Between them they contain all we can expect
to learn for, it may be, many years. Now, if ever we should
be able to form some notion of that unparalleled figure in
the annals of mankind - unparalleled for three good reasons:
first, because he was a man known to his contemporaries in a
halo of almost historical pomp, and to his remote descendants
with an indecent familiarity, like a tap-room comrade;
second, because he has outstripped all competitors in the art
or virtue of a conscious honesty about oneself; and, third,
because, being in many ways a very ordinary person, he has
yet placed himself before the public eye with such a fulness
and such an intimacy of detail as might be envied by a genius
like Montaigne. Not then for his own sake only, but as a
character in a unique position, endowed with a unique talent,
and shedding a unique light upon the lives of the mass of
mankind, he is surely worthy of prolonged and patient study.
THE DIARY.
That there should be such a book as Pepys's Diary is
incomparably strange. Pepys, in a corrupt and idle period,
played the man in public employments, toiling hard and
keeping his honour bright. Much of the little good that is
set down to James the Second comes by right to Pepys; and if
it were little for a king, it is much for a subordinate. To
his clear, capable head was owing somewhat of the greatness
of England on the seas.
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