* * * * *
It is painful to this tracker of Mr. Pepys’s vestiges to note that on Christmas Day, 1662, Bishop Morley at the Chapel Royal “made but a poor sermon.” The Bishop apparently rebuked the levity of the Court. “It was worth observing how far they are come from taking the reprehensions of a Bishop seriously, that they all laugh in the chapel when he reflected on their ill-actions and courses. He did much press us to joy in these public days of joy, and to hospitality; but one that stood by whispered in my ear that the Bishop do not spend one groat to the poor himself.” In 1665 we fear that Samuel indulged himself in church with some rather cynical thoughts:
Saw a wedding in the church, and the young people so merry one with another; and strange to see what delight we married people have to see these poor fools decoyed into our condition, every man and woman gazing and smiling at them.
One could continue for some space recounting the eupeptic Pepys in his Christmas merriments—so large an edifice of pleasing conjecture can be built upon even his slightest notes. One observes, for instance, that on December 27, 1664, when “my wife and all her folks” came “to make Christmas gambols,” Samuel left the party and went to bed. This was very different from his usual habit when there was fun going. He was annoyed also that on this occasion his wife revelled all night, not coming to bed until 8 the next morning, “which vexed me a little, but I believe there was no hurt in it at all, but only mirth.”
So we take leave of the Christmases of the Pepyses; 1668 is the last one recorded—the time when Elizabeth stayed at home all day altering her petticoat. After supper, the boy played some music on the lute, and Samuel’s mind was “in mighty content.” Let us think kindly of the good fellow; and not forget that he coined one of the enduring phrases of English literature—a phrase that is no such ineffective summary of all the lives of men—And so to bed.
CHILDREN AS COPY
Titania said: “You haven’t written a poem about the baby yet.”
It is quite true. She is now thirteen months old, and has not yet had a poem written about her. Titania considers this deplorable. The first baby was hardly a week old before all sorts of literary studies were packing the mails, speeding to such editors as were known to be prompt pay. (I hope, indeed I hope, you never saw that astounding essay—published anonymously in Every Week which expired soon after—called “The Expectant Father,” which was written when the poor urchin was some twenty-four hours old. It was his first attempt to earn money for his parent. If any child ever paid his own hospital bills—C. O. D., as you might say—it was he. I believe in bringing up my children to be self-supporting.)