sly overserved with liquor." Through life he
retained a friendly admiration of Magdalene strong ale. He married a
girl of fifteen when he was but twenty-two; he entered the service of the
State shortly afterwards. He was the Chief Secretary for Naval Affairs
during many years; he defended his department at the Bar of the House of
Commons after De Ruyter's attack in 1668, and he remained true to the
Stuart dynasty in heart after James was driven abroad. Yet, though his
contemporary biographer calls Pepys the greatest and most useful public
servant that ever filled the same situations in England, Pepys would not
now be honoured if he had not kept the most amusing diary in the world.
Samuel was a highly conscientious, truly pious man, constant in all
religious exercises, though he did slumber when the Scot wagged his pow
in a pulpit. At the same time, Samuel lived in a very fast age, an age
when pleasure was a business, and "old Rowley, the king," led the brawls.
He was young when society was most scandalously diverting. He had a
pretty wife, "poor wretch," of whom he stood in some awe; and yet this
inconsistent naval secretary liked to flit from flower to flower. He was
vain, greedy, wanton, fond of the delight of the eye and the pride of
life; he was loving and loose in his manners; he was pious, repentant,
profligate; and he deliberately told the whole tale of all his many
changes of mood and mistress, of piety and pleasure. One cannot open
Pepys at random without finding him at his delightful old games. On the
Lord's day he goes to church with Mr. Creed, and hears a good sermon from
the red-faced parson. He came home, read divinity, dined, and, he says,
"played the fool," and won a quart of sack from Mr. Creed. Then to
supper at the Banquet House, and there Mr. Pepys and his wife fell to
quarrelling over the beauty of Mrs. Pierce; "she against, and I for,"
says superfluous Pepys. No one is in the least likely to suspect that
Mrs. Pepys was angry with her lord because he did not think Mrs. Pierce a
beauty.

How living the whole story is! One can smell the flowers of that Sunday
in May, and the roast beef. The sack seems but newly drawn, the red
cheeks of Mrs. Pierce as fresh as ever. The flowers grow over them now,
or the church floor covers them; the sack is drunk, the roast beef is
eaten, the quarrel is over; the beauty and the red-faced parson, the
husband and wife, they are all with Tullus and Ancus.