All that he was, and shared with Sir Walter another characteristic which Tennyson does not mention. He was, we cannot help suspecting, something of a bore, a little censorious, a little patronising, a little too sure of his own merits, and a little obtuse to those of other people. Or what is the quality, or absence of quality, that checks our sympathies partly, perhaps, it is due to some inconsistency which it would be harsh to call by so strong a name as hypocrisy. Though he deplored the vices of his age he could never keep away from the centre of them. “The luxurious dallying and profaneness” of the Court, the sight of “Mrs. Nelly” looking over her garden wall and holding “very familiar discourse” with King Charles on the green walk below, caused him acute disgust; yet he could never decide to break with the Court and retire to “my poor but quiet villa”, which was of course the apple of his eye and one of the show-places in England. Then, though he loved his daughter Mary, his grief at her death did not prevent him from counting the number of empty coaches drawn by six horses apiece that attended her funeral. His women friends combined virtue with beauty to such an extent that we can hardly credit them with wit into the bargain. Poor Mrs. Godolphin at least, whom he celebrated in a sincere and touching biography, “loved to be at funerals” and chose habitually “the dryest and leanest morsels of meat”, which may be the habits of an angel but do not present her friendship with Evelyn in an alluring light. But it is Pepys who sums up our case against Evelyn; Pepys who said of him after a long morning’s entertainment: “In fine a most excellent person he is and must be allowed a little for a little conceitedness; but he may well be so, being a man so much above others”. The words exactly hit the mark, “A most excellent person he was”; but a little conceited.