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And here, being willing to know the worst, I told him, "I hope now there is nothing remaining between you and I of future dispute." "No," says he, "nothing at all that I know of, but only a small matter of about 20 or 30s. that my father Pepys received for me of rent due to me in the country, which I will in a day or two bring you an account of," and so we parted.
Creed's boy with a letter from his master for me. So I fell to reading it, and it is by way of stating the case between S. Pepys and J. Creed most excellently writ, both showing his stoutness and yet willingness to peace, reproaching me yet flattering me again, and in a word in as good a manner as I think the world could have wrote, and indeed put me to a greater stand than ever I thought I could have been in this matter.
The evil was one of long standing. Pepys complained of it bitterly in his day, asserting that owing to its prevalence letters could neither be received nor sent, and that the departmental machinery for victualling and arming the fleet was like to be undone. With the growth of pressing the imposition was carried to absurd lengths.
But my cozen Pepys and I had much discourse alone: and he do bewail the constitution of this House, and says there is a direct caball and faction, as much as is possible between those for and those against the Chancellor, and so in other factions, that there is nothing almost done honestly and with integrity; only some few, he says, there are, that do keep out of all plots and combinations, and when their time comes will speak and see right done, if possible; and that he himself is looked upon to be a man that will be of no faction, and so they do shun to make him; and I am glad of it.
The mansion of Barn Elms was formerly in the possession of Sir Francis Walsingham, and here in 1589 he entertained Queen Elizabeth. Pepys and Evelyn both make mention of this place in their diaries, and it was here that the duel was fought January 16, 1678 between the Earl of Shrewsbury and the Duke of Buckingham.
Here met Creed, and, about noon, he and I, and Sir P. Neale to the Quaker's, and there dined with a silly Executor of Bishop Juxon's, and cozen Roger Pepys. Business of money goes on slowly in the House.
So to prayers and to bed, and there had a good draft of mulled ale brought me. 17th. The Sir Williams being unwilling to eat flesh, We have seen that Pepys, as yet, had not cast off all show of Puritanism. "In this month the Fishmongers' Company petitioned the King that Lent might be kept, because they had provided abundance of fish for this season, and their prayer was granted." Rugge.
But if you would really know what kind of theatre it was that sprang up with the Stuarts and what the audiences looked like and how they behaved, you must read Pepys. With but a moderate use of fancy, you can set out with him in his yellow coach for the King's house in Drury Lane. Perhaps hunger nips you at the start. If so, you stop, as Pepys pleasantly puts it, for a "barrel of oysters."
I gone thence, my cosen Pepys comes out to me, and walks in the Hall with me, and bids me prepare to answer to every thing; for they do seem to lay the business of Chatham upon the Commissioners of the Navy, and they are resolved to lay the fault heavy somewhere, and to punish it: and prays me to prepare to save myself, and gives me hints what; to prepare against; which I am obliged to him for.
Pepys, however, was alarmed by 'our young gib-cat, which he mistook for a 'spright. With Henry More, Baxter, and Glanvil practically died, for the time, the attempt to investigate these topics scientifically, though an impression of doubt was left on the mind of Addison. Witchcraft ceased to win belief, and was abolished, as a crime, in 1736.
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