to have prevented his wish being carried out is given by Mr. Waylen in his curious book on 'Cromwell's Descendants.' After recounting the deaths of Mr. Cromwell's two sons, Mr. Waylen continues :

Under these circumstances it is not surprising that Mr. Cromwell of Cheshunt should wish his daughter to carry it on, in accordance with the course usually pursued in such cases, by her husband's adopting the surname and arms of Cromwell either in addition to or in exchange for those of Russell. Such a procedure is technically said to be 'by royal permission; and though royalty seldom interferes in such matters, yet here was a case in which royalty's instincts seemed suddenly awakened to the susceptibility of an unaccustomed chord. True, it was a chord whose vibrations responded to the mere ghost of a name. But what a name ! Has it ever been other than a word of omen to royal ears during the last two centuries? The issue of the affair is thus recorded by Mr. Burke the herald :-' Mr. Cromwell wishing to perpetuate the name of his great ancestor, applied, it is said, in the usual quarter for permission that his son-in-law should assume the surname of Cromwell; when, to his astonishment, considering that such requests are usually granted on the payment of certain fees as a matter of course, the permission was refused. Such a course of proceeding is too contemptible for comment ' (History of the Commoners, vol. i., p. 433). The credit of the refusal has been variously ascribed to the old King, to the Prince Regent, and to William IV. Sir Robert Heron writing in 1812 makes mention of it thus,- Within the last two or three years died the last male direct descendant of Oliver Cromwell. He was well known to my father and to Sir Abraham Hume, who lived near him. They represented him as a worthy man of mild manners, much resembling in character his immediate ancestor Henry the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Early in life his pecuniary circumstances were narrowed, but latterly he possessed a comfortable income

He was desirous of leaving his name to his son-in-law, Mr. Russell, and applied for His Majesty's permission that Russell should assume it; but the old King positively refused it, always saying, 'No, no-no more Cromwells' (Sir Robert Heron's Notes). Another version of the affair is, that Mr. Cromwell becoming apprehensive that the change of name might, after all, prove a hindrance rather than otherwise to his grandchildren's advance in life, allowed the matter to remain in abeyance; but that the scheme was revived by another member of the family in a memorial addressed to William IV.; and that it was this King and not George III. who uttered the energetic veto above recorded.

This refusal may be regarded as the last attempt made to depress the Protector's family. Throughout the eighteenth century it is clear that the family suffered a good deal, and that it was usually thought prudent for its members to keep quiet. A pleasant story of the great Lord Hardwicke's conduct in checking the petty persecution of the Cromwells is worth remembering :

Lord Chancellor Hardwicke once heard a suit in which the grandson of the Protector Oliver was a party. The opposing counsel thinking to make way with the jury by scandalising Oliver's memory, was running on in the accustomed style, when Lord Hardwicke effectually checked him by saying, 'I perceive Mr. Cromwell is standing outside the bar and inconveniently pressed by the crowd. Make way for him that he may come and sit on the bench.' The representative of the family accordingly took his place beside the Judge, and the orator changed his tone.

Before leaving the subject of Cromwell's descendants, it may be noted that Sir William Harcourt and the late Lord Lytton are both connected with the House of

Cromwell. The first Lady Harcourt was descended from the Protector, as is the widow of the late Lord Lytton. The curious circumstances of the intermarriage in the fourth descent of Oliver's posterity and King Charles's,' and of the intermixture of Hyde and Cromwell blood must also be mentioned. What misery and humiliation would not the first Lord Clarendon have suffered, could he have known that his descendants would intermarry with those of the Usurper, and that the children of this intermixture would regard their descent from the Protector with far greater pride than that from the Chancellor of Charles II.!

167

A PURITAN GONE ROTTEN

IN the latest reprint of 'Pepys's Diary,' we are for the first time allowed to see all, or practically all that Pepys wrote in that marvellous daily confession where meanness, lubricity, and bright,eager interest in all that concerns man and the world stand side by side. Previous editors cut out first the coarse passages, and then what they thought the dull ones—those dealing with the details of Pepys's official life. The result was a considerable loss of local colour. Now we have the full-length portrait. It is true that the edges once turned down under the frame and now exposed to view do not alter the general character of the picture; but at the same time they increase the total impression produced. That impression cannot but be a most unfavourable one to Pepys as a man. His nature was as loathsome a one as it is possible to conceive, for in spite of his ability, his keenness, his force, his pleasantness and his bonhomie, there ran through the man a deep strain of hypocrisy. 'Treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain.' The words are hardly too strong for this Puritan gone rotten, this Psalm-singing Roundhead who, though he wallowed as deep in the Caroline sty as any of his fellows, yet even in the privacy of his own Diary could not help turning up the whites of his eyes and lamenting all the sin and

wickedness that was sending the country to the devil. He comes reeking from a squalid and adulterous amour to protest against the licentious talk and behaviour of the gallants of the Court. They cursed and swore and showed their vices in public, and this in Pepys's eyes was the greatest of crimes. Why could they not 'sin close' like himself, and not set so terrible an example to the vulgar?

It is impossible to read 'Pepys's Diary' and not feel a certain very disagreeable thought arise in the mind. Mr. Stevenson pointed out in his masterly essay on Pepys that but for the Diary our estimate of Pepys would be utterly different from what it is to-day. We should know him as a staid and capable official who in a dissolute and reckless age fulfilled a great public charge with zeal and discretion, a man who lived a long and happy married life, who loved learning and science, who was a prominent member of the Royal Society, and a noted musician who left a fine collection of books to his University, and who was at the end of his career a much respected Member of Parliament. To heighten this picture one may add the fact that Pepys appears in our literature as the author of a lettter to Dryden asking him to draw for the benefit of the public a picture of that most virtuous of virtuous figures the worthy country parson. In a word, if we relied on what we know of Pepys from others we should think of him as one who did no discredit to human nature.

But, alas! we also know the man from the inside. We have a window to look into his very soul, a window through which we see the black corruption of