so as I could not believe that ever any musick hath that real command over the soul of a man as this did upon me: and makes me resolve to practise wind-musick, and to make my wife do the like.

Mr Pepys at Church.

May 26, 1667.-My wife and I to church, where several strangers of good condition come to our pew. After dinner, I by water alone to Westminster to the parish church, and there did entertain myself with my perspective glass up and down the church, by which I had the great pleasure of seeing and gazing at a great many very fine women; and what with that, and sleeping, I passed away the time till sermon was done. I away to my boat, and up with it as far as Barne Elmes, reading of Mr Evelyn's late new book against Solitude, in which I do not find much excess of good matter, though it be pretty for a bye discourse.

August 18.-To Cree Church, to see it how it is: but I find no alteration there, as they say there was, for my Lord Mayor and Aldermen to come to sermon, as they do every Sunday, as they did formerly to Paul's. There dined with me Mr Turner and his daughter Betty. Betty is grown a fine young lady as to carriage and discourse. We had a good haunch of venison, powdered and boiled, and a good dinner. I walked towards Whitehall, but, being wearied, turned into St Dunstan's Church, where I heard an able sermon of the minister of the place; and stood by a pretty, modest maid, whom I did labour to take by the hand; but she would not, but got further and further from me; and, at last, could perceive her to take pins out of her pocket to prick me if I should touch her again—which, seeing, I did forbear, and was glad I did spy her design. And then I fell to gaze upon another pretty maid, in a pew close to me, and she on me; and I did go about to take her by the hand, which she suffered a little and then withdrew. So the sermon ended.

Domestic Scene between Mr and Mrs Pepys. May 11, 1667.-My wife being dressed this day in fair hair did make me so mad, that I spoke not one word to her, though I was ready to burst with anger. After that, Creed and I into the Park, and walked, a most pleasant evening, and so took coach, and took up my wife, and in my way home discovered my trouble to my wife for her white locks, swearing several times, which I pray God forgive me for, and bending my fist that I would not endure it. She, poor wretch, was surprised with it, and made me no answer all the way home; but there we parted, and I to the office late, and then home, and without supper to bed, vexed.

12. (Lord's day.)-Up and to my chamber, to settle some accounts there, and by and by down comes my wife to me in her night-gown, and we begun calmly, that, upon having money to lace her gown for second mourning, she would promise to wear white locks no more in my sight, which I, like a severe fool, thinking not enough, begun to except against, and made her fly out to very high terms and cry, and in her heat, told me of keeping company with Mrs Knipp, saying, that if I would promise never to see her more of whom she hath more reason to suspect than I had heretofore of Pembleton-she would never wear white locks more. This vexed me, but I restrained myself from saying anything, but do think never to see this woman-at least, to have her here more; and so all very good friends as ever. My wife and I bethought ourselves to go to a French house to dinner, and so inquired out Monsieur Robins, my perriwigg-maker, who keeps an ordinary, and in an ugly street in Covent Garden, did find him at the door, and so we in; and in a moment almost had the table covered, and clean glasses, and all in the French manner, and a mess of potage first, and then a piece of bœuf-a-la-mode, all exceeding well seasoned, and to our

great liking; at least it would have been anywhere else but in this bad street, and in a perriwigg-maker's house; but to see the pleasant and ready attendance that we had, and all things so desirous to please, and ingenious in the people, did take me mightily. Our dinner cost us 6s,

Mr Pepys makes a Great Speech at the Bar of the House of Commons in defence of the Navy Board. March 5, 1668.-I full of thoughts and trouble touching the issue of this day; and, to comfort myself, did go to the Dog, and drink half a pint of mulled sack, and in the hall did drink a dram of brandy at Mrs Hewlett's; and with the warmth of this did find myself in better order as to courage, truly. So we all up to the lobby; and, between eleven or twelve o'clock, were called in, with the mace before us, into the House, where a mighty full House; and we stood at the bar-namely, Brouncker, Sir J. Minnes, Sir T. Harvey, and myself, W. Penn being in the House, as a member. I perceive the whole House was full of expectation of our defence what it would be, and with great prejudice. After the Speaker had told us the dissatisfaction of the House, and read the Report of the Committee, I began our defence most acceptable and smoothly, and continued at it without any hesitation or loss, but with full scope, and all my reason free about me, as if it had been at my own table, from that time till past three in the afternoon; and so ended, without any interruption from the Speaker; but we withdrew. And there all my fellow-officers, and all the world that was within hearing, did congratulate me, and cry up my speech as the best thing they ever heard. To my wife, whom W. Hewer had told of my success, and she overjoyed; and, after talking a while, I betimes to bed, having had no quiet rest a good while.

6.-Up betimes, and with Sir D. Gauden to Sir W. Coventry's chamber; where the first word he said to me was: Good-morrow, Mr Pepys, that must be Speaker of the Parliament-house:' and did protest I had got honour for ever in Parliament. He said that his brother, that sat by him, admires me; and another gentleman said that I could not get less than £1000 a year, if I would put on a gown and plead at the Chancery-bar; but what pleases me most, he tells me that the Solicitorgeneral did protest that he thought I spoke the best of any man in England. After several talks with him alone touching his own businesses, he carried me to Whitehall, and there parted; and I to the Duke of York's lodgings, and find him going to the Park, it being a very fine morning, and I after him; and, as soon as he saw me, he told me, with great satisfaction, that I had converted a great many yesterday, and did, with great praise of me, go on with the discourse with me. And, by and by, overtaking the King, the King and Duke of York came to me both; and he [the King] said: 'Mr Pepys, I am very glad of your success yesterday;' and fell to talk of my well speaking; and many of the Lords there. My Lord Barkeley did cry me up for what they had heard of it; and others, Parliament-men there, about the King, did say that they never heard such a speech in their lives delivered in that manner. Progers, of the Bedchamber, swore to me afterwards before Brouncker, in the afternoon, that he did tell the King that he thought I might match the Solicitor-general. Everybody that saw me almost came to me, as Joseph Williamson and others, with such eulogies as cannot be expressed. From thence I went to Westminster Hall, where I met Mr G. Montagu, who came to me and kissed me, and told me that he had often heretofore kissed my hands, but now he would kiss my lips: protesting that I was another Cicero, and said, all the world said the same of me.

Pepys, like Evelyn, records the daily devastation of the Great Fire, but with less minuteness. He

had, however, watched the poor people lingering about their houses and furniture until the fire touched them; and then running into boats, or clambering by the waterside from one pair of stairs to another; and among other things, the poor pigeons were loth to leave their houses, and hovered about the windows and balconies till they burned their wings and fell down,'

SIR ROGER L'ESTRANGE.

SIR ROGER L'ESTRANGE (1616-1704) enjoyed in the reigns of Charles II. and James II. great notoriety as a political writer. During the Civil War, he had fought as a Royalist soldier; being captured by the Parliamentary army, he was tried and condemned to death, and lay in prison almost four years, constantly expecting to be led forth to execution. A poem ascribed to him, entitled the Liberty of the Imprisoned Royalists, must have been written at this time. The following are a few of the stanzas:

Beat on, proud billows! Boreas, blow!

Swell, curled waves, high as Jove's roof! Your incivility shall shew

That innocence is tempest-proof.

Though surly Nereus frown, my thoughts are calm; Then strike, Affliction, for thy wounds are balm.

That which the world miscalls a gaol,

A private closet is to me,

Whilst a good conscience is my bail,
And innocence my liberty.

Locks, bars, walls, leanness, though together met,
Make me no prisoner, but an anchoret.

My soul is free as ambient air,

Although my baser parts be mewed; Whilst loyal thoughts do still repair

To company my solitude;

...

And though rebellion may my body bind,
My king can only captivate my mind.

Have you not seen the nightingale
A pilgrim cooped into a cage,
And heard her tell her wonted tale,

In that her narrow hermitage?

Even then her charming melody doth prove
That all her bars are trees, her cage a grove.

I am the bird whom they combine
Thus to deprive of liberty;

But though they do my corps confine, Yet, maugre hate, my soul is free; And though I'm mewed, yet I can chirp and sing, Disgrace to rebels, glory to my king! L'Estrange was at length set free, and lived in almost total obscurity till the Restoration. In 1663, he published a pamphlet, entitled Considerations and Proposals in order to the Regulation of the Press, for which he was rewarded by being appointed licenser or censor of the press, and also the sole privilege of printing and publishing news. In August 1663 appeared his newspaper, The Public Intelligencer. From this time, till a few years before his death, he was constantly occupied in editing newspapers and writing pamphlets, mostly in behalf of the court, from which he at last received the honour of knighthood. As a controversialist, L'Estrange was bold, lively, and vigorous, but coarse, impudent, abusive, and by no means a scrupulous regarder of truth. He is known also as a translator, having produced versions of Æsop's Fables, Seneca's Morals,

Cicero's Offices, Erasmus's Colloquies, Quevedo's Visions, and the works of Josephus. In 1687, he published A Brief History of the Times, relating chiefly to the Popish Plot. The following is a chapter of his life of Æsop, prefixed to the translation of the Fables:

Esop's Invention to bring his Mistress back again to her Husband after she had left him.

The wife of Xanthus was well born and wealthy, but so proud and domineering withal, as if her fortune and was horribly bold, meddling and expensive, as that sort of women commonly are, easily put off the hooks, and monstrous hard to be pleased again; perpetually chattering at her husband, and upon all occasions of controversy threatening him to be gone. It came to this at last, that Xanthus's stock of patience being quite spent, he took up a resolution of going another way to work with her, and of trying a course of severity, since there was nothing to be done with her by kindness. But this experiment, instead of mending the matter, made it worse; for, upon harder usage, the woman grew desperate, and went away from him in earnest. She was as bad, 'tis true, as bad might well be, and yet Xanthus had a kind of hankering for her still; beside that, there was matter of interest in the case; and a pestilent tongue she had, that the poor husband dreaded above all things under the sun. But the man was willing, however, to make the best of a bad game, and so his wits and his friends were set at work, in the fairest manner that might be, to get her home again. But there was no good to be done in it, it seems; and Xanthus was so visibly out of humour upon it, that Æsop in pure pity bethought himself immediately how to comfort him. Come, master,' says he, 'pluck up a good heart, for I have a project in my noddle, that shall bring my mistress to you back again, with as good a will as ever she went from you.' What does my Æsop, but away immediately to the market among the butchers, poulterers, fishmongers, confectioners, &c. for the best of everything that was in season. Nay, he takes private people in his way too, and chops into the very house of his mistress's relations, as by mistake. This way of proceeding set the whole town agog to know the meaning of all this bustle; and Æsop innocently told everybody that his master's wife was run away from him, and he had married another; his friends up and down were all invited to come and make merry with him, and this was to be the wedding-feast. The news flew like lightning, and happy were they that could carry the first tidings of it to the runaway lady-for everybody knew Æsop to be a servant in that family. It gathered in the rolling, as all other stories do in the telling, especially where women's tongues and passions have the spreading of them. The wife, that was in her nature violent and unsteady, ordered her chariot to be made ready immediately, and away she posts back to her husband, falls upon him with outrages of looks and language; and after the easing of her mind a little 'No, Xanthus,' says she, 'do not you flatter yourself with the hopes of enjoying another woman while I am alive.' Xanthus looked upon this as one of Æsop's master-pieces; and for that bout all was well again betwixt master and mistress.

her extraction had entitled her to the breeches. She

The Popish Plot.

At the first opening of this plot, almost all people's hearts took fire at it, and nothing was heard but the bloody Papists. It was imputed at first, and in the bellowing of execrations and revenge against the accursed general, to the principles of the religion; and a Roman Catholic and a regicide were made one and the same thing. Nay, it was a saying frequent in some of our great and holy mouths, that they were confident there was not so much as one soul of the whole party, within

his majesty's dominions, that was not either an actor in this plot, or a friend to't. In this heat, they fell to picking up of priests and Jesuits as fast as they could catch 'em, and so went on to consult their oracles the witnesses with all formalities of sifting and examining -upon the particulars of place, time, manner, persons, &c.; while Westminster Hall and the Court of Requests were kept warm, and ringing still of new men come in, corroborating proofs, and further discoveries, &c. Under this train and method of reasoning, the managers advanced, decently enough, to the finding out of what they themselves had laid and concerted beforehand; and, to give the devil his due, the whole story was but a farce of so many parts, and the noisy informations no more than a lesson that they had much ado to go through with, even with the help of diligent and careful tutors, and of many and many a prompter, to bring them off at a dead lift. But popery was so dreadful a thing, and the danger of the king's life and of the Protestant religion so astonishing a surprise, that people were almost bound in duty to be inconsiderate and outrageous upon't; and loyalty itself would have looked a little cold and indifferent if it had not been intemperate; insomuch that zeal, fierceness, and jealousy were never more excusable than upon this occasion. And now, having excellent matter to work upon, and the passions of the people already disposed for violence and tumult, there needed no more than blowing the coal of Oates's narrative, to put all into a flame; and in the meantime, all arts and accidents were improved, as well toward the entertainment of the humour, as to the kindling of it. The people were first haired out of their senses with tales and jealousies, and then made judges of the danger, and consequently of the remedy; which upon the main, and briefly, came to no more than this: The plot was laid all over the three kingdoms; France, Spain, and Portugal taxed their quotas to 't; we were all to be burnt in our beds, and rise with our throats cut; and no way in the world but exclusion and union to help us. The fancy of this exclusion spread immediately, like a gangrene, over the whole body of the monarchy; and no saving the life of his majesty without cutting off every limb of the prerogative: the device of union passed insensibly into a league of conspiracy; and, instead of uniting Protestants against Papists, concluded in an association of subjects against their sovereign, confounding policy with religion.

SAMUEL BUTLER.

The fame of the author of Hudibras led to a general desire after his death for the publication of such literary remains as he might have left behind him. Two spurious compilations were issued (1715-1720), but out of fifty pieces thus thrust upon the world only three were genuine. At length, in 1759, two volumes of Remains in Verse and Prose were published from the original MSS. which Butler had left to his friend Longueville, and which had come into the possession of Mr R. Thyer, Manchester. The most interesting of these relics are Characters, in prose resembling in style those of Overbury, Earle, and Hall

A Small Poet

Is one that would fain make himself that which nature never meant him; like a fanatic that inspires himself with his own whimsies. He sets up haberdasher of small poetry, with a very small stock and no credit. He believes it is invention enough to find out other men's wit; and whatsoever he lights upon, either in books or company, he makes bold with as his own. This he puts together so untowardly, that you may perceive his own wit as the rickets, by the swelling disproportion of the joints. You may know his wit not to be natural, 'tis so

unquiet and troublesome in him: for as those that have money but seldom, are always shaking their pockets when they have it, so does he, when he thinks he has got something that will make him appear. He is a perpetual talker; and you may know by the freedom of his discourse that he came lightly by it, as thieves spend freely what they get. He is like an Italian thief, that never robs but he murders, to prevent discovery; so sure is he to cry down the man from whom he purloins, that his petty larceny of wit may pass unsuspected. He appears so over-concerned in all men's wits, as if they were but disparagements of his own; and cries down all they do, as if they were encroachments upon him. He takes jests from the owners and breaks them, as justices do false weights, and pots that want measure. When he meets with anything that is very good, he changes it into small money, like three groats for a shilling, to serve several occasions. He disclaims study, pretends to take things in motion, and to shoot flying, which appears to be very true, by his often missing of his mark. As for epithets, he always avoids those that are near akin to the sense. Such matches are unlawful and not fit to be made by a Christian poet; and therefore all his care is to choose out such as will serve, like a wooden leg, to piece out a maimed verse that wants a foot or two, and if they will but rhyme now and then into the bargain, or run upon a letter, it is a work of supererogation. For similitudes, he likes the hardest and most obscure best ; for as ladies wear black patches to make their complexions seem fairer than they are, so when an illustration is more obscure than the sense that went before it, it must of necessity make it appear clearer than it did; for contraries are best set off with contraries. He has found out a new sort of poetical Georgics-a trick of sowing wit like clover-grass on barren subjects, which would yield nothing before. This is very useful for the times, wherein, some men say, there is no room left for new invention. He will take three grains of wit like the elixir, and, projecting it upon the iron age, turn it immediately into gold. All the business of mankind has presently vanished, the whole world has kept holiday; there has been no men but heroes and poets, no women but nymphs and shepherdesses: trees have borne fritters, and rivers flowed plum-porridge. When he writes, he commonly steers the sense of his lines by the rhyme that is at the end of them, as butchers do calves by the tail. For when he has made one line, which is easy enough, and has found out some sturdy hard word that will but rhyme, he will hammer the sense upon it, like a piece of hot iron upon an anvil, into what form he pleases. There is no art in the world so rich in terms as poetry; a whole dictionary is scarce able to contain them; for there is hardly a pond, a sheep-walk, or a gravel-pit in all Greece, but the ancient name of it is become a term of art in poetry. By this means, small poets have such a stock of able hard words lying by them, as dryades, hamadryades, aonides, fauni, nymphæ, sylvani, &c. that signify nothing at all; and such a world of pedantic terms of the same kind, as may serve to furnish all the new inventions and thorough reformations' that can happen between this and Plato's great year.

A Vintner

Hangs out his bush to shew he has not good wine; for that, the proverb says, needs it not. He had rather sell bad wine than good, that stands him in no more; for it makes men sooner drunk, and then they are the easier over-reckoned. By the knaveries he acts aboveboard, which every man sees, one may easily take a measure of those he does underground in his cellar; for he that will pick a man's pocket to his face, will not stick to use him worse in private, when he knows nothing of it. He does not only spoil and destroy his wines, but an ancient reverend proverb, with brewing and racking, that says, 'In vino veritas ;' for there is no truth in his, but all false and sophisticated; for he can counterfeit