days since, of the Prospect
of the Medway, while the Hollander rode master in it, when I have told
you that the sight of it hath led me to such reflections on my
particular interest, by my employment, in the reproach due to that
miscarriage, as have given me little less disquiet than he is fancied to
have who found his face in Michael Angelo's hell. The same should serve
me also in excuse for my silence in celebrating your mastery shown in
the design and draught, did not indignation rather than courtship urge
me so far to commend them, as to wish the furniture of our House of
Lords changed from the story of '88 to that of '67 (of Evelyn's
designing), till the pravity of this were reformed to the temper of that
age, wherein God Almighty found his blessings more operative than, I
fear, he doth in ours his judgments."

This is a letter honourable to the writer, where the meaning rather than
the words is eloquent. Such was the account he gave of himself to his
contemporaries; such thoughts he chose to utter, and in such language:
giving himself out for a grave and patriotic public servant. We turn to
the same date in the Diary by which he is known, after two centuries, to
his descendants. The entry begins in the same key with the letter,
blaming the "madness of the House of Commons" and "the base proceedings,
just the epitome of all our public proceedings in this age, of the House
of Lords"; and then, without the least transition, this is how our
diarist proceeds: "To the Strand, to my bookseller's, and there bought
an idle, rogueish French book, 'L'escholle des Filles,' which I have
bought in plain binding, avoiding the buying of it better bound,
because I resolve, as soon as I have read it, to burn it, that it may
not stand in the list of books, nor among them, to disgrace them, if it
should be found." Even in our day, when responsibility is so much more
clearly apprehended, the man who wrote the letter would be notable; but
what about the man, I do not say who bought a roguish book, but who was
ashamed of doing so, yet did it, and recorded both the doing and the
shame in the pages of his daily journal?

We all, whether we write or speak, must somewhat drape ourselves when we
address our fellows; at a given moment we apprehend our character and
acts by some particular side; we are merry with one, grave with another,
as befits the nature and demands of the relation. Pepys's letter to
Evelyn would have little in common wit