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Introduction
Introduction
In two books a fresh light has recently been thrown on the character and
position of Samuel Pepys. Mr. Mynors Bright has given us a new transcription
of the Diary, increasing it in bulk by near a third, correcting many errors,
and completing our knowledge of the man in some curious and important points.
We can only regret that he has taken liberties with the author and the public.
It is no part of the duties of the editor of an established classic to decide
what may or may not be "tedious to the reader." The book is either an
historical document or not, and in condemning Lord Braybrooke Mr. Bright
condemns himself. As for the time-honored phrase, "unfit for publication,"
without being cynical, we may regard it as the sign of a precaution more or
less commercial; and we may think, without being sordid, that when we purchase
six huge and distressingly expensive volumes, we are entitled to be treated
rather more like scholars and rather less like children. But Mr. Bright may
rest assured: while we complain, we are still grateful. Mr. Wheatley, to
divide our obligation, brings together, clearly and with no lost words, a body
of illustrative material. Sometimes we might ask a little more; never, I
think, less. And as a matter of fact, a great part of Mr. Wheatley`s volume
might be transferred, by a good editor of Pepys, to the margin of the text,
for it is precisely what the reader wants.
In the light of these two books, at least, we have now to read our
author. 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 making, he
is surely worthy of prolonged and patient study.
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