he margin of the text, for
it is precisely what the reader wants.

In the light of these two books, at least, we have now to read our
author. Between them they contain all we can expect to learn for, it may
be, many years. Now, if ever, we should be able to form some notion of
that unparalleled figure in the annals of mankind--unparalleled for
three good reasons: first, because he was a man known to his
contemporaries in a halo of almost historical pomp, and to his remote
descendants with an indecent familiarity, like a tap-room comrade;
second, because he has outstripped all competitors in the art or virtue
of a conscious honesty about oneself; and, third, because, being in many
ways a very ordinary person, he has yet placed himself before the public
eye with such a fulness and such an intimacy of detail as might be
envied by a genius like Montaigne. Not then for his own sake only, but
as a character in a unique position, endowed with a unique talent, and
shedding a unique light upon the lives of the mass of mankind, he is
surely worthy of prolonged and patient study.

THE DIARY

That there should be such a book as Pepys's Diary is incomparably
strange. Pepys, in a corrupt and idle period, played the man in public
employments, toiling hard and keeping his honour bright. Much of the
little good that is set down to James the Second comes by right to
Pepys; and if it were little for a king, it is much for a subordinate.
To his clear, capable head was owing somewhat of the greatness of
England on the seas. In the exploits of Hawke, Rodney, or Nelson, this
dead Mr. Pepys of the Navy Office had some considerable share. He stood
well by his business in the appalling plague of 1666. He was loved and
respected by some of the best and wisest men in England. He was
President of the Royal Society; and when he came to die, people said of
his conduct in that solemn hour--thinking it needless to say more--that
it was answerable to the greatness of his life. Thus he walked in
dignity, guards of soldiers sometimes attending him in his walks,
subalterns bowing before his periwig; and when he uttered his thoughts
they were suitable to his state and services. On February 8, 1668, we
find him writing to Evelyn, his mind bitterly occupied with the late
Dutch war, and some thoughts of the different story of the repulse of
the Great Armada: "Sir, you will not wonder at the backwardness of my
thanks for the present you made me, so many