The Diary by Samuel Pepys (children's ebooks online TXT) π
Description
Pepysβ Diary is an incredibly frank decade-long snapshot of the life of an up and coming naval administrator in mid-17th century London. In it he describes everything from battles against the Dutch and the intrigues of court, down to the plays he saw, his marital infidelities, and the quality of the meat provided for his supper. His observations have proved invaluable in establishing an accurate record of the daily life of the people of London of that period.
Pepys eventually stopped writing his diary due to progressively worse eyesight, a condition he feared. He did consider employing an amanuensis to transcribe future entries for him, but worried that the content he wanted written would be too personal. Luckily for Pepys, his eyesight difficulties never progressed to blindness and he was able to go on to become both a Member of Parliament and the President of the Royal Society.
After Pepysβ death he left his large library of books and manuscripts first to his nephew, which was then passed on to Magdalene College, Cambridge, where it survives to this day. The diary, originally written in a shorthand, was included in this trove and was eventually deciphered in the early 19th century, and published by Lord Baybrooke in 1825. This early release censored large amounts of the text, and it was only in the 1970s that an uncensored version was published. Presented here is the 1893 edition, which restores the majority of the originally censored content but omits βa few passages which cannot possibly be printed.β The rich collection of endnotes serve to further illustrate the lives of the people Pepys meets and the state of Englandβs internal politics and international relations at the time.
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- Author: Samuel Pepys
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Thomas Edwards married Jane Birch in 1669, and died in 1681. Pepys interested himself to get their son, Samuel Edwards, into the Bluecoat School in 1682. See note 2263. β©
There is a copy of Pepysβs letter to the Commissioners of Accounts in defence of himself in respect to the buying of East India prize goods in 1665, among the Rawlinson MSS. (Bodleian), A. 174 (301). β©
The Lord Chamberlainβs Records contain a copy of a warrant dated July 12th, 1661, βto deliver to Mr. Killegrew thirty yards of velvett, three dozen of fringe, and sixteene yards of Damaske for the year 1661.β The heading of this entry is βLivery for ye jesterβ (Loweβs Betterton, p. 70). β©
George Tompson. See note 3808. β©
βFeb. 1, 1668. Capt. J. Perriman to Sam. Pepys. Mark Croney, who bought the Leister wreck at Blackwall, says that Capt. Dorington, one of the owners, has forbidden his servants to work any more upon her, or to meddle with anything there, although Croney has paid his money for the wreck.β
Calendar of State Papers, 1667β ββ 68, p. 206β©
Secret service money. β©
See 10th and 24th June, 1666. β©
Of which Sir Philip was Governor. The account of the money expended by Sir P. Honiwood on the fortifications at Portsmouth, between August, 1665, and April, 1667, is in the Sloane MS., 873. ββ B. β©
See note 3303. β©
Sir William Coventryβs love of money is said by Sir John Denham to have influenced him in promoting naval officers, who paid him for their commissions.
βThen Painter! draw cerulian Coventry,
Keeper, or rather Chancellor oβ thβ sea;
And more exactly to express his hue,
Use nothing but ultra-marinish blue.
To pay his fees, the silver trumpet spends,
And boatswainβs whistle for his place depends.
Pilots in vain repeat their compass oβer,
Until of him they learn that one point more:
The constant magnet to the pole doth hold,
Steel to the magnet, Coventry to gold.
Muscovy sells us pitch, and hemp, and tar;
Iron and copper, Sweden; Munster, war;
Ashley, prize; Warwick, custom; Cartβret, pay;
But Coventry doth sell the fleet away.β
ββ B. β©
See note 3447. β©
This is a curious reference to the first use of an expression which has not obtained a permanent position in the language. β©
The turquoise. This stone was sometimes referred to simply as the turkey, and Broderip (Zoological Recreations) conjectured that the bird (turkey) took its name from the blue or turquoise colour of the skin about its head. β©
There are many references to Captain De la Roche among the State Papers (see note 3926). β©
βThe Earl of Sandwich was still at Lisbon, expecting in few days the return of the ratification of the Treaty from Madrid.β
The London Gazette, No. 236ββ B. β©
This prologue, βspoken by Mrs. Ellen and Mrs. Nepp,β is prefixed to Sir R. Howardβs Great Favourite, or the Duke of Lerma, 4to., 1668. It is too dull to reprint; and the merit must have consisted more in the manner in which it was delivered, than in the matter, as it came from the pen of the author. ββ B. β©
Apparently Thomas Beckford (see note 868 and note 2690). β©
Of Lowther, in Westmoreland, for which county he was knight of the shire before and at the Restoration. He had been made a baronet of Nova Scotia in 1640. ββ B. β©
Pepys here refers to the extraordinary proceedings which occurred between Charles, Lord Gerard, and Alexander Fitton, of which a narrative was published at the Hague in 1665. Granger was a witness in the cause, and was afterwards said to be conscience-stricken from his perjury. Some notice of this case will be found in Northβs Examen, p. 558; but the copious and interesting note in Ormerodβs History of Cheshire, vol. iii, p. 291, will best satisfy the reader, who will not fail to be struck by the paragraph with which it is closedβ βviz., βIt is not improbable that Alexander Fitton, who, in the first instance, gained rightful possession of Gawsworth under an acknowledged settlement, was driven headlong into unpremeditated guilt by the production of a revocation by will which Lord Gerard had so long concealed. Having lost his own fortune in the prosecution of his claims, he remained in gaol till taken out by James II to be made Chancellor of Ireland (under which character Hume first notices him), was knighted, and subsequently created Lord Gawsworth after the abdication of James, sat in his parliament in Dublin in 1689, and then is supposed to have accompanied his fallen master to France. Whether the conduct of Fitton was met, as he alleges, by similar guilt on the part of Lord Gerard, God only can judge; but his hand fell heavily on the representatives of that noble house. In less than half a century the husbands of its two co-heiresses, James, Duke of Hamilton, and Charles, Lord Mohun, were slain by each otherβs hands in a murderous duel arising out of a dispute relative to the partition of the Fitton estates, and Gawsworth itself passed to an unlineal hand, by a series of alienations complicated beyond example in the annals of this country.β ββ B. β©
See February 9th, ante. β©
Musurgia Universalis, sive ars magna Consoni et Dissoni in X libros digesta, printed at Rome, in 1650, in two volumes, folio. The work of the learned but untrustworthy writer, Athanasius Kircher. β©
Skinner.
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