the King's linen at the quarter's end as their fees, which makes this great want, for whether the King can get it or no, they will run away at the quarter's end with what he hath had, let the King get more as he can." II.

121.

The Lord Chancellor Clarendon is no favourite character of ours, but we read with indignation the account of the insults put upon him by the abandoned creatures of the Court.

"Sept. 8, 1667. And here it comes into my head to set down what Mr. Rawlinson (whom I met in Fenchurch Street on Friday last looking over his ruines there) told me that he was told by one of my Lord Chancellor's gentlemen lately, that a grant coming to him to be sealed wherein the King hath given my Lady Castlemaine, or somebody by her means, a place which he did not like well of, he did stop the grant, saying that he thought this woman would sell every thing shortly, which she hearing of, she sent to let him know that she had disposed of this place, and did not doubt in a little time to dispose of his." II. 124.

Pepys relates (II. 149) a quarrel between Nell Glynn and another woman-player of the name of Marshall, from which we learn that two daughters of Stephen Marshall," the great Presbyterian," were in this condition of life, and bore the degraded character then common to females who trod the stage. Nell's reproach was bitter enough" you are," &c.-"though a Presbyter's praying daughter!"

Pepys had a cousin, Roger Pepys, who was in Parliament; but this, according to his own confession, was no very enviable place." He tells me that he thanks God he never knew what it was to be tempted to be a knave in his life, till he did come into the House of Commons, where there is nothing done but by passion and faction and private interest." II. 150. He records (II. 160) a saying of Mr. Evelyn's, "that he did believe we should soon see ourselves fall into a Commonwealth again ;" and remarks (II. 168), that the high language of Parliament was of the same sound as that in the year 1640.

The Nonconformists were yet regarded with awe, on account of their numbers, character and zeal. In an

intriguing Court, they were sometimes played off by one faction against another.

"Dec. 21, 1667. The Nonconformists are mighty high, and their meetings frequented and connived at, and they do expect to have their day now soon, for my Lord of Buckingham is a declared friend to them, and even to the Quakers, who had very good words the other day from the King himself; and what is more, the Archbishop of Canterbury [Gilbert Sheldon] is called no more to the Caball, nor, by the way, Sir W. Coventry, which I am sorry for, the Caball at present, being, as he says, the King and Duke of Buckingham, and Lord Keeper, the Duke of Albemarle, and Privy Seale. The Bishops differing from the King in the late business in the House of Lords, have caused this and what is like to follow, for every body is encouraged now-adays to speak, and even to preach (as I have heard one of them) as bad things against them as ever in the year 1640, which is a strange change.” II. 169, 170.

We have (II. 172) under the date of Dec. 29, 1667, some notice of the Quaker Founder, with no very honourable mention of his father, the Royalist admiral. “At night comes Mrs. Turner to see us; and there, among other talk, she tells me that Mr. Wm. Pen, who is lately come over from Ireland, is a Quaker again, or some very melancholy thing; that he cares for no company, nor comes into any; which is a pleasant thing after his being abroad so long, and his father such a hypocritical rogue, and at this time an Atheist."

Amongst other matters, we find in the following extracts sufficient proof that the Established Church was at this time established by law more than in public opinion.

"1667,8. Jan. 20. My Lord told a good story of Mr. Newman, the minister in New England, who wrote the Concordance, of his foretelling his death, preaching a funeral sermon, and did at last bid the angels do their office, and died. It seeins there is great presumption that there will be a Toleration granted, so that the Presbyterians do hold up their heads; but they will hardly trust the King or the Parliament what to yield them

though most of the sober party be for some kind of allowance to be given them."

"Jan. 23, 1667,8. The Bishop tells me that he thinks that the great business of Toleration will not, notwithstanding this talk, be carried this Parliament; nor for the King's taking away the Deans' and Chapters' lands to supply his wants, they signifying little to him if he had them for his present service." II. 184.

January 31, 1667, 8. They (the Commissioners) have Mr. Jessop their Secretary, and it is pretty to see that they are fain to find out an old fashioned man of Cromwell's to do their business for them, as well as the Parliament to pitch upon such, for the most part on the lowest of people, that were brought into the House for commissioners. I went away, giving and receiving great satisfaction; and so to White-Hall to the Commissioners of the Treasury; where waiting some time I there met with Colonell Birch, and he and I fell into discourse; and I did give him thanks for his kindness to me in the Parliament House, both before my face, and behind my back. He told me that he knew me to be a man of the old way of taking pains, and did always endeavour to do me right, and prevent any thing that was moved that might tend to my injury; which I was obliged to him for, and thanked him. Thence to talk of other things, and the want of money; and he told me of the general want of money in the countrey; that land sold for nothing, and the many pennyworths he knows of lands and houses upon them, with good titles in his country, at 16 years' purchase: And,' says he, though I am in debt, yet I have a mind to one thing-and that is a Bishop's lease;' but said, I will yet choose such a lease before any other, because I know they cannot stand, and then it will fall into the King's hands, and I in possession shall have an advantage by it.' Says he, I know they must fall, and they are now near it, taking all the ways they can to undo themselves, and shewing us the way;' and thereupon told me a story of the present quarrel between the Bishop and Dean of Coventry and Lichfield; the former of whom did excommunicate the latter, and caused his excommunication to

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be read in the Church while he was there; and after it was read the Dean made the service be gone through with, though himself, an excommunicate was present, (which is contrary to the canon,) and said he would justify the quire therein against the Bishop: and so they are at law in the Arches about it; which is a very pretty story. He tells me that the King is for Toleration, though the Bishops. be against it; and that he do not doubt but it will be carried in Parliament, but that he fears some will stand for the tolerating of Papists with the rest; and that he knows not what to say, but rather thinks that the sober party will be without it rather than have it upon those terms; and I do believe so. It is observed, and is true, in the late fire of London, that the fire burned just as many parish churches as there were hours from the beginning to the end of the fire; and next, that there were just as many churches left standing as there were taverns left standing in the rest of the city that was not burned, being, I think, thirteen in all of each; which is pretty to observe." II. 186, 187.

February 10, 1667, 8. Mr. Hollier (a surgeon) dined with my wife and me. Much discourse about the bad state of the church, and how the clergy are come to be men of no worth in the world; and, as the world do now generally discourse, they must be reformed; and I believe the hierarchy will in a little time be shaken, whether they will or no; the King being of fended with them, and set upon it, as I hear." II. 194.

In 1668, April 28, we have a memorandum (II. 223) shewing that the fear of the Parliament with regard to Nonconformists was greater than with regard to Papists." This law against Conventicles is very severe; but Creed, whom I meet here, do tell me that it being moved that Papists' meetings might be included, House was divided upon it, and it was carried in the negative, which will give great disgust to the people, I doubt."

the

Our play-going Diarist relates (II. 260), that 1668, Sept. 4, he went to Bartholomew Fair to see the play of that title; he praises its wit, but adds,

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only the business of abusing the Puritans begins to grow stale and of

no use, they being the people that at last will be found the wisest." Pepys's patriotism was none of the best.

1668, Oct. 12, (II. 268,) Sir H. Cholmley tells him he do think Parliament will never meet again, which, says he, is a great many men's thoughts and I shall not be sorry for it." Under this date, he thus takes notice of the Quaker Founder as an author: "Read a ridiculous, nonsensical book set out by Will. Pen for the Quakers; but so full of nothing but nonsense that I was ashamed to read in it." An after entry in the Journal shews that he did not regard Penn with invariable contempt, if it does not shew also that Pepys was not a sound believer :

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1668,9, Feb. 12. Home, and there Pelling hath got W. Pen's book against the Trinity. I got my wife to read it to me; and I find it so well writ as, I think, it is too good for him ever to have writ it; and it is a serious sort of a book and not fit for every body to read." II. 303.

We have (II. 291) further particulars of mismanagement and corruption in the Government, and of the wretched tricks that political functionaries put in practice.

"1668, Lord's-day. Saw the King at chapel; but staid not to hear any thing, but went to walk in the Park with W. Hewer; and there, among others, met with Sir G. Downing, and walked with him an hour, talking of business, and how the late war was managed, there being nobody to take care of it and he telling, when he was in Holland, what he offered the King to do if he might have power, and then upon the least word, perhaps of a woman, to the King, he was contradicted again, and particularly to the loss of all that we lost in Guinny. He told me that he had so good spies, that he hath had the keys taken out of De Witt's pocket when he was a bed, and his closet opened, and papers brought to him and left in his hands for an hour, and carried back and laid in the place again, and the keys put into his pocket again. He says he hath always had their most private debates, that have been but between two or three of the chief of them, brought to him in an hour after, and an hour after that hath sent word thereof to

the King, but nobody here regarded them. But he tells me the said news that he is out of all expectations that ever the debts of the navy will be paid, if the Parliament do not enable the King to do it by money; all they can hope for to do out of the King's revenue being but to keep our wheels a-going on present services, and, if they can, to cut off the growing interest: which is a sad story, and grieves me to the heart."

Courtier as Pepys was, he could not speak without indignation of Charles's personal conduct.

"1668, 9, February 17. The King dining yesterday at the Dutch Embassador's, after dinner they drank and were pretty merry; and among the rest of the King's company there was that worthy fellow my Lord of Rochester, and Tom Killigrew, whose mirth and raillery offended the former so much, that he did give Tom Killigrew a box on the ear in the King's presence; which do give much offence to the people here at Court to see how cheap the King makes himself, and the more, for that the King hath not only passed by the thing and pardoned it to Rochester already, but this very morning the King did publicly walk up and down, and Rochester I saw with him as free as ever, to the King's everlasting shame to have so idle a rogue his companion." 305.

II.

The Cabal was a mischievous faction, but the Duke of Buckingham, its head, deserves praise for his wellknown enmity to intolerance. He was the patron of the Divines called Latitudinarians.

"1669, March 16. We fell to other talk; and I find by him that the Bishops must certainly fall, and their hierarchy; these people have got so much ground upon the king and kingdom as is not to be got again from them; and the Bishops do well deserve it. But it is all the talk, I find, that Dr. Wilkins, my friend, Bishop of Chester, shall be removed to Winchester and be Lord Treasurer. Though this be foolish talk, yet I do gather that he is a mighty rising man, as being a Latitudinarian, and the Duke of Buckingham his great friend." H. 316.

It was the custom of these days for the pious to take notes at church, of

which the biographies of the period afford numerous examples. Many a good woman was praised in her funeral sermon for her observation of this little piece of church industry, which was sometimes regarded as a set-off against feminine failings. Pepys says (II. 330) under date of 1669, April 14, "They do here talk mightily of my Lady Paulina's making a very good end and being very religious in her life-time; and she hath left many good notes of sermons and religion wrote with her own hand, which nobody ever knew of; which I am glad of; but she was always a peevish lady."

He himself had a book given him which he seemed to resolve he would use for taking notes of sermons at church.

Further symptoms (II. 339) of the restoration of the religion, at least, of the Commonwealth: 1669, May 3. "Thence to White-Hall and met with Creed and discoursed of matters; and I perceive by him that he makes no doubt but that all will turn to the old religion, for these people cannot hold things in their hands nor prevent its coming to that; and by his discourse he fits himself for it, and would have my Lord Sandwich do so too and me."

We cannot wonder at the profigacy of the Court when we read the following account (H. 342) of buffoonery and profaneness in the archiepiscopal palace. The Puritans must be ever denounced, forsooth, as hypocrites; let their revilers look henceforth to Lambeth.

"1669, May 14. At noon to dinner with Mr. Wren to Lambeth, with the Archbishop of Canterbury; the first time I was ever there, and I have long longed for it. Where a noble house and well furnished, with good pictures and furniture, and noble attendance in good order, and a great deal of company though in an ordinary day; and exceeding great cheer, no where better, or so much, that ever I think I saw for an ordinary table; and the Bishop mighty kind to me particularly, desiring my company another time when less company there. Most of the company gone, and I going, I heard by a gentleman of a sermon that was to be there; and so I staid to hear it, thinking it serious, till by

and by the gentleman told me it was a mockery by one Count Bolton, a very gentleman-like man, that behind a chair did pray and preach like a Presbyter Scot, with all the possible imitation in grimaces and voice. And his text about the hanging up their harps upon the willows: and a serious good sermon too, exclaiming against Bishops, and crying up of my good Lord Eglington, till it made us all burst; but I did wonder to have the Bishop at this time to make himself sport with things of this kind, but I perceive it was shewn him as a rarity. And he took care to have the roomdoor shut, but there were about twenty gentlemen there and myself infinitely pleased with the novelty."

We are now arrived at the end of the Memoirs and have only one more extract, the last passage in this interesting and instructive book, to lay before our readers. The passage (II. 347) is somewhat mournful, though, like Pepys's character, it is not all of a piece. Comedy and tragedy were strangely jumbled together in his mind, as they are in his Journal. He has, however, left us a picture of the interior of the Restoration-Court, and we sincerely thank the Honourable Master of Magdalene College and the noble proprietor of Audley End for publishing to the world a practical refutation of the slanders of a century and a half against the brave and pious men that risked every thing that was dear to them in the noble attempt to overthrow the base tyranny of the Stuarts.

1669, May 31. Up very betimes, and continued all the morning with W. Hewer, upon examining and stating my accounts, in order to the fitting myself to go abroad beyond sea, which the ill condition of my eyes, and my neglect for a year or two hath kept me behind-hand in, and so as to render it very difficult now and troublesome to my mind to do it; but I this day made a satisfactory entrance therein. Had another meeting with the Duke of York at White-Hall, on yesterday's work, and made a good advance: and so being called by my wife, we to the Park, Mary Batelier and a Dutch gentleman, a friend of hers, being with us. Thence to The World's End,' a drinking house by the Park; and there merry, and so home late. And

thus ends all that I doubt I shall ever be able to do with my own eyes in the keeping of my Journall, I being not able to do it any longer, having done now so long as to undo my eyes almost every time that I take a pen in my hand and, therefore, whatever comes of it, I must forbear; and, therefore, resolve from this time for ward to have it kept by my people in long-hand, and must be contented to set down no more than is fit for them and all the world to know, or if there be any thing, I must endeavour to keep a margin in my book open, to add here and there a note in shorthand with my own hand. And so I betake myself to that course, which is almost as much as to see myself go into my grave; for which and all the discomforts that will accompany my being blind, the good God prepare ine."

SIR,

Framlingham,
December 14, 1825.

T is matter of congratulation to the

have discovered passages of transcendant energy and pathos, which would bear comparison with the very richest of his other compositions."

Yet, strange to tell, notwithstanding these high encomiums, the writer says, "It is not without a pang of regret that we profess our belief that this long-lost system of theology is indeed the actual production of the immortal Milton. It is but too lamentably evident from this volume, that towards the close of his earthly pilgrimage, his opinions were in many essential particulars erroneous and unscriptural. It is, indeed, harrowing to the feelings to learn from Milton's own shewing that he believed the Son of God to be nothing more than an exalted creature, &c. With these cardinal errors are mixed up a variety of minor ones, equally characteristic of that spirit of unhallowed speculation, which in the case of the great poet was found to associate itself with an avowed contempt for human au

lical Magazine for this month, (pp. 506, 507,) has lent its aid to give publicity to the lately-discovered theological work of the great John Milton, amongst its numerous orthodox readers, many of whom probably would never have heard of its being brought to light, but for the notice there taken of it. In the critique are the following expressions: "We profess our belief that this long-lost system of theology is indeed the actual production of the immortal Milton. That it fell from his pen, and that too at a period of life when his judgment must have reached its utmost maturity, cannot for a moment be doubted. In the case of the great poet was found an avowed contempt for human authority, and a profound deference for the word of God. It has (i. e. the work) some decided claims on the lovers of biblical knowledge. It is marked throughout by a very decided appeal to the sacred oracles. If the proofs selected from the Holy Scriptures are not always pertinent, they are at least exceedingly numerous, and shew that the distinguished author had not relinquished, in the progress of his speculations, a profound deference for the word of God. In some parts of the work, too, we

the word of God. When first we perused the objectionable parts of Milton's theology, we were ready to say, What a pity it is that the work at large ever escaped from its ancient hiding-place! We conclude, &c. [See the remainder of the passage in Dr. Evans's letter, p. 712.]

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It must be left to the writer and his approvers to reconcile "a spirit of unhallowed speculation-with an avowed contempt for human authority, and a profound deference for the word of God,” and a want of humility with a decided appeal to the sacred oracles:" also, the opinions of Milton" towards the close of his earthly pilgrimage being wretchedly erroneous and unscriptural," when, according to the writer, "it cannot for a moment be doubted but that his judgment must have reached its utmost maturity."

Although great names are not to be alleged as proofs of any doctrines, yet it may well afford Unitarians a considerable degree of satisfaction, that they can now without the least hesitation rank Milton with Locke, Newton, Whitby, and other eminent persons of olden times as decided abettors of the Divine Unity.

W. C.