_Samuel Pepys's Grammar._--I have lately been looking over the _Diary_ of
this very clever person, and I confess it has surprised me to find him, a
graduate of Cambridge, and, in fact, I may say a man of letters, constantly
employing such vulgar bad grammar as "he _do_ say," and such like. I am the
more surprised when, on looking at his letters, even the familiar ones to
his cousin Roger and to W. Hewer, I can find nothing of the kind, they
being as grammatical and as well written as any of the time.
My hypothesis is--LORD BRAYBROOKE can correct me if I am wrong--that Pepys,
writing his _Diary_ in short-hand, used one and the same character for all
the persons of the present tense of _do_, and that the decypherer did not
attend to this circumstance. In his letter to Col. Legge (vol. v. p. 296.),
Pepys writes "His R. H. _does_ think," &c., which in the _Diary_ would
surely be "His R. H. _do_ think," &c. In a similar way I would account for
the use of _come_ instead of _came_ in the _Diary_, as there is nothing of
the kind in the Letters. Should I be right, I may have rendered a slight
service to the memory of an able and worthy man.