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"Mr. Marr tells me how a maid-servant of Mr. John Wright's, who lives thereabouts, falling sick of the plague, she was removed to an outhouse, and a nurse appointed to look to her, who being once absent, the maid got out of the house at the window and run away. The nurse coming and knocking, and having received no answer, believed she was dead, and went and told Mr. Wright so, who and his lady were in great strait what to do to get her buried; at last, resolved to go to Burntwood, hard by, being in the parish, and there get people to do it. But they would not: so he went home full of trouble, and in the way met the wench walking over the common, which frightened him worse than before; and was forced to send people to take her, which they did, and they got one of the pest-coaches and put her into it, to carry her to a pest-house. And passing in a narrow lane, Sir Anthony Broune, with his friends in the coach, met this coach with the curtain drawn close. The latter being a young man, and believing there might be some lady in it that would not be seen, and the way being narrow, thrust his head out of his own into her coach to look, and there saw somebody looking very ill, and in as ill dress, who stunk mightily, which the coachman also cried And presently they came up to some out upon. people that stood looking after it, and told our gallants that it was a maid of Mr. Wright's carried away sick of the plague; which put the young gentleman into a fright that nearly cost him his life, but he is now well again."

tory to spreading through the whole popula- | all the bells of London tolled in dismal chime, tion. The dead-carts began to creak along the dull echoes never ceasing to sound in the almost deserted streets, and wagons and ears of those who feared every moment to be coaches filled the highways which led from seized with the frightful disease.* the metropolis, burthened with those whom terror had driven to seek refuge in the country. Seventeen or eighteen hundred perished every week. Friends shunned each other's presence; the father feared the son, the son feared the father-every one fearing that communication brought death along with it. In the last week of August, 1665, the mortality of London increased to 7,000, and in the first week of September it rose to nearly 9,000. The inhabitants knew not what to do-where to seek safety. Thousands would have fled but possessed not the means; thousands had not the energy to fly, and thousands fell victims to the disease almost ere they were aware of its approach. It seemed as if a curse had fallen on the city. Men issued from their homes in vigorous health, and died ere they reached their destination. To-day a family was complete, and to-morrow perhaps most of its members were carried forth to their graves. The social meeting was dispersed by a whisper of the plague, and the few passengers in the streets went out of their way to avoid meeting the cart that conveyed the victims to their unconsecrated graves. Nearly every one holding a public office fled the town, and left the affairs of the nation to be ruled by chance, or by ignorant and inexperienced deputies. This was peculiarly unfortunate in times so anxious and important, and it was then that Pepys enjoyed the opportunity of affording an evidence of his unflinching and fearless character. He remained at his post as a true soldier remains under his standard when his companions have either fallen or fled, and exerted his utmost energies to support the heavy burthen of business which pressed upon his department of the public service. He, however, sent his family to Greenwich, whither he himself also repaired as soon as the calls of business had been satisfied. The Dutch were on the English coast, and threatened a descent upon Margate. Pepys was resolved that for no fault of his should his country lose a particle of its honor, and he applied himself with vigor to the task of regulating the affairs of the English navy; and his steady application counterbalanced many of the evils which would otherwise have resulted from the absence or negligence of the other officials. And all this while the plague was devastating the city, death striking down hnndreds of human beings every day; and

We perceive that our limits are rapidly drawing in; we must, therefore, with whatever regret we may do so, pass on rapidly through the diary, and leave unnoticed numerous interesting and curious passages. The plague grew upon the city; the river was deserted, and the silent and melancholy streets were covered with grass. In the beginning of October, however, the bills of mortality decreased, and this fact, together with the intelligence of several victories over the Dutch, contributed to shed a little light upon the general gloom which hung upon the public mind.

But this was but a temporary respite, for the disease recovered strength and continued to rage with greater fury than ever; and so the year 1665 ended, and left Pepys in a better condition than he ever was

*The pestilence is thus spoken of in the curious work from which we have already quoted:-" But the anger of the Lord was kindled against the King and against the people of England, and he smote the land with a dreadful pestilence, insomuch that there died in one year upwards of sixty and seven thousand persons."

before. He had succeeded Mr. Pary as com- | thing of the spirit of enthusiasm at last missioner for the affairs of Tangier, and had, warmed the heart of London. When, howmoreover, been nominated to the post of sur- ever, an engagement at length took place, veyor of the victualling department. His although the result showed a victory on the savings had increased from £1300 to £4400. English side, yet the success was not so great One fact, however, troubled him. Lord as to warrant any triumph, and the country 'Sandwich had fallen in the estimation of the was disappointed of its hopes. Court, and was sent as ambassador to Spain, and the Duke of Albemarle had not risen in popularity. The pestilence now began to weaken, and the weekly average of deaths sank to a comparatively insignificant amount. London resumed by slow degrees its wonted aspect, and to his great joy Pepys was enabled to establish his family again in town, and to resume his usual manner of living.

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We now approach the great catastrophe which struck London, ere it had recovered from the weakening effects of the plague. On the 2d of August, 1666, Pepys was awakened from his sleep, at three o'clock in the morning, by one of his maid-servants, who told him that a great fire had broken out in the city. Rising and looking forth from the window, he saw a mighty flame appearing in the direction of Mark-Lane, and, as it then seemed to him, retreating rather than advancing to his quarter. He then retired to rest again, and at seven o'clock again looked out. blaze had now reached Fish Street, and was making rapid progress towards London Bridge. Dressing, and walking out, he repaired to the scene of conflagration, and then, for the first time, understood its serious nature. Thousands of people thronged the streets, the inhabitants of the houses were flinging their goods either into the street or into the river, or into the barges that lay ready at hand. The poor clung to their homes until they were scorched by the flames, and multitudes of pigeons, unwilling to leave the houses, circled about them, or fluttered at the windows until they dropped amid the burning mass. All the city was in a tumult. The plague was a silent enemy; it came stealthily, and did its noiseless work, exerting a sickening influence on the minds of the people; but the fire continued its progress, sending forth a loud and prolonged roar, The crowds were wild with fear and excitement. The calamity was as sudden as it was alarming.

We find them, however, soon reconciled. We find him one day recording the fact, that she was out of temper on account of his having checked her with some abruptness, for telling long stories in the coach. "She do find with reason," he says, "that in the company of Pierce, Knipp, and other women that I love, that I do not value or mind her as I As yet none had proposed any measures ought." Nevertheless, his private life ap- of safety; none had thought of the possibilpears to have been chequered with few cross-ity of arresting the flames; all alike seemed es, and he seems to glide on, borne by a smooth current, enjoying a happy and prosperous existence.

The Dutch fleets, about the middle of the year 1666, met with some important reverses, being on several occasions driven to flight by the efforts of the English commanders. But a sudden alarm spread through London upon the news that a great armament, fitted out by Holland, was about to advance upon our coasts, and recover the ground lost in their recent defeats. However, good preparations were made to meet this attack, and some

paralyzed with horror. The mayor of the city wept like a child; and when a command was sent to him, at the suggestion of Pepys, that he should pull the houses down, and thus endeavor to stop the fire, he cried, "Lord! what can I do? I am spent ; people will not obey me. I have been pulling down houses, but the fire overtakes us faster than we can do it."

Carts laden with furniture, sick persons carried away in their beds, thousands of halfclothed men, women, and children, pale with fear, and scarcely knowing whither to turn,

filled the streets, some going one way, some another; others rushing wildly, with no object in view save that of escaping with life from the mighty calamity. Pepys now began to occupy himself for the public safety. He went amidst the crowds, directed the efforts of those employed to pull the houses down, encouraged them, assisted them, and labored like a hero wherever he found an opportunity. The scene which presented itself to his view is vividly described:

"We went as near to the fire as we could for smoke; and all over the Thames, with one's face in the wind, you were nearly burned with a shower of fire-drops. This is very true, for houses were burned by these drops and flakes of fire-three or four, nay five or six houses, one from another. When we could endure no more upon the water, we to a little alehouse on the Bankside over against the Three Cranes, and there staid until it was dark almost, and there saw the fire grow; and as it grew darker and darker, appeared more and more; and in corners and upon steeples and between churches and houses as far as we could see up the hill of the city, in a most horrid, malicious, bloody flame, not like the fine flame of an ordinary fire. We staid till we saw the fire as only one entire arch of fire from this to the other side of the bridge, and in a line up the hill for an arch of above a mile long; it made me weep to see it. The churches, houses and all on fire, and flaming at once, and a horrid noise the flames made, and the crackling of houses at their

ruine."

had been too startled, too alarmed, too irresolute to adopt any precautionary measures, now when the devastation had been accomplished, applied their energies to the task of renovation, and a new city began to rise from the ashes of the old.

Compliments and panegyries crowded upon Pepys. His society was courted, his conversation sought, and every mark of admiration bestowed on him. But these empty honors, though they flattered his vanity, would not have brought much satisfaction to his mind, had they not been accompanied by a continued, though gradual increase of his worldly wealth. At the end of 1666, he finds himself worth £6,200, more than he had hoped for. Himself and his family were in the perfect enjoyment of health, and he moreover luxuriated in the pleasure, great as it was to him, of taking his meals off silver plates. Public affairs, however, were in not so prosperous a condition, and there were even those who prophesied the immediate and entire ruin of the kingdom-"from which," says Pepys "God deliver us!"

Of the following year we cannot pause to make much mention. One curious fact is spoken of as far on as March, when Pepys says he saw the smoke issuing from some cellars that had not been uncovered since the fire. Towards the middle of the year, the city began to grow into shape again, streets were marked out, and the work of renovation was carried on with some vigor. At the close of the year he lost his mother, whose last words were, "God bless my poor Sam!"

words which affected him to tears. Another incident which he mentions as important is a fierce quarrel between himself and Sir W. Penn. My heart," he says, "is as full of spite as it could hold; but God forgive both

While working for the public safety, Pepys did not neglect his own stores of gold, and those which were under his charge at the office; but conveyed them, with many valuable papers and much plate, that same night by moonlight to a deep cellar. The next day, he, with several of his friends, busied themselves in digging holes in the garden, where they deposited their wines, with some Par-me and him!" mesan cheeses, and numerous articles of value. But his chief employment during the continuance of the fire consisted in endeavoring to check its progress, and prevent it from extending its ravages to those quarters of the city as yet uninjured. Through his efforts, together with those of the men who took a pride in following his honorable example, it was at length subdued, and by slow degrees died away for lack of food. The city, however, presented a wretched appearance. It looked like an extinguished furnace, and huge clouds of damp smoke rose up from the blackened masses of buildings. St. Paul's stood a shattered ruin, and numerous other public edifices formed its companions in the general scene of destruction. Those, however, who, during the continuance of the fire,

And here, until the publication of the remaining volumes, we take leave of Pepys. We have pursued his career from his humble clerkship in the Exchequer to the period when he held one of the most honorable posts in that department. Our readers will have perceived that he was a man of eccentric character, and they will also have observed that the times in which he lived were well calculated to allow a man of his energy and ability to distinguish himself above his peers. While we owe to Pepys a debt of gratitude for the rare and curious information he has bequeathed to us, for the graphic and wellcolored pictures which he has presented us of the times and the men among whom he lived, we cannot help regretting the weakness that led him to the commission of

actions which history cannot record otherwise than with blame. But he has written his own character, his own praises, and also his own condemnation. We see him as he was. He has given us a faithful reflection of his mind, and the praise of sincerity is due to him. Those, therefore, who wish to acquire a just idea of him and his period will do well to consult the volume before us. With regard to the form in which this diary has been laid before the public, we shall only remark, that for the care, ability, and judgment with which

its highly gifted editor, Lord Braybrooke, has performed his task, our thanks-the thanks of all who read the work-are due to him. Nothing can be more admirable than the introduction and notes, which have transformed the rough diaries of Samuel Pepys into one large and consecutive, and clear and comprehensive narrative. Pepys has been fortunate in his editor, and Lord Braybrooke's valuable services will, without doubt, be appreciated in the literary world.

Garden and Bow Street, was sacred to polite letters. There the talk was about poetical justice and the unities of place and time. There was a faction for Perrault and the moderns, a faction for Boileau and the ancients. One group debated whether Paradise Lost ought not to have been in rhyme. To another an envious poetaster demonstrated that Venice Preserved ought to have been hooted from the stage. Under no roof was a greater variety of figures to be seen-earls in stars and garters, clergymen in cassocks and bands, pert templars, sheepish lads from the universities, translators and index makers in ragged coats of frieze. The great press was to get near the chair where John Dryden sat. In winter that chair was always in the warmest nook by the fire; in summer it stood in the balcony. To bow to him, and to hear his opinion of Racine's last tragedy or of Bossu's treatise on epic poetry, was thought a privilege. A pinch from his snuff-box was an honor sufficient to turn the head of a young enthusiast. There were coffee-houses where the first medical men might be consulted. Doctor John Radcliffe, who, in the year 1685, rose to the largest practice in London, came daily, when the Exchange was full, from his house in Bow Street, then a fashionable part of the capital, to Garraway's, and was to be found surrounded by surgeons and apotheca

THE COFFEE-HOUSE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. FOREIGNERS remarked that the coffee-house was that which especially distinguished London from all other cities; that the coffeehouse was the Londoner's home, and that those who wished to find a gentleman commonly asked, not whether he lived in Fleet Street or Chancery Lane, but whether he frequented the Grecian or the Rainbow. Nobody was excluded from these places who laid down his penny at the bar. Yet every rank and profession, and every shade of religious and political opinion, had its own head quarters. There were houses near St. James's Park where fops congregated, their heads and shoulders covered with black or flaxen wigs, not less ample than those which are now worn by the chancellor and by the Speaker of the House of Commons. The wig came from Paris; and so did the rest of the fine gentleman's ornaments, his embroidered coat, his fringed gloves, and the tassel which upheld his pantaloons. The conversation was in that dialect which, long after it had ceased to be spoken in fashionable circles, continued, in the mouth of Lord Foppington, to excite the mirth of theatres. The atmosphere was like that of a perfumer's shop. Tobacco in any other form than that of richly scented snuff was held in abomination. If any clown, ignorant of the usages of the house, called for a pipe, the sneers of the whole assembly and the short answers of theries, at a particular table. There were puriwaiters soon convinced him that he had better go somewhere else. Nor, indeed, would he have had far to go. For, in general, the coffee rooms reeked with tobacco like a guard room; and strangers sometimes expressed their surprise that so many people should leave their own firesides to sit in the midst of eternal fog and stench. Nowhere was the smoking more constant than at Will's. That celebrated house, situated between Covent

tan coffee-houses, where no oath was heard, and where lank-haired men discussed election and reprobation through their noses; Jew coffee-houses, where dark-eyed moneychangers, from Venice and from Amsterdam, greeted each other, and Popish coffee-houses, where, as good Protestants believed, Jesuits planned, over their cups, another great fire, and cast silver bullets to shoot the king.— Macaulay's History.

From the Dublin University Magazine.

BRITISH INDIA.

1.-" Mill's History of British India." Edited, and now completed, by HORACE HAYMAN WILSON, M.A., F.R.S. 9 Vols. London: Madden. 1848.

66

2.-" The Life of Lord Clive." By the REV. G. R. GLEIG. London: Murray. 1848.

which would correspond with the victories of Alfred, or the landing of the Conqueror, in our domestic annals."

We gladly admit that since the appearance of our previous paper, this insensibility to Asiatic interests has been a good deal lessened.

In a paper on the early history of India,
published some time ago in this magazine,
we commenced our observations by referring
to the indifference exhibited by the home
public to all topics connected with our Asi-
atic empire; and we did so, as we then stated,
not because the circumstance was either strik-
ing or anomalous, but for the better reason of
its practical importance. "We could," as we
then expressed ourselves, "little hope for any
marked improvement in the social condition
of the natives of India, until the people of
these countries had such an acquaintance
with it, as that a public opinion could be formed
on the subject, and was known to exist."
"It was only," we added, "to such pressure
from without that the difficulties which attend
the promotion of Christianity in India-the
main sanitary provision for all its ills, spirit-
ual, moral, and even industrial-would ever
give way, and that one of the first steps
towards the formation of this public opinion,
was the diffusion of some knowledge of the
history and statistics of the country." In hum-
ble aid of this object we then took up our pen,
and with like purpose we now resume it. In
regard to the fact of ignorance of, and apathy
to, Indian interests, we find our views corrob-
orated by what we believe we are entitled to
call the highest authority on such a point, the
Times newspaper, which, in a leading article
of two years' later date-that is, on the 14th
of June, 1847, dwells on the circumstance as
a woeful truth, and cites the saying of "one
of our most accomplished writers and speak-
ers, at this moment a member of her Majesty's
cabinet," whom most of our readers will easi-rary.
ly recognize as the able and eloquent Mr.
Macaulay; and who "avowed his conviction
that not one in ten of our most highly-educa-
ted gentlemen had the faintest conception of
those incidents of British Indian history,

This is partly an effect, and one which we anticipated, of the rapid, regular, and frequent communication by what is miscalled the "overland passage," which passes over no land except the hand's-breadth at Suez. This acknowledged improvement must, however, be most of all ascribed to the felt jeopardy to which our Indian empire was exposed by the unexpected aggression of the Sikhs. That taught us for, perhaps, the first time, deeply to appreciate the value of our imperial colony, and our views of interest were blended with nobler feelings in the triumphs which followed. Although India is immeasurably the most important of all our great dependencies, there is not another in regard to which we have an equal tendency to indifference. The philosophy of the cause of this appears to be, that it is the only one with which we are not nationally identified by colonization. Every Englishman who goes there hopes to return; nobody loves to live there; none settle; no one regards it as his home. Hence the lack of personal interest in the country; and hence, again, the general coldness of which we have been complaining. The duties of all in office are performed faithfully and well; but they are performed as duties, and such sympathy as strangers feel is, like their connection with the soil, tempo

We notice the defect, not for the purpose of disparaging our government of India, which is, beyond all question, the best its nations have ever known-one which gives them that great element of social happiness, security of person and of property, and what

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