We see a lonely pass in the hills, the cave of jewels (splendid to the eye of childhood) where the slave of the lamp first appears, and finally the throne-room with Aladdin seated safely beside his princess.

Who knows how to dip a pen within the twilight?  Who shall trace the figures of the mist?  The play is done.  We come out in silence.  Our candy is but a remnant.  Darkness has fallen.  The pavements are wet and shining, so that the night might see his face, if by chance the old fellow looked our way.

All about there are persons hurrying home with dinner-pails, who, by their dull eyes, seem never to have heard what wonders follow on the rubbing of a lamp.

But how the fires leaped up—­how ambition beat within us—­how our attic theatre was wrought to perfection—­how the play came off and wracked the neighborhood of its pins—­with what grace I myself acted Aladdin—­these things must be written by a vain and braggart pen.

Mr. Pepys Sits in the Pit

When it happens that a man has risen to be a member of Parliament, the Secretary of the British Navy and the President of the Royal Society, when he has become the adviser of the King and is moreover the one really bright spot in that King’s reign, it is amazing that considerably more than one hundred years after his death, when the navy that he nurtured dominates the seven seas, that he himself on a sudden should be known, not for his larger accomplishments, but as a kind of tavern crony and pot-companion.  When he should be standing with fame secure in a solemn though dusty niche in the Temple of Time, it is amazing that he should be remembered chiefly for certain quarrels with his wife and as a frequenter of plays and summer gardens.

Yet this is the fate of Samuel Pepys.  Before the return of the Stuarts he held a poor clerkship in the Navy Office and cut his quill obscurely at the common desk.  At the Restoration, partly by the boost of influence, but chiefly by his substantial merit, he mounted to several successively higher posts.  The Prince of Wales became his friend and patron and when he became Lord High Admiral he took Pepys with him in his advancement.  Thus in 1684, Pepys became Secretary of the Navy.  When later the Prince of Wales became King James II, Pepys, although his office remained the same, came to quite a pinnacle of administrative power.  He was shrewd and capable in the conduct of his position and brought method to the Navy Office.  He was a prime factor in the first development of the British Navy.  Later victories that were to sweep the seas may be traced in part to him.  Nelson rides upon his shoulders.  These achievements should have made his fame secure.  But on a sudden he gained for posterity a less dignified although a more interesting and enduring renown.