a certain length of time, but Pepys's pages are always fresh, and most
readers wish for more. For himself the editor can say that each time he
has read over the various proofs he has read with renewed interest, so
that it is with no ordinary feelings of regret that he comes to the end
of his task, and he believes that every reader will feel the same regret
that he has no more to read.
In reviewing the Diary it is impossible not to notice the growth of
historical interest as it proceeds. In the earlier period we find Pepys
surrounded by men not otherwise known, but as the years pass, and his
position becomes more assured, we find him in daily communication with
the chief men of his day, and evidently every one who came in contact
with him appreciated his remarkable ability. The survival of the Diary
must ever remain a marvel. It could never have been intended for the
reading of others, but doubtless the more elaborate portraits of persons
in the later pages were intended for use when Pepys came to write his
projected history of the Navy.
The only man who is uniformly spoken well of in the Diary is Sir William
Coventry, and many of the characters introduced come in for severe
castigation. It is therefore the more necessary to remember that many of
the judgments on men were set down hastily, and would probably have been
modified had occasion offered. At all events, we know that, however
much he may have censured them, Pepys always helped on those who were
dependent upon him.
H. R. W.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS, DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS, 1969 N.S.
Broken sort of people, that have not much to lose
But so fearful I am of discontenting my wife
By her wedding-ring, I suppose he hath married her at last
Dine with them, at my cozen Roger's mistress's
Drawing up a foul draught of my petition to the Duke of York
Dutchmen come out of the mouth and tail of a Hamburgh sow
Fain to keep a woman on purpose at 20s. a week
Find it a base copy of a good originall, that vexed me
Found in my head and body about twenty lice, little and great
Have not much to lose, and therefore will venture all
His satisfaction is nothing worth, it being easily got
I have itched mightily these 6 or 7 days
I know I have made myself an immortal enemy by it
Lady Castlemayne is now in a higher command over the King
Last day of their doubtfulness touching her being with child
Mighty fond in the stories she tells of her son Will
Nor was there any pretty woman that I did see, but my wife
Observing my eyes to be mightily employed in the playhouse
Proud, carping, insolent, and ironically-prophane stile
Quite according to the fashion--nothing to drink or eat
She finds that I am lousy
Unquiet which her ripping up of old faults will give me
Up, and with W. Hewer, my guard, to White Hall
Weeping to myself for grief, which she discerning, come to bed
With egg to keep off the glaring of the light
End of Project Gutenberg's Diary of Samuel Pepys, 1669, by Samuel Pepys