ndoner. His tastes were centred entirely in the town,
and his pleasures were never sought either among woods or green fields,
or by the banks of trout streams and rivers. His thoughts seem often
tainted with the fumes of the wine-bowl and the reek of the tavern; and
even when he swore off drink, as he frequently did, he soon relapsed
into his customary habits. Educated in London and then at Cambridge,
where his love of a too flowing bowl already got him into trouble more
than once, he was imprudent enough to incur the responsibilities of
matrimony at the early age of twenty-three, with a beautiful girl only
fifteen years old. Trouble soon stared this rash and improvident young
couple in the face, but they were spared the pangs of permanent poverty
through the aid and influence of Sir Edward Montagu, afterwards Earl of
Sandwich, who was a distant relative of Pepys. Acting probably as
Montagu's secretary for some time, he was first appointed to a clerkship
in the Army pay office, and then soon afterwards became clerk of the
Acts of the Navy. Later on, like Evelyn, he held various more important
posts under the Crown, as well as being greatly distinguished by
promotion to non-official positions of the highest honour. His official
career was a very brilliant one, and deservedly so from the integrity of
his work, from his application, despite frequent immoderation in
partaking of wine, and from his business-like methods of work. As
Commissioner for the Affairs of Tangier and Treasurer, he visited
Tangier officially. He twice became Secretary to the Admiralty, and was
twice elected to represent Harwich in Parliament, after having
previously sat for Castle Rising. He was also twice chosen as Master of
the Trinity House, and was twice committed to prison, once on a charge
of high treason, and the other time (1690) on the charge of being
affected to King James II., upon whose flight from England Pepys had
laid down his office and withdrawn himself into retirement. Elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society in 1665, he attained the distinction of
being its President in 1684. He was Master of the Clothworkers' Company,
Treasurer and Vice-President of Christ's Hospital, and one of the Barons
of the Cinque Ports. In 1699, four years before he succumbed to a long
and painful disease borne with fortitude under the depression of reduced
circumstances, he received the freedom of the City of London,
principally for his services in connection wi