displayed toward Butler their usual ingratitude and allowed him to pass his
latter years in obscure poverty.

Some of the other central characteristics of the age appear in a unique
book, the voluminous 'Diary' which Samuel Pepys (pronounced Peps), a
typical representative of the thrifty and unimaginative citizen class, kept
in shorthand for ten years beginning in 1660. Pepys, who ultimately became
Secretary to the Admiralty, and was a hard-working and very able naval
official, was also astonishingly naif and vain. In his 'Diary' he records
in the greatest detail, without the least reserve (and with no idea of
publication) all his daily doings, public and private, and a large part of
his thoughts. The absurdities and weaknesses, together with the better
traits, of a man spiritually shallow and yet very human are here revealed
with a frankness unparalleled and almost incredible. Fascinating as a
psychological study, the book also affords the fullest possible information
about all the life of the period, especially the familiar life, not on
dress-parade. In rather sharp contrast stands the 'Diary' of John Evelyn,
which in much shorter space and virtually only in a series of glimpses
covers seventy years of time. Evelyn was a real gentleman and scholar who
occupied an honorable position in national life; his 'Diary,' also,
furnishes a record, but a dignified record, of his public and private
experience.

THE RESTORATION DRAMA. The moral anarchy of the period is most strikingly
exhibited in its drama, particularly in its comedy and 'comedy of manners.'
These plays, dealing mostly with love-actions in the setting of the Court
or of fashionable London life, and carrying still further the general
spirit of those of Fletcher and Shirley a generation or two earlier,
deliberately ridicule moral principles and institutions, especially
marriage, and are always in one degree or another grossly indecent.