The diary of Samuel Pepys. Vol. 1, 1660

Walter Isaacson said that Ben Franklin was the Founding Father ‘that winks at us’.

Samuel Pepys was the first historical robust rascal I read that had a wicked, witty sense of humor that shines clear through the centuries, so that I felt he was winking at us too. Separated by a hundred years, these two huge men are joined by a sense of fun, by enjoying and living their significant lives to the very utmost. It shows in their actions as well as their writings – and no one is sure why Samuel wrote his diaries in such great and often unflattering detail, and in a code he designed himself – and in the obvious esteem their peers held these two public servants.

When we lived in London for about seven years my wife and two sons would show more often explore the city, and often took along one of the ‘complete’ diaries with us and revisited – as one still can – many of naughty Samuel’s favorite flirting, drinking and eating spots. As recently as 2009 my family was able to float down the Thames to an Inn that Pepys often visited and were still able to sit at windows on wooden benches and eat “whitebait and brown bread and ale” as he did.

Spanning the several decades of his significant career in the creation of the British Navy, through England’s own revolution and shortly lived Republic and the eventual return of the Monarch that Pepys served so well, the diaries (and there are several volumes) detail his day to day life in great personal detail that draw strong mind pictures of those dramatic times. The reader can “see” him hiding his wheel of Parmesan Cheese by burying it in the Admiralty yard, reporting to the King on the Great Fire of London, surveying and establishing His Majesty’s Dockyards at Chatham and Sheerness.

Pepys offers the reader deep insight to parts of a rich, full life of many contributions and public service, of scandal and intrigue, of plots and flirting - a fascinating history. show less

Read: Nov 2017-Jan 2018
Rating: 4/5 stars

In this first volume of the diary, Samuel Pepys is a married twenty-seven year old man with no children. He goes to work in the office every day, loves his wife, despairs of ever house-breaking the dog she was given for her birthday, oversees some work being done on his house - including getting the kitchen plastered, goes out drinking with his friends at night, and quietly nurses his hangover in the pews at church on a Sunday morning. It all sounds so normal and civilised and that makes statements such as "This afternoon, going through London, and calling at Crowe's the upholster's, in Saint Bartholomew's, I saw the limbs of some of our new traitors set upon Aldersgate, which was a sad sight to show more see; and a bloody week this and the last have been, there being ten hanged, drawn, and quartered." even more shocking.

It is easy to see why Pepys' diary is such an important document. It shows some of the greatest political and social events in our history, from the point of view of a man who is wealthy and important enough to be fairly close to the inner circle at parliament and at court, but who is also still just a normal man getting on with his own life.

The reason this isn't a five star read is due to the kindle version I read, which almost put me off continuing the book. The entire month of January is broken up by notes that have been inserted by the editors to explain who particular people are when Pepys mentions them. These notes went on for pages and was very off-putting but thankfully the notes stopped being so extensive after January 1660. I have only read this first volume, which covers the year 1660, but I am looking forward to reading the complete volumes over the next year or so. show less

I didn't expect so much pleasure in reading this first volume of the Diary. I read a 3-volume condensed version three years ago, & I wonder how I could understand anything in it, because, at that time, I lacked many landmarks. My increased knowledge in the history of the Commonwealth & Restoration, & the very fine footnotes by Latham & Matthews now allow me to appreciate the Diary much better.

The atmosphere of the first volume makes me think that Pepys's life was a kind of Brownian motion throughout London. Reading that he visits sometimes two or three times somebody in town only to find that the person is not home shows that phone calls or emails make things much easier now.

I'm still perplexed by the 'morning draught'. What kind of show more liquid was it exactly? Probably not tea, I guess...

In the following are my best excerpts for this year 1660:

This first excerpt is a puzzle which has apparently never been solved. Some distinguished Pepysians—but not Latham & Matthews who did not comment about it—think that 'skimmer' (which has no actual meaning here) was perhaps misdeciphered for 'sollar' (attic), suggesting that Pepys, instead of going to the house of office, opened another door just over it and failed to shit in an unproper place. Another deciphering of the Diary uses the phrase 'shot at a scholar' which has still less meaning. For a full discussion of this most interesting question, refer to this very good Pepysian site.
20 JANUARY. (...) And from thence, after a great and good dinner of fish, Mr. Fauconbridge would go drink a cup of ale at a place where I had like to have shit in a skimmer that lay over the house of office. (...)

7 FEBRUARY. (...) Boys do now cry "Kiss my Parliament" instead of "Kiss my arse," so great and general a contempt is the Rump come to among all men, good and bad.

18 FEBRUARY. (...) and among other things, the gardiner told a strange passage in good earnest: how formerly Mr. Eglin did in his company put his finger, which being sore had a black case over it, into a woman's belly, he named her Nan (which I guess who it is), and left his case within her; which Mr. Eglin blushed but did not deny it. (...)

Collateral damage
27 MARCH. (...) This morning the wind came about and we fell into the Hope, and in our passing by the Vice=admirall, he and the rest of the frigates with him did give us abundance of guns and we them, so much that the report of them broke all my windows in my Cabbin and broke off the iron bar that was upon it to keep anybody from creeping in at the Scuttle. (...)

22 JUNE. (...) Among other things, she told me for certain how my Lady Middlesex beshit herself the other day in the presence of the King, and people took notice of it. (...)

Pepys is really too greedy
21 SEPTEMBER. (...) I landed at the Old Swan and went to the Hoope taverne and (by a former agreement) sent for Mr. Chaplin, who with Nich Osborne and one Daniel came to us and there we drank off two or three quarts of wine, which was very good (...); and eat above 200 wallnutts. (...)
22 SEPTEMBER. (...) We walked on to Fleetstreete, where at Mr. Standings in Salsbury-court we drank our morning draught and had a pickled herring. (...) To Westminster to my Lord's, and there in the house of office vomited up all my breakfast, my stomach being ill all this day by reason of the last night's debauch. (...)

The following story is often told as characteristic of Pepys's sometimes sharp opinions; but it should be noted that he only reports here what Sandwich said about his father, Sidney Mountagu...
7 OCTOBER. (...) Discoursing concerning what if the Duke should marry her, my Lord told me that among his father's many old sayings that he had writ in a book of his, this is one: that he that doth get a wench with child and marries her afterwards it is as if a man should shit in his hat and then clap it upon his head. (...)

A good surprise
20 OCTOBER. This morning one came to me to advise with me where to make me a window into my cellar in lieu of one that Sir W. Batten had stopped up; and going down in my cellar to look, I put my foot in a great heap of turds, by which I find that Mr. Turners house of office is full and comes into my cellar, which doth trouble me; but I will have it helped. (...)

8 NOVEMBER. (...) and being very much troubled with a sudden loosenesse, I went into a little alehouse at the end of Ratcliffe and did give a groat for a pot of ale and there I did shit. (...) show less

Samuel Pepys began his celebrated diary in 1660, at the age of 26, as a young and ambitious secretary. Due to his support of the king's restoration, he soon found himself in an influential position in the Royal Navy's administration. He was to keep the diary for nearly ten years, until his eye sight failed, and in it he would record many of the great events of the age, such as the outbreak of plague and the Great Fire of London, as well as many smaller, domestic and personal happenings. Although written in shorthand and principally for his own personal remembrance and pleasure, it is clear at times that Pepys had one eye on posterity. It is a large work, conveniently divided into one volume per year; here is the first, based on the show more first complete edition, that of Henry B. Wheatley, originally published in 1893. show less