Pepys’s collections have a special interest, because he collected his books himself, knew all about them, and registered them with loving care. His various catalogues and indexes are marvels of neatness, and living as he did in a pre-bibliographical age, he deserves the greatest credit for the judgment exercised in their production. In the fifth volume of the little collection of books on Shorthand, there is an index of authors, with dates of publication and references to the volume in which each will be found; and the following, which is the title of one of the appendixes to the catalogue, will show how much labour was willingly expended in the production of these helps to research: “A chronological Deductions of the Variations of Stile (to be collected from ye Alphabet of my books) in ye language of England between ann. 700 & ye attempt last made towards its refinement by Sir Philp Sidney in his ‘Arcadia,’ between 1580 and 1590.”
Neatness and the love of accuracy were ruling passions with Pepys, and when a catalogue was filled up with additional entries he had it re-arranged and copied out. On “A Catalogue and Alphabet to my books of Geography and Hydrography, 1693–95,” is the following memorandum: “Before this Index be transcribed far to collect and alphabet the particulars contained in the List of additional Books inserted at the end, and that being done To incorporate both them and the four particular Indexes preceding into the Principal, and so as to unite the whole.”
This is an interesting list: “Bibliotheca Nautica, 1695. Catalogue of Authors (the perfectest I can arrive at) upon the art and practice of Navigation, with a Chronological Catalogue of the most eminent Mathematicians of this Nation, Antient and Modern, to the year 1673.” Some papers show how all this was arrived at, thus: “Memorandum, to look over ye Epistles and Prefaces to all the Bookes in this Collection, of which I am not maister, and ye other allsoe, and apply what is usefull through ye whole.” Mr. Mount, “son-in-law and successor to the late Mr. Fisher, master of the ancient shopp and our only magazine of English Books of Navigation at the Postern on Tower Hill,” prepared a list, and tried to answer Pepys’s queries. The Diarist was well known to all the booksellers, and he doubtless was a good customer, although he must have troubled them sometimes with his fastidiousness. A note intended for Mr. Mount may be looked upon as a good sample of many more such memorandums, “To get me the ‘Invention of ye Art of Navigation,’ a fair one for ye dirty one I bought of him.”
Robert Scott, the famous bookseller of Little Britain, when sending Pepys four scarce books, the total cost of which was only £1 14s., writes, “But without flattery I love to find a rare book for you.” Herringman, of the “Blue Anchor,” at the New Exchange in the Strand, Joseph Kirton, of St. Paul’s Churchyard, who was ruined by the Fire of London, and Bagford, the title-robber, were some among the booksellers with whom Pepys had dealings.
Pepys was not a producer of marginalia, but some of his books contain an occasional note of interest; thus, in Cotton’s “Compleat Gamester” (1674), “cocking” is described at page 206 as a “game of delight and pleasure,” and Pepys added a manuscript note in the margin, “of barbarity.” Not only does this give us Pepys’s opinion of the sport very pithily, but it also illustrates a passage in the “Diary,” where he describes his visit to the cock-fighting in Shoe Lane, and says he soon had enough of it.[133]
All the books in the Library have a bookplate in the inside cover. These are of different design, two having Pepys’s portrait (one large and the other small), and one having S. P. and two anchors interlaced. Dr. Diamond writes in “Notes and Queries,” that he once met with a large quantity of these bookplates in four varieties. Two were beautifully engraved by Faithorne, as is supposed, and two were by White. Some of them had a rough margin, and others were cut close up to the mantle on the arms.[134]
The motto which Pepys adopted, Mens cujusque is est quisque, was criticized by some of the Admirals in 1690, and the Diarist desired his friend Hewer to point out to them, through Mr. Southerne, that it was a quotation from Cicero’s “Somnium Scipionis,” and that the thought was derived from Plato and wrought upon by St. Paul. The whole passage is, “Tu vero enitere, et sic habeto te non esse mortalem, sed Corpus hoc. Nec enim is est quem forma ista declarat; sed mens cujusque is est quisque, non ea figura quæ digito monstrari potest.”
In concluding this notice of the Pepysian Library, it will be necessary to say a few words about the Musical collections. Pepys was not a mere amateur in music, but understood both theory and practice thoroughly, and he found consolation from it when troubles came upon him.[135] On November 2nd, 1661, he tried “to make a song in praise of a liberal genius,” which he took his own to be, but the result did not prove to his mind; and on March 20th, 1668, he endeavoured to invent “a better theory of music than hath yet been abroad.”
We have references in the “Diary” to four songs which he composed, and a notice of one which he only attempted.[136] On January 30th, 1659–60, he sang Montrose’s verses on the execution of Charles I. beginning,—
“Great, good, and just, could I but rate,”