Pepys was however as proud as a popinjay, as the manner then among gentlemen was; and his man Will imitated his master. _Tel maître, tel valet._ See what he says of an occurrence which he notices on “Lord’s Day,” June 8, 1662. “Home, and observe my man Will to walk with his cloak flung over his shoulder, which, whether it was that he might not be seen to walk along with the footboy, I knew not, but I was vexed at it; and coming home, and _after prayers_, I did ask him where he learned that immodest garb; and he answered me that it was not immodest, or some such slight answer, at which I did give him two boxes on the eares, which I never did before.” But the transgressor forgot his fault, in his gratification a few Sundays after in going to church with his wife,—“who this day put on her green petticoate of flowred sattin, with the white and black gimp lace of her own putting on, which is very pretty.” I fear that our ancestors thought as much upon matters of dress at church as any of their descendants. To what an extent this feeling was carried may be seen in the case of Pepys, who, seeing Captain Holmes in his pew in a new gold-laced suit, was so chagrined that a disquisition upon damnation failed to put him into spirits. The feelings of both husband and wife were very sensitive touching costume; for does he not tell us, on one occasion, that on a certain visit being paid them, they “were ashamed that she should be seen in a taffeta gown when all the world wears moyre”? The gentleman’s eyes indeed had just been regaled by a sight of the “Russian Embassador,”—“in the richest suit for pearl and tissue that ever I did see.” The envoy appears to have been an exceedingly well-dressed barbarian; and the Muscovite officials of our own day are in no respect behind him. Felony and mendacity would seem to be accounted of as _péchés mignons_ by those gentlemen who wear polished boots and profess honest principles, with coats like Count d’Orsay’s, and hearts beneath them like Jack Sheppard’s. After all, the pearl and tissue of the Russ was not half so tasteful as Lord Sandwich’s “gold-buttoned suit, as the mode is;” and Pepys took to the fashion, buying fine clothes, and half afraid to wear them, yet rejoicing that he is not now “for want of them, forced to sneak like a beggar.” A camlet suit for common wear then cost him four-and-twenty pounds! But Pepys had fits of extravagance as well as economy. The former however were generally born of patriotism: witness his buying “a coloured silk ferrandin suit, for joy of the good news we have lately had of our victory over the Dutch.”