Chamber's Cyclopædia of English literature; a history, critical and biographical, of authors in the English tongue from the earliest times till the present day, with specimens of their writings . , his father^cousin, had enthisbeen Samuel-patron : to Mon-tagu, at all events,his start in lifiwas entirely duiHe was secretar\to Montagu whenin command ofthe fleet thatbrought Charles II. back to England. His appointment to theclerkship of the Acts of the Navy in 1660 wasan ob\ious piece of nepotism, for he knewnothing about naval matters ; but he soonbecame master of the work of his office, andboth
Chamber's Cyclopædia of English literature; a history, critical and biographical, of authors in the English tongue from the earliest times till the present day, with specimens of their writings . , his father^cousin, had enthisbeen Samuel-patron : to Mon-tagu, at all events,his start in lifiwas entirely duiHe was secretar\to Montagu whenin command ofthe fleet thatbrought Charles II. back to England. His appointment to theclerkship of the Acts of the Navy in 1660 wasan ob\ious piece of nepotism, for he knewnothing about naval matters ; but he soonbecame master of the work of his office, andboth now and subsequently as Secretary to theAdmiralty, he was an industrious, energetic, anddistinguished naval official. At the Revolutionhis career was closed, but until the end of hislife he was still looked upon as the Nestor ofnavy affairs, to be consulted upon matters of par-ticular importance. His longest expedition fromhome was when he accompanied the commandersent to Tangier to demolish the forts and bringhome the garrison. Pepyss life was prosperous ;he lived well, kept a carriage, but steadily mademoney. He was tv\ice Master of the TrinityHouse, was Master of the Clothworkers Com-. the Portrait by in pany, twice sat for a short time in Parliament,,and was even President of the Royal Society(1684-86). But he was not without his the Popish Plot in 1679 he was committedto the Tower, and in 1690 he was placed inGatehouse at Westminster for a few days ; and athis death the Crown was indebted to him to theextent of ^28,000, a sum which was never died on the 26th of May 1703. His library,bequeathed to Magdalene College, Cambridge,, still remains inthe exact condi-tion in which heleft it. It is not as anofficial that thefame of Pepys-still lives, nor as-the author of im-|iortant Memoiresrelating to thestate vf the RoyalNavy (1690)—hisonly a c k n o w-ledged publica-tion—but as thewriter of a Diarywhich is uniquein the literatureof the
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectenglishliterature
