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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

       drawing for ourselves some, of the most delightful pictures, of the

       time in which he lived. There was hardly any book which was

       analogous to it. … . If one were asked what were the reasons

       for liking Pepys, it would be found that they were as numerous as

       the days upon which he made an entry in his Diary, and surely that

       was sufficient argument in his favour. There was no book, Mr.

       Lowell said, that he knew of, or that occurred to his memory, with

       which Pepys's Diary could fairly be compared, except the journal of

       L'Estoile, who had the same anxious curiosity and the same

       commonness, not to say vulgarity of interest, and the book was

       certainly unique in one respect, and that was the absolute sincerity

       of the author with himself. Montaigne is conscious that we are

       looking over his shoulder, and Rousseau secretive in comparison with

       him. The very fact of that sincerity of the author with himself

       argued a certain greatness of character. Dr. Hickes, who attended

       Pepys at his deathbed, spoke of him as 'this great man,' and said he

       knew no one who died so greatly. And yet there was something almost

       of the ridiculous in the statement when the 'greatness' was compared

       with the garrulous frankness which Pepys showed towards himself.

       There was no parallel to the character of Pepys, he believed, in

       respect of 'naivete', unless it were found in that of Falstaff, and

       Pepys showed himself, too, like Falstaff, on terms of unbuttoned

       familiarity with himself. Falstaff had just the same 'naivete', but

       in Falstaff it was the 'naivete' of conscious humour. In Pepys it

       was quite different, for Pepys's 'naivete' was the inoffensive

       vanity of a man who loved to see himself in the glass. Falstaff had

       a sense, too, of inadvertent humour, but it was questionable whether

       Pepys could have had any sense of humour at all, and yet permitted

       himself to be so delightful. There was probably, however, more

       involuntary humour in Pepys's Diary than there was in any other book

       extant. When he told his readers of the landing of Charles II. at

       Dover, for instance, it would be remembered how Pepys chronicled the

       fact that the Mayor of Dover presented the Prince with a Bible, for

       which he returned his thanks and said it was the 'most precious Book

       to him in the world.' Then, again, it would be remembered how, when

       he received a letter addressed 'Samuel Pepys, Esq.,' he confesses in

       the Diary that this pleased him mightily. When, too, he kicked his

       cookmaid, he admits that he was not sorry for it, but was sorry that

       the footboy of a worthy knight with whom he was acquainted saw him

       do it. And the last instance he would mention of poor Pepys's

       'naivete' was when he said in the Diary that he could not help

       having a certain pleasant and satisfied feeling when Barlow died.

       Barlow, it must be remembered, received during his life the yearly

       sum from Pepys of £100. The value of Pepys's book was simply

       priceless, and while there was nothing in it approaching that single

       page in St. Simon where he described that thunder of courtierly red

       heels passing from one wing of the Palace to another as the Prince

       was lying on his death-bed, and favour was to flow from another

       source, still Pepys's Diary was unequalled in its peculiar quality

       of amusement. The lightest part of the Diary was of value,

       historically, for it enabled one to see London of 200 years ago,

       and, what was more, to see it with the eager eyes of Pepys. It was

       not Pepys the official who had brought that large gathering together

       that day in honour of his memory: it was Pepys the Diarist."

      In concluding this account of the chief particulars of Pepys's life it may be well to add a few words upon the pronunciation of his name. Various attempts appear to have been made to represent this phonetically. Lord Braybrooke, in quoting the entry of death from St. Olave's Registers, where the spelling is "Peyps," wrote, "This is decisive as to the proper pronunciation of the name." This spelling may show that the name was pronounced as a monosyllable, but it is scarcely conclusive as to anything else, and Lord Braybrooke does not say what he supposes the sound of the vowels to have been. At present there are three pronunciations in use—Peps, which is the most usual; Peeps, which is the received one at Magdalene College, and Peppis, which I learn from Mr. Walter C. Pepys is the one used by other branches of the family. Mr. Pepys has paid particular attention to this point, and in his valuable "Genealogy of the Pepys Family" (1887) he has collected seventeen varieties of spelling of the name, which are as follows, the dates of the documents in which the form appears being attached:

      1. Pepis (1273); 2. Pepy (1439); 3. Pypys (1511); 4. Pipes (1511); 5. Peppis (1518); 6. Peppes (1519); 7. Pepes (1520); 8. Peppys (1552); 9. Peaps (1636); 10. Pippis (1639); 11. Peapys (1653); 12. Peps (1655); 13. Pypes (1656); 14. Peypes (1656); 15. Peeps (1679); 16. Peepes (1683); 17. Peyps (1703). Mr. Walter Pepys adds:—

      "The accepted spelling of the name 'Pepys' was adopted generally

       about the end of the seventeenth century, though it occurs many

      

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