BOOKS OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2959, 23 December 1916, Page 13

BOOKS OF THE DAY

; pepys up to Dim y i Who does not know and has not of -that-wonderful diary kept in Kfcho reigu of Charles tho second ■by Samuol i'epys, Secretary to tho Navy,: j.with its iuumato studios of London life in the days o£ the Merry Monarch, its Lgossipof tlio Court and-the stage of it-he period, its delightfully naive confessions of tho personal tastes, foibles, ad 6mall vices of Mio author. Pepjs'a Diary is one of the great classics, and uci one can rightfully understand British history as it was insde ■in the later-Stuartian times who does not go to its pages. So much as a necessary preface to a few notes on «ne of the most entertaining, and, in its own. way, one of tho most valuable books on the present war that havo O'et been published. This is "A Diary ■of the Great Warr," by Samuel Pepys, Junior. The chapters of which it;is composed appeared originally week by week in London "Truth," where the •"Diary" attracted widespread attention. The author has chosen to preserve his anonymity, but he can bo credited not only with having produced a masterpiece of parody, but ,i work, ' which professedly of an entertaining character, provides many ourious sidelights on the attitude of the English people to the war, and much pungent satire upon the weaknesses and failures of the Government which has just gone out of office. Samuel Pepys, junior, is a retired Admiralty official, a man comfortably off, a club man fond of good living, and like his immortal predecessor and original, inordinately egotistical, not a little selfish, and, ab'ova all, an arrant gossip and scandal-mongor. ■

The Diary opens quite in ths . true Pepysian vein, with a picture of England's position when tho war broke out:

*Tho condition, of tho State is thus:— The Lords and Commons at great loggerheads over the -Irish Bill, which the Lords are vowed to amend utterly, but Redmond swears he lyill have it amended not one tittle, and like to follow whorefroin very hot business. Carson still with his Army in Ulster, with Mr. Smith to his chief galloper, and all, 'tis said, now leady to march on Dublin at the word given.. Wherein may God prosper them. The Irish Catholiques and traitours do carry "their $tomacks higher every day, putting all manner of affronts upon the Protestants, and do moreover arm and drill themselves to fight against the Protestants; and the King's Ministers openly winking thereat; which is a devilish thing. Abroad, the Austrians mighty high against the Serbs, and will have satisfaction for the Archduke's murdor to the last ounce, or know the reason thereof. The Gormen Emperor believed by many to .have Bet oh the Austrians thereto, but of this do. present certainty.

Come the fateful early days of August, and. all Loudon is agog with excitement. The Diarist's club friends, especially GenerallPerpleton, and Adinirall Topper, both, retired warriors, who at once are accepted as infallible authorities ou the war, are aoon introduced. Tho Generall is tremendously excited over the story that 250,0()0 Russians,. who. had,travelled .through-Eng-land from Archangel, had been landed in France. "He shows me oh the map how by this stroake there shall he a speedy end made of von Kluck's army." The Diarist's allusions to tho Russian canard are very entertaining. At the club, his bosom friend, Mr. iides, tells n circumstantial story, which_ he has had from "one high in authoritio at the AVar Office," that the Russians have been landed at Bordeaux.- Later on, Sir Moses Levison, who is chairman of directors of tlio Polyphemus Oil Company, in which Pepys has invested some of his capital, dines with him .at the club, and over "a very' choice and fat turbot, allmost, I thinko, the fattest turbot I ever did eat," assures the Diarißfc that the Russian Army had encamped the night before on Tooting Common, but marched away before daybreak, "so only his gardener and 2 or •3 others did see them." A day or two later ho spoke with people who had seen trains loaded with Hussiaus pass- . iug through Willesden .Junction, whilst on September 10 he "has it from Mr. Croaker, who has had it' from Lord Kitchener, that for certain my Lord Kitchener was at Osterid for three da_ys organising the Russians landed there'." •And so. the rumours continue, uhtil tho sorely puzzled chronicler writes: "But, Lordl how many lies upon' good authority have we had this last fortnight, tso that it would seem that, the greater the authority tho greater tho lie." Finally tho whole'canard is blown kite high by an announcement "from the Press Oflico, that no Russian soldiers have been landed in France, nor any passed through England."

The spy mania is the cause 'of our Diarist making a lamentable and somewhat expensive mistake:

Goiug home, I saw a strange man slink just before me into' the hall of our flatts, bearing in his hand a tin canistar, mighty Biispicious. Upon whom, hoing assured he was a Gerijian spy, I did fling myself from behind, beating down his top-batt about his face for Ms better disablement. Jobling, the hall porter, to mine aid, and we seize the canister, and forthwith into a bucket of water. But Lord! Upon our pulling his head clear from the wreckage of his liatt, 'tis Mr. Mitchings of tho fop floor, and tlie canister a tin ol' gentles for his going roach-angling at Twittenhani to-morrow. So I am left looking like a fool, and moreover to furnish Mitchings. a now batt (i:l Is.), which makes, me mad.

Like tho' original Samuel, the Diarist is a 'regular churchgoer, and incidentally records tho disgust with which ho listens to a pro-peaco sermon: March 28 (Palm Sunday). To Paul's and there did hear of one of the canons (Simpson) play the fool about loving the Germans and using them tenderly; which, with them in their present mind, is as good as exhorting us to a gentle complaisance towards the Devil. All sober men do wonder what is come to tho Doctors of our church, first Lyttellon of Eton, and now Simpson, that they be so given over to peace-making, and •'tis thought this shall incline many church-iuen to turn ilethody or Anabaptist. One- who drank tea with us this afternoon' tells of a certain bishop that did preach of lr.te on tho warr, and quotas Solomon's text, "Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach 4,0 any pooplo. - " And a. report of ths scrmoil being 6ent by some news-sheet to the censor for his approval, comes back with the note: "Tho War Ofhce have no objection to the publication of this statement, but they have 110 information on the subject."

The Diarist is just as much a shameless philanderer as was Samuel of Stuartian days, and his escapades with a certain Polish countess, who makes an arrant fool of him, after beinj; tho causo of much marital "rowings in tho Pepysian menage, are sot forth in a highly entertaining manner. lho Diarist, however, is clover enough to find a set-off to his own folly_ in that ef his- wife, who, he' finds, has beon ivriting "cheering up" letters to a solSier. at the front:

Came this morning a letter from my wife, stamped with tlio mark of our army in France; which, by reason of its being, strango writing, did put me in great suspicion; so, she telling me 'tis | from brother Baity, as I know 'tis not, I snatcht it from her. But Lord! 'tis from one' who subscribed himself Peter, and calls her his guardian angell, and tells how her sweat letters have heartened and cheared him, and hopes he may some day see. her beautious face to smile upon him, with all manner of fool's Whereby being thrown into a tosse 1 " of devilish jealousy, 1 was hard put to it to keep my hands from the wretch, and told her before God I would ■beat her senseless, unless she shall instantly confess all. Hereupon she fell to weeping, and owns to Peter for a Lieutenant in Territorials, to whom she was first moved to write by an advertisement in the "Times" news sheet, that a lonely soldier prays letters from some kind sister at home that will write and chear him. Which she swears is all the truth, and never had any notion, saving only to sister the poor fellow. But before I would allow that, I did first make her bring me'all Peter's letters; and bating that shei hath, it seems, forgotten to mention her having a husband, nor yet that she is old enough to mother the fool rather than sister him, I find nothing greatly amiss. Nevertheless, I was foign, for her good, to read her a sharp homily on the sin of deceitfulness, being of all ains the most abhorrent, anil to admonish her straitly that I will' have no more sistering of soldier men. And so, bidding her pack herself for her J-aunt, I left her.

One more extract and) I must close a sadly inadequate appreciation of one of the wittiest and most amusing books of tho year. It has reference to tho Zeppelin scarc. The entry for October 13, 1915, ends thus:

Homo, and, having eaten dinner, was just Bet to writing in my journal, when comes tho sound of a great cannon fired, and upon that Cook rushing in and screams the Zeppelin ships be come. So all into our masques and down to the cellars, whither flying many from the flatts above, and such a scurry as ever was. But, presently, the cannon firing again and again, 1 could not restrain myself from going into the street, where I had thought to see tho ,ayr-ships overhead, but naught in sight only the stars and a great concourso of people, all agape. So, having got my hatt and coat, and the firing being now ceased, I into Victoria Street, where I met one who tells that bombs be drogjed on 'White Hall and the Parliament Houses, and he : believes about 50 members killed and wounded, and the Abbey on fire. But, lord! coming to Palace Sfard, all is safe and quiet, save for the people m tho streets. • On Westminster Bridge many to"' gaze up and down the river, and members come out of the Parliament at bearing the ofons; and one says he .nath seen a Zeppfllin ship over Fox Hall, and another haw seen one by the Black Fryars, but whether any hath seen more than our bomb-shells bursting, God knows. So home and to bed, mighty tired. I do observe it very strange in myself that, albeit the sound of the cannon did at first throw me into a mighty twitter, yet by my having seen no ayrship I am not a. little disappointed. . . .. By all means beg, borrow, or buy (and this latter' "for keeps") a copy of this "Diary of the Great Warr."