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.
clap as young as she is, being brought up loosely by her mother.β ββ β¦ In the afternoon away to Whitehall by water, and took a turn or two in the Park, and then back to Whitehall, and there meeting my Lord Arlington, he, by I know not what kindness, offered to carry me along with him to my Lord Treasurerβs, whither, I told him, I was going. I believe he had a mind to discourse of some Navy businesses, but Sir Thomas Clifford coming into the coach to us, we were prevented; which I was sorry for, for I had a mind to begin an acquaintance with him. He speaks well, and hath pretty slight superficial parts, I believe. He, in our going, talked much of the plain habit of the Spaniards; how the King and Lords themselves wear but a cloak of Colchester bayze,3253 and the ladies mantles, in cold weather, of white flannell: and that the endeavours frequently of setting up the manufacture of making these stuffs there have only been prevented by the Inquisition: the English and Dutchmen that have been sent for to work, being taken with a Psalmbook or Testament, and so clapped up, and the house pulled down by the Inquisitors; and the greatest Lord in Spayne dare not say a word against it, if the word Inquisition be but mentioned. At my Lord Treasurerβs βlight and parted with them, they going into Council, and I walked with Captain Cocke, who takes mighty notice of the differences growing in our office between Lord Bruncker and [Sir] W. Batten, and among others also, and I fear it may do us hurt, but I will keep out of them. By and by comes Sir S. Fox, and he and I walked and talked together on many things, but chiefly want of money, and the straits the King brings himself and affairs into for want of it. Captain Cocke did tell me what I must not forget: that the answer of the Dutch, refusing The Hague for a place of treaty, and proposing the Boysse,3254 Bredah, Bergen-op-Zoome, or Mastricht, was seemingly stopped by the Swedeβs Embassador (though he did show it to the King, but the King would take no notice of it, nor does not) from being delivered to the King; and he hath wrote to desire them to consider better of it: so that, though we know their refusal of the place, yet they know not that we know it, nor is the King obliged to show his sense of the affront. That the Dutch are in very great straits, so as to be said to be not able to set out their fleet this year. By and by comes Sir Robert Viner and my Lord Mayor to ask the Kingβs directions about measuring out the streets according to the new Act3255 for building of the City, wherein the King is to be pleased.3256 But he says that the way proposed in Parliament, by Colonel Birch, would have been the best, to have chosen some persons in trust, and sold the whole ground, and let it be sold again by them, with preference to the old owner, which would have certainly caused the City to be built where these Trustees pleased; whereas now, great differences will be, and the streets built by fits, and not entire till all differences be decided. This, as he tells it, I think would have been the best way. I enquired about the Frenchman3257 that was said to fire the City, and was hanged for it, by his own confession, that he was hired for it by a Frenchman of Roane, and that he did with a stick reach in a fireball in at a window of the house: whereas the master of the house, who is the Kingβs baker, and his son, and daughter, do all swear there was no such window, and that the fire did not begin thereabouts. Yet the fellow, who, though a mopish besotted fellow, did not speak like a madman, did swear that he did fire it: and did not this like a madman; for, being tried on purpose, and landed with his keeper at the Tower Wharf, he could carry the keeper to the very house. Asking Sir R. Viner what he thought was the cause of the fire, he tells me, that the baker, son, and his daughter, did all swear again and again, that their oven was drawn by ten oβclock at night; that, having occasion to light a candle about twelve, there was not so much fire in the bakehouse as to light a match for a candle, so that they were fain to go into another place to light it; that about two in the morning they felt themselves almost choked with smoke, and rising, did find the fire coming upstairs; so they rose to save themselves; but that, at that time, the bavins3258 were not on fire in the yard. So that they are, as they swear, in absolute ignorance how this fire should come; which is a strange thing, that so horrid an effect should have so mean and uncertain a beginning. By and by called in to the King and Cabinet, and there had a few insipid words about money for Tangier, but to no purpose. Thence away walked to my boat at Whitehall, and so home and to supper, and then to talk with W. Hewer about business of the differences at present among the people of our office, and so to my journall and to bed. This night going through bridge by water, my waterman told me how the mistress of the Beare tavern, at the bridge-foot, did lately fling herself into the Thames, and drowned herself; which did trouble me the more, when they tell me it was she that did live
Free e-book: Β«The Diary by Samuel Pepys (children's ebooks online TXT) πΒ» - read online now on website american library books (americanlibrarybooks.com)
Comments (0)