a Tuesday, it was on a Wednesday that the library could be seen; if I called in the morning, the afternoon was the proper time. Once I tried "the silver key," but was unsuccessful; perhaps it was not large enough. The last time I was in Cambridge, however, I was fortunate enough one day, in Mr. Heffer's bookshop, to be introduced to the present librarian or custodian, Mr. O. F. Morshead, and I had the great pleasure of spending a morning in the library under his delightful guidance, looking at such treasures as would cause the heart of the coldest book-collector - and I am not the coldest to throb with excitement.

Pepys began his diary when he was twenty-seven years of age. He gave up keeping it, on account of failing eyesight, when he was but thirty-six, which, he says, was "almost as much as to see myself go into my grave." But he remained a collector all his life, and he did not die until he was past seventy. Not until after the close of the Diary did he reach the maturity of his power in the Navy.

What treasures can a rich and industrious man accumulate in forty years! Particularly if, as was at least once the case, he borrowed and did not return. One item he obtained in this way from his brother diarist, John Evelyn. It is a pocket-book, a sort of an almanac, formerly the property of his great hero, Francis Drake, with his name, spelled "Drak," written therein. It is of course of supreme interest, and Pepys, who numbered all his books, gave it number 1. Pepys's books, about three thousand in all, repose

in the original bookcases which he had made in 1666 by Mr. Sympson, "the joyner." They are arranged according to a curious scheme of his own, exactly as he left them. In point of fact, the shorthand manuscript of the Diary is, at a cursory glance, one of the least interesting things in the collection. But what a story is locked up in the six volumes of closely written cypher!

Under the terms of Pepys's will, Magdalene College is intrusted with the care of the collection, with reversion to Trinity in the event that there is any default in the rules and regulations laid down by Pepys for its safe keeping; and the manuscript of the Diary slumbered among Pepys's books from his death in 1703 to 1825, when it was deciphered and published. But in the first edition, only about half of the Diary was published, and this was edited and expurgated by Lord Braybrooke to an extent which became apparent only by degrees. Some years later, a clergyman took the matter in hand and, omitting what seemed good to him, suggested that the complete work might be found "tedious"! Finally, and not until 1893, there appeared an edition, edited by H. B. Wheatley, which gave the Diary complete, with the exception of a few passages, amounting in all to about one page of text, which, he says, cannot possibly be printed.

What a book it is! Without style, or wit, or eloquence; but for what book having all these qualities would we exchange it? As someone has said, Rousseau is positively secretive in comparison with Pepys.

The charm of the Diary is its quaint and utter shamelessness, as when its author confesses that he kicked one of his maids and is not sorry for it, but he is sorry that he was seen doing so. Most of us are more like Pepys than we would be willing to confess. We do wrong and carry our heads high, and are ashamed only when we are found out.

And now I find myself wondering whether I have written all this just to introduce a charming ballade, worthy of Austin Dobson at his best, by my friend "Kit" Morley, or as a pretext for referring to my beautiful copy of Pepys's Memoires of the Royal Navy. Let me give the ballade first.

It would seem from

THE EIGHTH SIN

BY

C. D. MORLEY

"There is no greater Sin after the seven deadly than to flatter oneself into an idea of being a great Poat." Letters of John Keats.

OXFORD

B. H. BLACKWELL, BROAD STREET

LONDON

SIMPEIN, MARSHALL & CO. LIMITED

MCMXII

an entry in the Diary under date of February 3, 1665, that Pepys had taken a vow to abstain from kissing pretty women and, in the event of his breaking it, to give to some good cause a shilling for each kiss after the first one. He was a methodical scamp, but I doubt if he could accurately keep count. In any event, on this day, in addition to Mrs. Turner having shown him something that he ardently admires, he