the least as well as the greatest, that relates to a man's self, is of importance to him. Such a narrative comprises every advantage that can be looked for in a memoir of the age-an abstract or chronicle of the fleeting manners and customs of mankind; fulness, minuteness, veracity; at least, no intentional misrepresentation, and no false colouring, superinduced by a desire of pleasing, of being wise or witty, or by any other motive. The narrative, to be perfectly trustworthy, must bear in itself the evidence of its design, as intended solely for the writer's own eye; for if there be visible an intention of publishing, or even of communicating it to one or more, its authority is impaired. A curiosity of this kind, perhaps, never existed in the world till the publication of the Diary of Mr. Pepys. By reason of the scarcity of such minute, as well as authentic intelligence as that with which it abounds, we have thought it worth our while to transfer some of his multifarious gossip to our own pages. We propose to dole out a few more particulars of information, which are to us most characteristic of the age to which they relate.

The portion of intelligence relative to the times, which we communicated in our last, comprised an account of the progress of a courtship, in what, it may be supposed, was considered high life. The parties were a daughter of the then Lord Sandwich, and the eldest son of Sir George Carterat, Treasurer of the Navy. According to the good old practice of our fathers, which saved young people the trouble of making a choice for themselves, Mr. Pepys, and certain other common friends, had been employed to bring the match about. The gentleman having at length overcome his bashfulness or reluctance, and the lady having professed her willingness, as in duty bound, to obey her father, all she could or was expected to say, nothing remained but to obtain the church's sanction. Let us see, then, how they conducted a wedding in the merry times of Charles II. Mr. Pepys sets forth betimes, by six o'clock, in his new, coloured silk suit, and coat trimmed with gold buttons, and gold broad lace round his hands, very rich and fine. He is accompanied by the father and mother of the bridegroom. Having to cross the ferry, below Deptford, and being too late to catch the tide, they are fain to solace themselves in the Isle of Dogs, a chill place, the morning cool, and wind fresh. After two or three hours thus spent, they effect their passage, but come too late to witness the ceremony; a circumstance which troubled Mr. Pepys, and also troubled us, for otherwise we should have been admitted by his means to witness it too. "The young lady mighty sad," which grieves him; but yet it might only be, he thinks, her usual gravity, a little deepened by the recent solemnity. "All saluted her," and Mr. Pepys too, but not till Lady Sandwich had asked him, whether he had done so or not. Dinner comes in course; after that, some to cards and some to talk. "At night, to supper, and so to talk again; and which, methought, was the most extraordinary thing, all of us to prayers as usual, and the young bride and bridegroom too, and so after prayers soberly to bed." Mr. Pepys expresses surprise on this occasion; yet his friend Lord Crewe was a presbyterian, and, we think, the family of Lord Sandwich also were of the same persuasion, till he turned courtier. Mr. Pepys, we fear, was not one of the godly, otherwise he would have remembered that prayer is

never out of season. But now comes the characteristic part-" I got into the bridegroom's chamber, while he undressed himself, and there was very merry till he was called to the bride's chamber, and into bed they went. I kissed the bride in bed, and saw the curtains drawn with the greatest gravity that could be, and so good night." The modesty and decency of the whole business seem to have struck him as something unusual. He professes that it delighted him much more than if it had been twenty times merrier than it was; from which we infer that a good deal of joviality, and a great many fooleries, were customary on these interesting occasions.

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A year or two before the last occurrence mentioned, he had been present at another wedding, celebrated "with very great state, cost, and company"-" but among all the beauties there my wife was thought the greatest." Home, with my mind pretty quiet; not returning, as I said I would, to see the bride put to bed." Our own customs and habits we are generally disposed to consider the best possible; indeed, they become our nature, and we never think of questioning their merits. A retrospective glance into the lives of our forefathers, wherever we have an opportunity of prying into their privacy, is of great service. For we have there a state of society with which to compare our own-to suggest improvements, or where there is no room for them, to enhance our comforts by the superiority of our methods of securing them over those of our ancestors. This picture of a courtship and a wedding cannot but console the younger and fairer portion of our readers, who might otherwise be inclined to murmur at the dispensation under which they themselves live.

But it is better to go to the house of mourning than the house of feasting. We invite the reader to accompany us to the funeral of an uncle of Mr. Pepys, at Brompton, whither the latter has set out on horseback, news having been brought him of the event by a special messenger. The corpse he found in its coffin, standing upon joint stools, in the chimney of the hall; "but it began to smell, and so I caused it to be set forth in the yard all night, and watched by my aunt." Next morning the first duty executed by him and his father is the reading of the will; after that "we went about getting things, as ribbands and gloves, ready for the burial." It happening to be a Sunday, people from far and near came to witness the ceremony. "In the greatest disorder that ever I saw, we made shift to serve them with what we had of wine and other things." They then carried the deceased to the church, where Mr. Taylor buried him, and Mr. Turner preached a funeral sermon. His " poor brother Tom," not many years after, followed their uncle to the grave. He chooses a place for him to lie in, under their mother's pew, and moralizes, like Hamlet in the grave-digging scene:-" To see how a man's bones are at the mercy of such a fellow, (the sexton,) that for sixpence would (as his own words were) justle them together, but he would make room for him ;' speaking of the fulness of the middle aisle, where he was to lie." “Knocked about on the mazzard with a sexton's spade! Did these bones cost no more the breeding, but to play at loggats with them? mine ache to think on't." The company invited to be present, at one, or two o'clock, as is the custom, were late in making their appearance; "but at last one after another they come, many more than I bid; my

reckoning was one hundred and twenty, but there was nearer one hundred and fifty. Their service was six biscuits a-piece, and what they pleased of burnt claret." Those that served had white gloves given them. The men sat by themselves in some rooms, and the women by themselves in others, "very close, but yet room enough." "Anon, to church-walking, and had very good company along with the corpse, and so I saw my poor brother laid into the grave." The family of Mr. Pepys may be considered as having belonged to the middle rank of society. General mournings for great people seem to have been a fashion recently introduced. He commemorates buying a pair of short black stockings, to wear over a pair of silk ones; "and I met with Tho. Turner and Joyce, buying of things to go into mourning too for the Duke, which is now the mode of all the ladies in town.”

The remnants of some Gothic practices, in regard to funerals, are even to this day observable. In the good sense, and absence of all parade, never more out of place than on occasions like these, which distinguish their burials, our Northern countrymen set us a good example. The crowd of friends and mourners assembled at Mr. Pepys's, partly allured by the slight refreshments to be dealt out, and partly stimulated by the interest which scenes of death and human suffering always excite, mark a state of manner intermediate between the present, and the age when the solemn rites of burial were oddly blended with carousing and drunkenness. "The Thracians," says Herodotus, "lamented when a child was born into the world, but sang and drank for joy at the death of a man." Was it on some principle of this sort, that our forefathers observed a funeral as one of the choicest occasions for extraordinary ebriety?

A similar rudeness of manners, as well as obtuseness of feelings, indicative of an age still deficient in refinement, may be traced in many particulars recorded by Mr. Pepys. For instance, he was himself a person of consideration; high in office, yet he scarcely ever seems to have missed an execution, if it lay at all within his reach. Without any vindictive feelings to prompt him, he duly witnessed the horrid butcheries at Charing-cross; and as duly entered a memorandum to that effect, with as much indifference, apparently, as he noted down a change of dress or the purchase of a pair of stockings. "I went out to Charing-cross to see Major General Harrison hanged, drawn, and quartered, which was done there, he looking as cheerful as any man could do in that condition. He was presently cut down, and his head and heart shown to the people, at which there was great shouts of joy. It is said, that he said, that he was sure to come shortly at the right hand of Christ, to judge them that now judged him, and that his wife do expect his coming again. Thus it was my chance to see the king beheaded at Whitehall, and to see the first blood shed in revenge for the king at Charing-cross." He is even curious after their remains. "George Vines carried me to the top of his turret, where there is Cooke's head set up for a traitor, and Harrison's set up on the other side of Westminster Hall." But any thing, it scarcely mattered what, if unusual, was enough at any time to draw him out of his way to see it. That hardness of feeling which we speak of, is more satisfactorily indicated by the interest taken in those sights, by certain of that sex, whom education now teaches to

shudder at the bare imagination. "To my Lady Batter's, (wife of Sir. W. B. an official personage likewise,) where my wife and she are lately come back from being abroad, and seeing of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw hanged, and buried at Tyburn." It is possible that these fair ladies may have been transported thus far by the fervour of their loyalty, which we are aware can convert even tender hearts into stocks and stones. A case in point-Madame du Hausset tells us, that "great numbers, many of them women, had the curiosity to witness the execution (of Damien,) amongst others, Madame de Pa very beautiful woman, and the wife of a farmer-general. She hired two places at a window, for twelve louis, and played a game of cards in the room, whilst waiting for the execution to begin. On this being told to the king, (Louis XV.) he covered his eyes with his hands, and exclaimed-" Fie, la vilaine!" She thought to pay her court this way, and signalize her attachinent to the sacred person.

It happens, however, unluckily for the fame of Mr. Pepys, that he appears to have taken an interest in spectacles of this kind, when the balm of loyalty could not be applied to healing the wound, which they must no doubt have inflicted on his gentle bosom. Up, and after sending my wife to my aunt Wright's to get a place to see Turner hang'd, I to the 'Change." It must have been some weighty business that drew Mr. Pepys away from a scene so congenial to his feelings. He finds, however, on enquiry, that he may still get a sight; so away with the crowd down Leadenhall-street, to St. Mary Axe, where the culprit had lived, and where, it seems, was the spot selected for his death." And there I got for a shilling to stand upon the wheel of a cart, in great pain, above an hour before the executioner was done; he delaying the time by long discourses, and prayers one after another, in hopes of a reprieve; but none came, and at last was flung off the ladder in his cloak. A comely looking man he was, and kept his countenance to the last; I was sorry to see him." This gentleman was a Colonel Turner; "a mad, swearing, confident fellow, well known by all, and by me;" one of those out-of-place military men, who raffled about with sword and cloak, half gambler, half highwayman-a character very common at that period; in which disbanded officers, without even a half-pay to famish upon, were left to absolute naked destitution. It requires but to mention Capt. Colepepper, who figures in the "Fortunes of Nigel," or the yet more famous Col. Blood, to make the reader aware of the sort of person we mean. Col. Turner suffered for a robbery, not unlike the one perpetrated by the Captain in Whitefriars; but it was not aggravated by the guilt of murder. We think it a public misfortune that the Diary of Mr. Pepys was not given to the world before Peveril of the Peak was written. What an ample fund of materials for the delineation both of public and domestic characters and scenes would it have afforded the author of that work! Into what a living narrative could he have wrought the miscellaneous particulars here recorded! Whereas, Peveril of the Peak, as is generally confessed, is somewhat cold, poor, and laboured-no vitality, little animation, and still less of that, which is most characteristic of the age. It is a picture no more resembling the original, than a landscape of Claude is like a range of Highland hills; imagination had the business entirely in its own hands, for North's Examen was but a

scantily furnished depository of anecdote, compared with these teeming volumes.

The great number of Col. Turners and Col. Bloods who figure in the annals of Newgate at this period, it would be unfair perhaps, to attribute to a laxity and wildness common to the age, rather than to the immediate cause-the recent civil wars, which had trained up a great number of men in habits of licentiousness, whose irregular subsistence vanished with the wars that had procured it. One thing is, however, remarkable, that the division of labour, which has separated the various departments of villainy, from that of him, who cheats you out of your money in a fair way, to him, who takes it from you by stealth, or force, was yet unknown. Another circumstance more strikingly evinces the better condition of the present state of society. This compound character-the gentleman-robber, is frequently found united in the person of a disbanded officer, or man of some family consequence. These two characters, the progress of civilization has placed still further asunder than the gambler and thief; and it is now considered a rare accident, when they are found united.

It were, however, unjust to found any conclusions for or against a particular state of society, upon examples, which may be considered as extreme cases; but these are supported by instances of ferocity and lawlessness, pervading all ranks from the prince to the beggar. We read of occurrences at court, into the details of which it is impossible to enter, that excited only merriment; and not only show a very low state of morality, but a brutality, especially on the part of the King, of which we have no conception. But it is as unfair to draw inferences from the conduct of Kings as from that of beggars-both, it is well known, being subject to similar disadvantages, the one being as much above the control of public opinion, as the other is below it. What we have noticed in regard to the pleasure taken by a gentleman and his lady, persons of the middle rank, but rising fast into distinction, in sights, which well-educated people turn from with just abhorrence, is much more conclusive. The general prevalence of a ferocious and lawless spirit is indicated in various ways, and among all classes of society. Their demeanour towards each other was evidently more violent and savage than at present. The occasion of this was, no doubt, the irregular and partial administration of justice. Men did not walk so much in fear of the law as they do now, and as they ought to do. The same spirit that now dares only reveal itself in rudeness, being not so well curbed formerly, gave rise to numerous and casual affrays, when some lives were lost and the persons of more mutilated. We present the following cases in illustration of the remark. The Ambassadors of France and Spain disputed about precedency. "Up by moonshine to Whitehall, and then I hear that this day, being the day of the Swedish Ambassador's entrance, they intend to fight for it. Our King, I heard, ordered that we Englishmen should not meddle in the business, but let them do what they would." Great preparations were made on both sides-the French ranted and made most noise, but the Spaniards did all without any stir almost at all, "so that I was afraid the other would have too great a conquest over them." The Spaniard had, however, the best of the fray. They