyond contradiction.

       The principal rules and establishments in present use in these

       offices are well known to have been of his introducing, and most of

       the officers serving therein since the Restoration, of his bringing-

       up. He was a most studious promoter and strenuous asserter of order

       and discipline. Sobriety, diligence, capacity, loyalty, and

       subjection to command were essentials required in all whom he

       advanced. Where any of these were found wanting, no interest or

       authority was capable of moving him in favour of the highest

       pretender. Discharging his duty to his Prince and country with a

       religious application and perfect integrity, he feared no one,

       courted no one, and neglected his own fortune.’

       “That was a character drawn, it was true, by a friendly hand, but to

       those who were familiar with the life of Pepys, the praise hardly

       seemed exaggerated. As regarded his official life, it was

       unnecessary to dilate upon his peculiar merits, for they all knew

       how faithful he was in his duties, and they all knew, too, how many

       faithful officials there were working on in obscurity, who were not

       only never honoured with a monument but who never expected one. The

       few words, Mr. Lowell went on to remark, which he was expected to

       say upon that occasion, therefore, referred rather to what he

       believed was the true motive which had brought that assembly

       together, and that was by no means the character of Pepys either as

       Clerk of the Acts or as Secretary to the Admiralty. This was not

       the place in which one could go into a very close examination of the

       character of Pepys as a private man. He would begin by admitting

       that Pepys was a type, perhaps, of what was now called a

       ‘Philistine’. We had no word in England which was equivalent to the

       French adjective Bourgeois; but, at all events, Samuel Pepys was the

       most perfect type that ever existed of the class of people whom this

       word described. He had all its merits as well as many of its

       defects. With all those defects, however perhaps in consequence of

       them—Pepys had written one of the most delightful books that it was

       man’s privilege to read in the English language or in any other.

       Whether Pepys intended this Diary to be afterwards read by the

       general public or not—and this was a doubtful question when it was

       considered that he had left, possibly by inadvertence, a key to his

       cypher behind him—it was certain that he had left with us a most

       delightful picture, or rather he had left the power in our hands of

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