Henry B. (Henry Benjamin) Wheatley - Samuel Pepys and the World He Lived In

Cover

---

Nell Gwyn

Samuel Pepys

AND THE

WORLD HE LIVED IN.

BY

HENRY B. WHEATLEY, F.S.A.

His Diary is like a good sirloin, which requires only to be basted with its own drippings.Athenum, 1848, page 551.

Second Edition.

Decoration

LONDON:

BICKERS AND SON, 1, LEICESTER SQUARE.

1880.

CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE.

Decoration

PREFAC E.

Decorative Capital T

This little book does not need any long Preface, as the title sufficiently explains the object aimed at. Although the various subjects referred to in the Diary are annotated in the different editions, there is in none of these any complete analysis of the entire work or of the incidents of Pepyss life.

I have endeavoured in the following pages to draw together some of the most interesting incidents of the Diary relating both to Pepyss life and to the manners of his time, and also to illustrate them from other sources. I have used the best edition of the Diary, by the Rev. Mynors Bright; but in order that this book may form a companion to all editions I have referred to the date of the entries rather than to the volume and page. It must therefore be understood that the passages referred to when not met with in the other editions will be found among the hitherto unpublished matter of that of Mr. Bright. It has been my endeavour to illustrate the contents of this entertaining work more completely than has previously been attempted, and several of the circumstances of Pepyss life are here brought prominently forward for the first time. I may add that the whole of the present volume was printed off before the appearance of the excellent article in the July number of the Edinburgh Review (1880), as otherwise it might be supposed that certain points had been suggested by that article. I have, however, availed myself of its pages to make a correction of a small matter in the Index.

Mr. T. C. Noble has kindly sent me, since the completion of this book, a copy of Pepyss original marriage certificate from the Registers of Samuell Peps of this parish Gent & Elizabeth De S nt Michell of Martins in the ffeilds Spinster. Published October 19 th , 22 nd , 29 th [1655] and were married by Richard Sherwyn Esq r one of the Justices of the Peace of the Cittie and Lyberties of Westm r December 1 st . (Signed) Ri. Sherwyn.

The pronunciation of Pepyss name has long been a disputed point, but although the most usual form at the present day is Peps, there can be little doubt that in his own time the name was pronounced as if written Peeps. The reasons for this opinion are: (1) that the name was sometimes so spelt phonetically by some of his contemporaries, as in the Coffee-house paper quoted in the Diary (ed. Mynors Bright, vol. vi. p. 292): On Tuesday last Mr. Peeps went to Windsor, &c.; (2) that this pronunciation is still the received one at Magdalene College, Cambridge; and (3) that the present bearers of the name so pronounce it.

In conclusion, it is my pleasing duty to express here my best thanks to those friends who have kindly assisted me in my work. Chief among these are Professor Newton, F.R.S., who, as Fellow of Magdalene College, facilitated my inquiries respecting the Pepysian Library, Mr. Pattrick, Senior Fellow and President of the College, Mr. Pepys Cockerell, Mr. George Scharf, F.S.A., Mr. Richard B. Prosser, of the Patent Office, who communicated the documents relating to Mrs. Pepyss father, and Colonel Pasley, whose List of the Secretaries of the Admiralty, will be found of great value, not merely in illustrating Pepyss life, but as a real addition to our information respecting the history of the Navy.

H. B. W.

5, Minford Gardens, W.,
September, 1880.

P.S. Since the first publication of this book I have received an interesting letter from Mr. Walter Courtenay Pepys, a member of the Cottenham branch of the Pepys family, who, while agreeing with the statement above as to the Diarists pronunciation, reminds me that his branch have pronounced the name as Pep-pis for at least one hundred years. In favour of this pronunciation Mr. Pepys adds that the French branch, which is now settled at La Rochelle, but came from Languedoc and originally from Italy (where the name exists as Peppi), now spell the name Pepy.

Decoration

CONTENTS.

Decoration

SAMUEL PEPYS AND THE WORLD HE LIVED I N.

CHAPTER I.

PEPYS BEFORE THE DIARY.

He was a pollard man, without the top (i. e. the reason as the source of ideas, or immediate yet not sensuous truths, having their evidence in themselves; or the imagination or idealizing power, by symbols mediating between the reason and the understanding), but on this account more broadly and luxuriantly branching out from the upper trunk. Coleridge s MS. note in his copy of the Diary (Notes and Queries, 1st S. vol. vi. p. 215).

Decorative Capital S

Samuel Pepys was the first of a well-established stock to make a name in the outer world, but since his time the family can boast of having had amongst its members a Court physician, a bishop, and a lord chancellor.

The earliest recorded Pepys was named Thomas, and appears, on the authority of the Court Rolls of the manor of Pelhams, in Cottenham, to have been bailiff of the Abbot of Crowlands lands in Cambridgeshire, in the early part of the reign of Henry From that time the family flourished, and there seems to be some reason for believing that certain members enriched themselves with the spoils of the abbey lands in the time of Henry VIII.