“July 10, 1660. This day I put on my new silk suit, the first that ever I wore in my life.”
“Feb. 3, 1661, (Lord’s Day). This day I first begun [sic] to go forth in my coat and sword, as the manner now among gentlemen is.”
“April 22, 1661. Up early, and made myself as fine as I could.”
“Oct 19, 1662, (Lord’s Day). Put on my first new lace-band; and so neat it is, that I am resolved my great expense shall be lace-bands, and it will set off anything else the more.”
“May 17, 1668, (Lord’s Day). Up and put on my new stuff suit, with a shoulder belt, according to the new fashion, and the bands of my vest and tunique laced with silk lace of the colour of my suit; and so very handsome to church.”
Alas, poor Pepys! Where be your lace-bands now? your shoulder-belts? your rich silk vests?
The prominence of dress in the Diary may well surprise us, but we are scarcely less astonished by the amount of space given by our busy man of affairs to the most various kinds of pleasure and simple merrymaking. Amongst the games in which Mr. Secretary Pepys seems to have found special satisfaction, tennis, ninepins, and billiards hold high place; but these, after all, never yielded him a tithe of the pure enjoyment that he derived from his more intellectual pastimes, reading and music. Pepys was a genuine musician; and we get the impression from the journal that his love of music reached the proportions of a real passion—the only passion, indeed, of his life. On the other hand, he was not a systematic scholar, though he devoured books with avidity, keeping in touch with the literary output of his day, and at least tasting all sorts of things, from Cicero, the Hebrew grammar, and Hooker’s “Ecclesiastical Polity,” downward to Audley’s “Way to be Rich,” and the last-published comedy of the popular playwrights of his time. Here are a couple of sample entries:—
“Feb. 10, 1661-2. To Paul’s Churchyard, and there I met with Dr. Fuller’s ‘England’s Worthys,’ the first time that ever I saw it; and so I sat down reading in it; being much troubled that (though he had some discourse with me about my family and arms) he says nothing at all, nor mentions us either in Cambridgeshire or Norfolke. But I believe, indeed, our family were never considerable.”
“July 1, 1666. ... Walked to Woolwich, reading ‘The Rivall Ladys’[[4]] all the way, and find it a most pleasant and fine writ play.”
Pepys’s passing opinions have not much critical value, but they are his own, which is more than can be said of many literary dicta far more pretentious than his. It is rather instructive to follow some of his fluctuations in taste. We notice—to take a single illustration only—that when the first part of “Hudibras” was issued, he bought a copy for half a crown, having heard it much cried up for its pungent wit; but was so much disappointed when he came to dip into it, that he sold it again the same afternoon for eighteen-pence. Still every one talked of the poem, and Pepys began to wonder whether he had given it a fair trial. So a few days later he purchased another copy, resolved on closer study. Now, I will venture to say that in this emergency poor Pepys kept himself by no means free from the sham admiration and cuckoo-criticism which is the bane of our drawing-rooms, and, for that matter, of some of our college classrooms, at the present day. Had you met him in social gatherings, and had the talk turned on “Hudibras,” as it would almost certainly have done, then, doubtless, you would have found that Pepys, fearful of appearing deficient in acumen or taste, would have little or nothing to say about his adverse judgment, and might even consent to laugh perfunctorily at jokes he really did not think funny, and at doggerel rhymes which in his heart of hearts he held to be simply stupid. Meanwhile, he confides to his Diary the expression of his honest opinion, promising himself that, on the appearance of the second part of the poem, he will borrow it from some friend, and buy it only if, on inspection, it should turn out to be better than the first part. All this is surely edifying.