table
than to be brought in contact with religious ardour. Pepys had his own
foundation, sandy enough, but dear to him from practical considerations,
and he would read the book with true uneasiness of spirit; for conceive
the blow if, by some plaguy accident, this Pen were to convert him! It
was a different kind of doctrine that he judged profitable for himself
and others. "A good sermon of Mr. Gifford's at our church, upon 'Seek ye
first the kingdom of heaven.' A very excellent and persuasive, good and
moral sermon. He showed, like a wise man, that righteousness is a surer
moral way of being rich than sin and villainy." It is thus that
respectable people desire to have their Greathearts address them,
telling, in mild accents, how you may make the best of both worlds, and
be a moral hero without courage, kindness, or troublesome reflection;
and thus the Gospel, cleared of Eastern metaphor, becomes a manual of
worldly prudence, and a handybook for Pepys and the successful merchant.

The respectability of Pepys was deeply grained. He has no idea of truth
except for the Diary. He has no care that a thing shall be, if it but
appear; gives out that he has inherited a good estate, when he has
seemingly got nothing but a lawsuit; and is pleased to be thought
liberal when he knows he has been mean. He is conscientiously
ostentatious. I say conscientiously, with reason. He could never have
been taken for a fop, like Pen, but arrayed himself in a manner nicely
suitable to his position. For long he hesitated to assume the famous
periwig; for a public man should travel gravely with the fashions, not
foppishly before, nor dowdily behind, the central movement of his age.
For long he durst not keep a carriage; that, in his circumstances, would
have been improper; but a time comes, with the growth of his fortune,
when the impropriety has shifted to the other side, and he is "ashamed
to be seen in a hackney." Pepys talked about being "a Quaker or some
very melancholy thing"; for my part, I can imagine nothing so
melancholy, because nothing half so silly, as to be concerned about
such problems. But such respectability and the duties of society haunt
and burden their poor devotees; and what seems at first the very
primrose path of life, proves difficult and thorny like the rest. And
the time comes to Pepys, as to all the merely respectable, when he must
not only order his pleasures, but even clip his virtuous movements, to
the public patt