ike other people. He describes the starvation of the fleet, the country
sinking to the verge of ruin, and the maudlin scenes of drunkenness at
Court, with a minuteness which makes one ashamed even after so long an
interval. However revolting or shameful the institution may be, the fact
that it is an institution gives it zest for the strange mind of Pepys.
He is, however, capable also of moralising. "Oh, that the King would
mind his business!" he would exclaim, after having delighted himself and
his readers with the most droll accounts of His Majesty's frivolities.
"How wicked a wretch Cromwell was, and yet how much better and safer the
country was in his hands than it is now." And often he will end the
bewildering account with some such bitter comment as the assertion "that
every one about the Court is mad."

In politics he had been a republican in his early days, and when Charles
the First's head fell at Whitehall, he had confided to a friend the
dangerous remark that if he were to preach a sermon on that event he
would choose as his text the words, "The memory of the wicked shall
rot." The later turn of events gave him abundant opportunities for
repenting of that indiscretion, and he repents at intervals all through
his Diary. For now he is a royalist in his politics, having in him not a
little of the spirit of the Vicar of Bray, and of Bunyan's Mr. By-ends.

The political references lead him beyond England, and we hear with
consternation now and again about the dangerous doings of the
Covenanters in Scotland. We hear much also of France and Holland, and
still more of Spain. Outside the familiar European lands there is a
fringe of curious places like Tangier, which is of great account at that
time, and is destined in Pepys' belief to play an immense part in the
history of England, and of the more distant Bombain in India, which he
considers to be a place of little account. Here and there the terror of
a new Popish plot appears. The kingdom is divided against itself, and
the King and the Commons are at drawn battle with the Lords, while every
one shapes his views of things according as his party is in or out of
power.

Three great historic events are recorded with singular minuteness and
interest in the Diary, namely, the Plague, the Dutch War, and the Fire
of London.

As to the Plague, we have all the vivid horror of detail with which
Defoe has immortalised it, with the additional interest that here no
consecutive