PepysβDiary 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.
anything she told me, only that of the scallop which she herself told me of.1665 At last we pretty good friends, and my wife begun to speak again of the necessity of her keeping somebody to bear her company; for her familiarity with her other servants is it that spoils them all, and other company she hath none, which is too true, and called for Jane to reach her out of her trunk, giving her the keys to that purpose, a bundle of papers, and pulls out a paper, a copy of what, a pretty while since, she had wrote in a discontent to me, which I would not read, but burnt. She now read it, and it was so piquant, and wrote in English, and most of it true, of the retiredness of her life, and how unpleasant it was; that being wrote in English, and so in danger of being met with and read by others, I was vexed at it, and desired her and then commanded her to tear it. When she desired to be excused it, I forced it from her, and tore it, and withal took her other bundle of papers from her, and leapt out of the bed and in my shirt clapped them into the pocket of my breeches, that she might not get them from me, and having got on my stockings and breeches and gown, I pulled them out one by one and tore them all before her face, though it went against my heart to do it, she crying and desiring me not to do it, but such was my passion and trouble to see the letters of my love to her, and my Will wherein I had given her all I have in the world, when I went to sea with my Lord Sandwich, to be joined with a paper of so much disgrace to me and dishonour, if it should have been found by anybody. Having torn them all, saving a bond of my uncle Robertβs, which she hath long had in her hands, and our marriage license, and the first letter that ever I sent her when I was her servant,1666 I took up the pieces and carried them into my chamber, and there, after many disputes with myself whether I should burn them or no, and having picked up the pieces of the paper she read today, and of my Will which I tore, I burnt all the rest, and so went out to my office troubled in mind. Hither comes Major Tolhurst, one of my old acquaintance in Cromwellβs time, and sometimes of our clubb, to see me, and I could do no less than carry him to the Mitre, and having sent for Mr. Beane, a merchant, a neighbour of mine, we sat and talked, Tolhurst telling me the manner of their collierys in the north. We broke up, and I home to dinner. And to see my folly, as discontented as I am, when my wife came I could not forbear smiling all dinner till she began to speak bad words again, and then I began to be angry again, and so to my office. Mr. Bland came in the evening to me hither, and sat talking to me about many things of merchandise, and I should be very happy in his discourse, durst I confess my ignorance to him, which is not so fit for me to do. There coming a letter to me from Mr. Pierce, the surgeon, by my desire appointing his and Dr. Clerkeβs coming to dine with me next Monday, I went to my wife and agreed upon matters, and at last for my honour am forced to make her presently a new Moyre gown to be seen by Mrs. Clerke, which troubles me to part with so much money, but, however, it sets my wife and I to friends again, though I and she never were so heartily angry in our lives as today almost, and I doubt the heartburning will not [be] soon over, and the truth is I am sorry for the tearing of so many poor loving letters of mine from sea and elsewhere to her. So to my office again, and there the Scrivener brought me the end of the manuscript which I am going to get together of things of the Navy, which pleases me much. So home, and mighty friends with my wife again, and so to bed.
10th. Up and to the office. From thence, before we sat, Sir W. Penn sent for me to his bedside to talk (indeed to reproach me with my not owning to Sir J. Minnes that he had my advice in the blocking up of the garden door the other day, which is now by him out of fear to Sir J. Minnes opened again), to which I answered him so indifferently that I think he and I shall be at a distance, at least to one another, better than ever we did and love one another less, which for my part I think I need not care for. So to the office, and sat till noon, then rose and to dinner, and then to the office again, where Mr. Creed sat with me till late talking very good discourse, as he is full of it, though a cunning knave in his heart, at least not to be too much trusted, till Sir J. Minnes came in, which at last he did, and so beyond my expectation he was willing to sign his accounts, notwithstanding all his objections, which really were very material, and yet how like a doting coxcomb he signs the accounts without the least satisfaction, for which we both sufficiently laughed at him and Sir W. Batten after they had signed them and were gone, and so sat talking together till 11 oβclock at night, and so home and to bed.
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