The Diary by Samuel Pepys (children's ebooks online TXT) 📕

quam quideni (omissis aliis rebus a quibus immortali gloria viges) ideo tantum memoramus, ne sis nescius probè nos scire quanto a Viro benevolentia ista in nos conferatur, quam gratis animis amplectimur ut non plus debeant artes atque scientitæ Wallisio, neque Reges et Britannia tibi, quam ob hoc præclarum munus nos tibi obæratos læti sentimus, atque optamus ut hoc gratitudinis nostræ testimonium observatissimæ in te nostræ mentis viva imago parem cum vestrâ famâ perennitatis circulum describat, atque adeo sit æterna.

“Datum in Domo Convocationis, Vicesimo tertio die Mensis Octobris, Anno Domini millesimo septingesimo secundo.

“Sigillat: in Domo Convocationis, Vicesimo nono ejusdem Mensis Octobris Annoque Domini supradict.”

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Communicated to Lord Braybrooke by the late Mr. William Upcott. It appears, from the Evelyn Papers in the British Museum (bought at Mr. Upcott’s sale), that in September, 1705, Mr. John Jackson made a proposal of marriage to one of Evelyn’s granddaughters, through their common friend, William Hewer. The alliance was declined solely on account of Jackson’s being unable to make an adequate settlement on the young lady; whilst Evelyn (the draught of whose answer is preserved) courteously acknowledged the respect entertained by him for Pepys’s memory, and his sense of his nephew’s extraordinary accomplishments. Mr. Jackson married Anne, daughter of the Rev. John Edgerley, Vicar of Wandsworth, Prebendary of St. Paul’s, and Archdeacon, by Anne, daughter of ⸻ Blackburn, William Hewer’s uncle, often mentioned in the Diary. Mr. Jackson left two sons (at whose death, s. p., the male line became extinct) and five daughters, the youngest of whom married John Cockerell, of Bishop’s Hall, Somerset, and the present representatives are the family of Pepys Cockerell. ↩

From the original in the Bodleian Library:

“London, June 5. Yesterday, in the evening, were performed the obsequies of Samuel Pepys, Esq., in Crutched-Friars’ Church; whither his corpse was brought in a very honourable and solemn manner from Clapham, where he departed this life the 26th day of the last month.”

—⁠Post Boy, No. 1257, June 5, 1703

“June 4th, 1703.⁠—Samuel Peyps, Esqre, buried in a vault by ye Com̃union Table.”

—⁠Register of St. Olave’s, Hart Street

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See Ellis’s Early English Pronunciation, part iv, pp. 1230⁠–⁠1243. ↩

The year did not legally begin in England before the 25th March until the act for altering the style fixed the 1st of January as the first day of the year, and previous to 1752 the year extended from March 25th to the following March 24th. Thus since 1752 we have been in the habit of putting the two dates for the months of January and February and March 1 to 24⁠—in all years previous to 1752. Practically, however, many persons considered the year to commence with January 1st, as it will be seen Pepys did. The 1st of January was considered as New Year’s day long before Pepys’s time. The fiscal year has not been altered; and the national accounts are still reckoned from old Lady Day, which falls on the 6th of April. ↩

Pepys was successfully cut for the stone on March 26th, 1658. See March 26th below. Although not suffering from this cause again until the end of his life, there are frequent references in the Diary to pain whenever he caught cold. In a letter from Pepys to his nephew Jackson, April 8th, 1700, there is a reference to the breaking out three years before his death of the wound caused by the cutting for the stone: “It has been my calamity for much the greatest part of this time to have been kept bedrid, under an evil so rarely known as to have had it matter of universal surprise and with little less general opinion of its dangerousness; namely, that the cicatrice of a wound occasioned upon my cutting for the stone, without hearing anything of it in all this time, should after more than 40 years’ perfect cure, break out again.” At the postmortem examination a nest of seven stones, weighing four and a half ounces, was found in the left kidney, which was entirely ulcerated. ↩

Pepys’s house was on the south side of King Street, Westminster; it is singular that when he removed to a residence in the city, he should have settled close to another Axe Yard. Fludyer Street stands on the site of Axe Yard, which derived its name from a great messuage or brewhouse on the west side of King Street, called “The Axe,” and referred to in a document of the 23rd of Henry VIII —⁠B. ↩

Ed. note:⁠ ⁠… are used to denote censored passages ↩

John Lambert, major-general in the Parliamentary army. The title Lord was not his by right, but it was frequently given to the republican officers. He was born in 1619, at Calton Hall, in the parish of Kirkby-in-Malham-Dale, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. In 1642 he was appointed captain of horse under Fairfax, and acted as major-general to Cromwell in 1650 during the war in Scotland. After this Parliament conferred on him a grant of lands in Scotland worth £1,000 per annum. He refused to take the oath of allegiance to Cromwell, for which the Protector deprived him of his commission. After Cromwell’s death he tried to set up a military government. The Commons cashiered Lambert, Desborough, and other officers, October 12th, 1659, but Lambert retaliated by thrusting out the Commons, and set out to meet Monk. His men fell away from him, and he was sent to the Tower, March 3rd, 1660, but escaped. In 1662 he was tried on a charge of high treason and condemned, but his life was spared. It is generally stated that he passed the remainder of his life in the island of Guernsey, but this is proved to be incorrect by a MS. in the Plymouth Athenaeum, entitled “Plimmouth Memoirs collected by James Yonge, 1684” This will be seen from the following extracts quoted by Mr. R.