court, and city have scarcely presented at any other period.

Shortly after the publication of the Diary, there appeared in the
Quarterly Review, No. 66, a charming paper from the accomplished
pen of Sir Walter Scott, upon this very curious contribution to
our reminiscent literature. Sir Walter's parallel of Pepys and
Evelyn is very nicely drawn. "Early necessity made Pepys
laborious, studious, and careful. But his natural propensities
were those of a man of pleasure. He appears to have been ardent
in quest of amusement, especially where anything odd or uncommon
was to be witnessed. To this thirst after novelty, the
consequence of which has given great and varied interest to his
Diary, Pepys added a love of public amusements, which he himself
seems to have considered as excessive." "Our diarist must not be
too severely judged. He lived in a time when the worst examples
abounded, a time of court intrigue and state revolution, when
nothing was certain for a moment, and when all who were possessed
of any opportunity to make profit, used it with the most
shameless avidity, lest the golden minutes should pass away
unimproved.

"In quitting the broad path of history," says Sir Walter, "we
seek for minute information concerning ancient manners and
customs, the progress of arts and sciences, and the various
branches of antiquity. We have never seen a mine so rich as the
volumes before us. The variety of Pepys's tastes and pursuits
led him into almost every department of life. He was a man of
business, a man of information if not of learning; a man of
taste; a man of whim; and to a certain degree a man of pleasure.
He was a statesman, a BEL ESPRIT, a virtuoso, and a connoisseur.