been brought "in a very honourable and solemn manner," from Clapham,
where, according to that respected sheet, the _Post-boy_, he expired on
May 26, 1703. No stone marked the spot, when Mr. Mynors Bright's
delightful edition of Pepys was published in 1875.

Now Pepys is honoured in that church where he sleeps even sounder than in
days when the Scot preached worse than usual. But he is rewarded in
death--not, it may be feared, for his real services to England, but
because he has amused us all so much. A dead humorist may be better than
a living official, however honest, industrious, and careful.

In all these higher things Pepys was not found wanting. The son of a
tailor in the City, he yet had connections of good family, who were of
service to him when he entered public life. Samuel Pepys was born in
1632. He was educated at Magdalene, Cambridge, where he was once common-
roomed for being "scandalously overserved with liquor." Through life he
retained a friendly admiration of Magdalene strong ale. He married a
girl of fifteen when he was but twenty-two; he entered the service of the
State shortly afterwards. He was the Chief Secretary for Naval Affairs
during many years; he defended his department at the Bar of the House of
Commons after De Ruyter's attack in 1668, and he remained true to the
Stuart dynasty in heart after James was driven abroad. Yet, though his
contemporary biographer calls Pepys the greatest and most useful public
servant that ever filled the same situations in England, Pepys would not
now be honoured if he had not kept the most amusing diary in the world.
Samuel was a highly conscientious, truly pious man, constant in all
religious exercises, though he did slumber when the Scot wagged his pow
in a pulpit. At the same time, Samuel lived in a very fast age, an age
when pleasure was a business, and "old Rowley, the king," led the brawls.
He was young when society was most scandalously diverting. He had a