Samuel Pepys and the World He Lived In

by Henry B. Wheatley

Pepys desired that his name might go down to posterity, but he could little have foreseen the fame that it has attained in the nineteenth century. The mode he took to keep it alive was the bequeathment of his library and collections to a time-honoured foundation; and there is every reason to believe that he would have strongly objected to the publication of his “Diary.” Now that that book has been published, we all see the full-length figure of the man; but his character might also have been read in the Pepysian library at Magdalene College, Cambridge; and this latter exhibition of him has been much longer before the public. Comparatively little interest was, however, taken in it until after the appearance of the deciphered “Diary,” when his name at once sprang into fame.

The library was left, in the first instance, to the Diarist’s nephew, John Jackson, but with a special proviso that it should on no account be dispersed. Pepys refers in his memorandum to “the infinite pains and time and cost employed in my collecting and reducing the same to the state it now is” in. He is particularly solicitous “for its unalterable preservation and perpetual security against the ordinary fate of such collections, falling into the hands of an incompetent heir and thereby being sold, dissipated or imbezzled.” Jackson was allowed a certain latitude in the disposal of the collections after his death. They were to be placed at one of the Universities, but Cambridge was to be preferred to Oxford. A private college was to be chosen rather than the Public Library, and of colleges Trinity or Magdalene were to be given the preference over the others. Of these two colleges (on the boards of each of which Pepys’s name had been entered), Magdalene, at which he received his education, was to have the preference. The college which did not receive the gift was appointed visitor, and if at the annual inspection any breach of covenant occurred, the library became forfeited to it.

A fair room was to be provided for the library, and no other books were to be added, save those which Jackson might add in distinct presses. The whole was to be called “Bibliotheca Pepysiana,” and the sole power and custody over it was to be vested in the master of the college for the time being.[119]

Magdalene College was founded by Lord Chancellor Audley, who vested for ever the right of nominating to the mastership in the possessors of Audley End. At the time that Pepys was a student the buildings were far from extensive, and consisted of the first court alone. The foundation of the second court was laid in 1677, and Pepys’s “Correspondence” contains a letter from Dr. Hezekiah Burton, asking for the contribution already promised towards the new buildings; and another from John Maulyverer in 1679, thanking for money lent for the same purpose, and referring to a bond. A fellow-collegian of Pepys was John Peachell, afterwards Vicar of Stanwick, Prebendary of Carlisle, and Master of the College in 1679. He does not appear to have been altogether an estimable man, for in 1677 (May 3) Pepys felt half ashamed to be seen in his company because of his red nose; and according to Lord Dartmouth’s manuscript notes on Bishop Burnet’s “History of his own Time,” there was cause for this rubicundity, as Archbishop Sancroft rebuked him for setting an ill example in the University by drunkenness and other loose behaviour. Dr. Peachell had his good points, however, for in 1687 he was suspended from his mastership and deprived of his vice-chancellorship for refusing to admit Alban Francis, a Benedictine monk, to the degree of Master of Arts without taking the prescribed oaths. It appears from a letter to Pepys that he greatly feared the Earl of Suffolk, who was then owner of Audley End, would be content to have him removed in order to obtain the privilege of nominating a successor, but he was fortunate in being restored to his office in the following year.

Pepys never forgot a friend, and a month before this restoration he induced Lord Dartmouth, on his appointment to the command of the fleet, to ask Peachell to be his chaplain, with authority over all the other chaplains. In 1690 the Master of Magdalene died of starvation brought about by a four days’ fast which he prescribed himself as a penance after the archbishop’s admonition; and when he afterwards tried to eat he could not.

The master at the period of Pepys’s death was Dr. Quadring, and in the college chest are two letters written by Jackson to him to inform him of the will of the deceased respecting the library. It was not, however, until 1724, on the death of Jackson, that the three thousand volumes of which the library consisted were, with the original bookcases, removed to the college, and deposited in the new buildings which Pepys had assisted to build. The old inscription, “Bibliotheca Pepysiana,” which was set up at the time, is still to be seen on the front in the second courtyard.

The library is of the greatest interest, and a mere enumeration of some of the treasures contained in it is enough to whet the appetite of the least ardent among the lovers of old books. To mention first the manuscripts:—there are the various papers collected by Pepys for his proposed “Navalia;” a “vast treasure of papers” lent by Evelyn, but never returned to their owner; seventeen letters from Henry VIII. to Anne Boleyn, copied at Rome from the originals in the Vatican, 1682; a collection of papers relating to Charles II.’s escape from Worcester; a journal of the proceedings of the Duke of Monmouth in his invading of England, with the progress and issue of the rebellion attending it, kept by Mr. Edward Dummer, then serving the train of artillery employed by his Majesty for the suppression of the same; and a Survey (made by order of the Admiralty) of buildings and encroachments on the River of Thames, from London Bridge to Cuckold’s Point, 1684–1687. The Maitland MS., which contains an excellent collection of Scottish poetry, and is named after Sir Richard Maitland of Lethington, Lord Privy Seal and Judge in the Court of Session (b. 1496, d. 1586), who formed it, is also worthy of special mention. How the two volumes of which it consists came into Pepys’s possession is not recorded. Selections from them were printed by Pinkerton in 1786.