This it is to put trust in chariots and horses !

There are sundry other odd littlenesses about
Pepys which injure him in comparison with his
friend Evelyn. He was too sensible of the influ-
ence of the great, and too ready to truckle to it,
though we believe honest and fair in his own
department. In the course of offence taken against
him by the celebrated Lord Chancellor Clarendon,
on account of his having marked out some orna-



MISCELLANEOUS CRITICISM,
mental trees in Clnreiidon park for the use of the
navy, both he and his principal, Lord Sandwich,
retreat vilely from what they seem to have (how-
ever absurdly) conceived to be a high public duty
— with this humiliating confession on the part of
Pepys ; " Lord, to see how we poor wretches dare
not do the King good service for fear of the great-
ness of these men!" During an interview, in
which he uses all the evasions and excuses which
might deprecate the Chancellor's displeasure, he
labours under an occasional suspicion that Claren-
don is seriously disposed " to try liis fidelity to his
king." The Chancellor disliked, as any other
gentleman would do, baving fine trees cut down
close to his house ; but the Clerk of the Acts mag-
nifies the matter most ridiculously. Elsewhere
Pepys seems, at least, fully sensible of the necessity
of propitiating the great, but the following is a
curious instance of the dread he entertained in
jailing in the least etiquette towards them. He
met, it seems, the Duke of York coming along
« the PeU Mell ;"

" lo our wnik over ihfl Parte, gnc pf the Duka's foolmen

•M nbo wri wort, aod irent back again. What hia meaning i> I
lUDW Dot, but wu fearful ibat I might not go far cuaugh nuh
mj but off."— Vol. L p, 243,

Our diarist must not be too severely judged.
