all pronounce it as ‘Peppis,’ and I am led to be satisfied that the latter pronunciation is correct by the two facts that in the earliest known writing it is spelt ‘Pepis,’ and that the French form of the name is ‘Pepy.’”

The most probable explanation is that the name in the seventeenth century was either pronounced ‘Pips’ or ‘Papes’; for both the forms ‘ea’ and ‘ey’ would represent the latter pronunciation.  The general change in the pronunciation of the spelling ‘ea’ from ‘ai’ to ‘ee’ took place in a large number of words at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth-century, and three words at least (yea, break, and great) keep this old pronunciation still.  The present Irish pronunciation of English is really the same as the English pronunciation of the seventeenth century, when the most extensive settlement of Englishmen in Ireland took place, and the Irish always pronounce ea like ai (as, He gave him a nate bating—­neat beating).  Again, the ‘ey’ of Peyps would rhyme with they and obey.  English literature is full of illustrations of the old pronunciation of ea, as in “Hudibras;”

              “Doubtless the pleasure is as great
               In being cheated as to cheat,”

which was then a perfect rhyme.  In the “Rape of the Lock” tea (tay) rhymes with obey, and in Cowper’s verses on Alexander Selkirk sea rhymes with survey.’  It is not likely that the pronunciation of the name was fixed, but there is every reason to suppose that the spellings of Peyps and Peaps were intended to represent the sound Pepes rather than Peeps.

In spite of all the research which has brought to light so many incidents of interest in the life of Samuel Pepys, we cannot but feel how dry these facts are when placed by the side of the living details of the Diary.  It is in its pages that the true man is displayed, and it has therefore not been thought necessary here to do more than set down in chronological order such facts as are known of the life outside the Diary.  A fuller “appreciation” of the man must be left for some future occasion.

H. B. W.

     ETEXT editor’s bookmarks: 

     Confusion of years in the case of the months of January (etc.)
     Else he is a blockhead, and not fitt for that imployment
     Fixed that the year should commence in January instead of March
     He knew nothing about the navy
     He made the great speech of his life, and spoke for three hours
     I never designed to be a witness against any man
     In perpetual trouble and vexation that need it least
     Inoffensive vanity of a man who loved to see himself in the glass
     Learned the multiplication table for the first time in 1661
     Montaigne is conscious that we are looking over his shoulder
     Nothing in it approaching that single page in St. Simon
     The present Irish pronunciation of English