Bunyan, in the second part of the _Pilgrim's Progress_,
introduces a shepherd boy who sings very sweetly upon the Delectable
Mountains. It is the most beautiful and idyllic passage in the whole
allegory, and has become classical in English literature. Yet Pepys'
passage will match it for simple beauty. He rises with his wife a little
before four in the morning to make ready for a journey into the country
in the neighbourhood of Epsom. There, as they walk upon the Downs, they
come "where a flock of sheep was; and the most pleasant and innocent
sight that ever I saw in my life. We found a shepherd and his little boy
reading, far from any houses or sight of people, the Bible to him; so I
made the boy read to me, which he did.... He did content himself
mightily in my liking his boy's reading, and did bless God for him, the
most like one of the old patriarchs that ever I saw in my life, and it
brought those thoughts of the old age of the world in my mind for two or
three days after."
Such is some slight conception, gathered from a few of many thousands of
quaint and sparkling revelations of this strange character.
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