The gusto
of the man speaks out fierily after all these years. For the
difference between Pepys and Shelley, to return to that half-
whimsical approximation, is one of quality but not one of
degree; in his sphere, Pepys felt as keenly, and his is the
true prose of poetry - prose because the spirit of the man
was narrow and earthly, but poetry because he was delightedly
alive. Hence, in such a passage as this about the Epsom
shepherd, the result upon the reader's mind is entire
conviction and unmingled pleasure. So, you feel, the thing
fell out, not otherwise; and you would no more change it than
you would change a sublimity of Shakespeare's, a homely touch
of Bunyan's, or a favoured reminiscence of your own.
There never was a man nearer being an artist, who yet was not
one. The tang was in the family; while he was writing the
journal for our enjoyment in his comely house in Navy
Gardens, no fewer than two of his cousins were tramping the
fens, kit under arm, to make music to the country girls. But
he himself, though he could play so many instruments and pass
judgment in so many fields of art, remained an amateur. It
is not given to any one so keenly to enjoy, without some
greater power to understand. That he did not like
Shakespeare as an artist for the stage may be a fault, but it
is not without either parallel or excuse.
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