All reviews copyright 1984-2017 Evelyn C. Leeper.
THE DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS by Samuel Pepys:
[From the MT VOID, 06/03/2016 - 07/15/2016]
I had three trade paperback volumes of this nine-volume work of The Diary of Samuel Pepys, but I read this primarily from the Project Gutenberg site. Alas, I discovered that the editor of the public domain source that Project Gutenberg used had bowdlerized it in a couple of ways. First, he replaced isolated "naughty" words with (bracketed) replacements. For example, where Pepys had actually written, "So to bed, where my wife and I had some high words upon my telling her that I would fling the dog which her brother gave her out of window if he pissed the house any more," Project Gutenberg has, "So to bed, where my wife and I had some high words upon my telling her that I would fling the dog which her brother gave her out of window if he [dirtied] the house any more," [February 12, 1660]
[By the way, Pepys wrote this as "February 12, 1659" since the calendar at the time considered March 1 as the start of the new year. Also, he always refers to his wife as "my wife"; her name is Elisabeth, but he never uses it.]
And second, the editor of the public domain source also deleted all the most salacious bits, replacing them with ellipses. These excised portions were written in "code" (basically a combination of French, Spanish, and Latin, with what he appears to have thought were oblique references to his "thing" and other fairly obvious meanings); some can be found at http://www.pepys.info/bits2.html. From the text of these passages it is clear that Pepys thought the code/shorthand in which he wrote his diary was secure. It wasn't, though I suspect he was more concerned that his wife not be able to read it than that scholars hundreds of years later not be able to figure it out.
The hard copy edition (from Harper Collins) includes all these passages, but neither translates nor footnotes them, so you can read, "After dinner I found occasion of sending him abroad; and then alone avec elle je tentoy a faire ce que je voudrais, et contre sa force je la faisoy, bien que pas a mon contentment." (It is like reading the Dover editions of Sir Richard Francis Burton, where the salacious bits are in Latin, and Dover provides no translations or footnotes either. Of course with Google translate, this is not as much of a problem as it used to be.)
I suppose I should digress a bit here about the various editions of Pepys's diary. One interesting piece of information I got from A. Edward Newton's A Magnificent Farce was that "in the first edition, only about half of the [Pepys's] Diary was published, and this was edited and expurgated by Lord Braybrooke to an extent which became apparent by degrees. ... Finally, and not until 1893, there appeared an edition, edited by H. B. Wheatley, which gave the Diary complete, with the exception of a few passages, amounting in all to about one page of text, which, he says, cannot possibly be printed." Wheatley's edition is what is found in Project Gutenberg.
Why is this particularly interesting to me? Well, because in 84 Charing Cross Road, Hanff writes (on October 15, 1951), "WHAT KIND OF A PEPYS'S DIARY DO YOU CALL THIS? this is not a pepys' diary, this is some busybody editor's miserable collection of EXCERPTS from pepys' diary may he rot. I could just spit. where is jan 12, 1668, where his wife chased him out of bed and round the bedroom with a red-hot poker?" [all sic] And Doel replies, "First of all, let me apologize for the Pepys. I was honestly under the impression what it was the complete Braybrooke edition...." Well, Doel was almost definitely right in this, because this episode with the poker is not in the (much abridged) Braybrooke edition, at least according to the version I have found on line (archived independently in two different places, so there is a bit of validation there). It is in the Wheatley edition.
Anyway, enough about editions--next week I'll actually start talking about the diary itself. I have split this into sections by topic, rather than strictly chronological. I have also not tagged every misspelling, grammar mistake, and what-not with "[sic]"; just assume all quotes are Pepys's own spelling, capitalization, and so on.
It is clear that government appointments at the time had little to do with qualifications, as Pepys writes, "[We] were sworn justices of the peace for Middlesex, Essex, Kent, and Southampton; with which honour I did find myself mightily pleased, though I am wholly ignorant in the duty of a justice of the peace." [September 24, 1660]
Some things never change, like the people's feeling about government waste: "But I do not see much thorough joy [at the queen's arrival], but only an indifferent one, in the hearts of people, who are much discontented at the pride and luxury of the Court, and running in debt." [April 15, 1662]
Bribery and graft were so common that the editor notes, "[In earlier days Pepys noted for us each few pounds or shillings of graft which he annexed at each transaction in his office.}" [January 24, 1663] And indeed we see entries such as, "This morning Mr. Cole, our timber merchant, sent me five couple of ducks." [February 13, 1663]
And eventually he has gotten ridiculously adept at this: "I met Captain Grove, who did give me a letter directed to myself from himself. I discerned money to be in it, and took it, knowing, as I found it to be, the proceed of the place I have got him to be, the taking up of vessels for Tangier. But I did not open it till I came home to my office, and there I broke it open, not looking into it till all the money was out, that I might say I saw no money in the paper, if ever I should be questioned about it." [April 3, 1663]
"This day Captain Grove sent me a side of pork, which was the oddest present, sure, that was ever made any man; and the next, I remember I told my wife, I believe would be a pound of candles, or a shoulder of mutton; but the fellow do it in kindness, and is one I am beholden to." [May 1, 1663] This reminded me of the character in the film My Favorite Year who is always sending weird presents, such as a set of tires, or a dozen steaks. (These days steaks are not that odd to send, but in the 1950s of the movie they were.)
Pepys explains that there was "one that got a way of coyning money as good and passable and large as the true money is, and yet saved fifty per cent. to himself, which was by getting moulds made to stamp groats like old groats," but frankly his explanation made no sense to me. [May 19, 1663]
Given the rather severe penalties for theft, I was surprised to read, "This evening the girle that was brought to me to-day for so good a one, being cleansed of lice this day by my wife, and good, new clothes put on her back, she run away from Goody Taylour that was shewing her the way to the bakehouse, and we heard no more of her." [August 20, 1663] However, being in a position where your employer can beat and abuse you may make you more fatalistic about the possible consequences of trying to escape that sort of life.
Pepys describes a public execution: "And there I got for a shilling to stand upon the wheel of a cart, in great pain, above an houre before the execution was done; he delaying the time by long discourses and prayers one after another, in hopes of a reprieve, but none came, and at last was flung off the ladder in his cloake." [January 21, 1664]
Pepys seems to have been appointed to a position requiring more education (or training) than he had, but one can sympathize with him when he writes, "He showed a very excellent argument to prove, that our importing lesse than we export, do not impoverish the kingdom, according to the received opinion, which, though it be a paradox, and that I do not remember the argument..." [February 29, 1664] I find that there are many explanations in economics that make perfect sense while I am listening to them, but a few hours later I would have difficulty explaining them. Later some one explains to Pepys how "the old law of prohibiting bullion to be exported, is, and ever was a folly and an injury, rather than good." [January 27, 1665]
While we have seen that we cannot entirely trust Pepys's descriptions of things he has only learned secondhand (or thirdhand), it is still instructive to read this description of Moscow before Peter the Great embarks on his modernization/ Westernization program: "... Though Moscow is a very great city, yet it is from the distance between house and house, and few people compared with this, and poor, sorry houses, the Emperor himself living in a wooden house, his exercise only flying a hawk at pigeons and carrying pigeons ten or twelve miles off and then laying wagers which pigeon shall come soonest to her house. All the winter within doors, some few playing at chesse, but most drinking their time away. Women live very slavishly there, and it seems in the Emperor's court no room hath above two or three windows, and those the greatest not a yard wide or high, for warmth in winter time; and that the general cure for all diseases there is their sweating houses, or people that are poor they get into their ovens, being heated; and there, lie. Little learning among things of any sort. Not a man that speaks Latin unless the Secretary of State by chance." [September 16, 1664]
Pepys is still engaging in financial shenanigans that seemed to have been standard then, and possibly even legal: "In one business of deales on £520, I offer to save £172, and yet purpose getting money, to myself by it." [September 24, 1664]
A note describes the system of "tallies", or notched pieces of wood, which seemed to be a combination of I.O.U. and money substitute. They were discontinued in 1824, and "the destruction of the old Houses of Parliament, in the night of October 16th, 1834, is thought to have been occasioned by the overheating of the flues, when the furnaces were employed to consume the tallies rendered useless by the alteration in the mode of keeping the Exchequer accounts."
We learn something about the taxation of the period when Pepys writes, "This morning come to me the Collectors for my Pollmoney; for which I paid for my title as Esquire and place of Clerk of Acts, and my head and wife's, and servants' and their wages, £40 17s; and though this be a great deal, yet it is a shame I should pay no more..." [April 5, 1667]
Pepys also shows us that attempts to weasel out of taxes by trying to twist the law when he reports that someone "here lies in a messenger's hands, for saying that a man and his wife are but one person, and so ought to pay by 12d. for both to the Poll Bill; by which others were led to do the like; and so here he lies prisoner." [June 5, 1667]
After the Raid on the Medway in the Second Anglo-Dutch War, Pepys observed that "our own soldiers are far more terrible to those people of the country-towns than the Dutch themselves." [June 30, 1667] Of course, the Dutch were fighting mostly on the water, while the soldiers were land-based.
Even if one cannot follow everyone and everything Pepys writes about, one gets a definite feel for some the differences between then and now. Death was clearly more frequent, if Pepys can write, "[It] is observable that within this month my Aunt Wight was brought to bed of two girls, my cozen Stradwick of a girl and a boy, and my cozen Scott of a boy, and all died." [In context, I think "all" here applies only to the infants and not to all the mothers as well.) [September 13, 1660]
And there were no building codes: "[Going] down into my cellar to look I stepped into a great heap of s**t by which I found that Mr. Turner's house of office is full and comes into my cellar." [October 20, 1660]
Manners were different: ""I went to [the theatre] and here I sitting in a dark place, a lady spit backward upon me by mistake, but after seeing her to be a very pretty lady, I was not troubled at it at all." [January 28, 1661]
As for law and order: "[I] in Cheapside hear that the Spanish hath got the best of it, and killed three of the French coach-horses and several men, and is gone through the City next to our King's coach; at which it is strange to see how all the City did rejoice. And indeed we do naturally all love the Spanish, and hate the French." [September 30, 1661]
Evidently physical abuse of servants was acceptable: "This morning, observing some things to be laid up not as they should be by the girl, I took a broom and basted her till she cried extremely, which made me vexed, but before I went out I left her appeased." (One wonders how?!) [December 1, 1660]
"I reckoned all his faults, and whipped him soundly, but the rods were so small that I fear they did not much hurt to him, but only to my arm, which I am already, within a quarter of an hour, not able to stir almost." [February 28, 1662] Well, he's mot getting much sympathy from me. Later he writes, "I called him up, and with my whip did whip him till I was able to stir, and yet I could not make him confess any of the lies they tax him with." [June 21, 1662] Coincidentally, I am listening to a Teaching Company course about Abraham Lincoln and the professor talks about how it was difficult for the Lincolns to keep servants in their Springfield house because Mary Todd Lincoln was very imperious and persisted in treating them as she had the slaves in her father's house. Obviously servants achieved some improvement between 1662 and the 1850s (unless it was a localized phenomenon).
And his attitude toward the female servants is also outrageous: "... I was sorry to hear that Sir W. Pen's maid Betty was gone away yesterday, for I was in hopes to have a bout with her before she had hone, she being very pretty. I also had a mind to my own wench, but I dare not for fear she should prove honest and refuse and then tell my wife." [August 1, 1662] I know he was writing in shorthand, but it was not in code, so this was obviously not something he was overly concerned people would find out about (unlike the coded passages). On the other hand, maybe it just means he had no idea how easy it would be for people to read it. In any case, there will be much more of this sort of thing, which I will discuss in a separate section.
One wonders if Presbyterians are still as long-winded: "We got places and staid [sic] to hear a sermon; but, it being a Presbyterian one, it was so long, that after above an hour of it we went away..." [April 2, 1662]
As proof that we live in a different world, compare our cities with this: "I was much troubled to-date to see a dead man lie floating upon the waters, and had done (they say) these four days, and nobody takes him up to bury him, which is very barbarous." [April 4, 1662] And Pepys's concern seems entirely regarding the decent burial of the corpse, with no mention (or even notion) that having a dead body floating in the river is unsanitary or likely to spread disease.
At times, he hits the nail on the head: "... though I am much against too much spending, yet I do think it best to enjoy some degree of pleasure now that we have health, money, and opportunity, rather than to leave pleasures to old age or poverty, when we cannot have them so properly." [May 20, 1662]
One learns (or deduces/guesses) all sorts of things from diaries. For example, Pepys writes of an auction, "where pleasant to see how backward men are at first to bid; and yet when the candle is going out, how they bawl and dispute afterwards who bid the most first." [September 3, 1662] It sounds as though auctions did not have an auctioneer as we know one, but rather bidding started when a candle was lit and ended when it went out and whoever bid the most won. One pictures it as fairly chaotic, with multiple people calling out bids simultaneously near the end and then arguing about who called out the high amount first, with only the other bidders to serve as arbitrators.
Apparently some pickpocket tricks have been around for a long time--this one is still being used: "... a man asked her whether that was the way to the Tower; and while she was answering him, another, on the other side, snatched away her bundle out of her lap, and could not be recovered, but ran away with it..." [January 28, 1663]
"[One] did wish that, among many bad, we could learn two good things of France, which were that we would not think it below the gentleman, or person of honour at a tavern, to bargain for his meat before he eats it; and next, to take no servant without certificate from some friend or gentleman of his good behaviour and abilities." [May 10, 1663] So even then there was a problem of restaurants not telling you the cost of your meal. Nowadays this seems limited to the specials at fancy restaurants, and drinks of all sorts (which rarely have prices shown).
People seemed to eat more then; this was a meal for ten people: "We had a fricasee of rabbits and chickens, a leg of mutton boiled, three carps in a dish, a great dish of a side of lamb, a dish of roasted pigeons, a dish of four lobsters, three tarts, a lamprey pie (a most rare pie), a dish of anchovies, good wine of several sorts, and all things mighty noble and to my great content." [April 4, 1663]
And speaking of food and entertaining, you know how when you are entertaining you sometimes buy prepared food and try to pass it off as your own? Well, Pepys writes, "[It] being washing-day, we had no meat dressed, but sent to the Cook's, and my people had so little witt to send in our meat in that Cook's dishes, which were marked with the name of the Cook upon them, by which, if they observed anything, they might know it was not my own dinner." [October 6, 1663]
At one point, he sees that his father (who seems to be a bit of a spendthrift) will be getting £50 a year, but tells him he will only be getting £30, but that he [Samuel] will be making up the difference. Apparently this is in the hope that his father will feel guilty and spend less. [May 1, 1663]
"Being weary last night, I slept till almost seven o'clock, a thing I have not done many a day." [May 2, 1663] Generally Pepys seems to have gotten up about 5AM, and in the days before electric lights (or even gas lighting), people measured their days more by the sun than by a clock. (It is not clear to me why we tend to sleep later than sunrise most days.)
People seemed to keep different schedules in many ways back then. Pepys writes, "Waked about one o'clock in the morning... My wife being waked rung her bell, and the mayds rose and went to washing, we to sleep till 7 o'clock..." [October 26, 1663] I know that washing was a full-day job back then, but starting at 1AM? Really? I can only hope that the maids got some time to nap later.
Sometimes Pepys makes an observation that really resonates with feelings we have all had, as when he writes, "I took him to walk up and down behind my cozen Pepys's house that was, which I find comes little short of what I took it to be when I was a little boy, as things use commonly to appear greater than when one comes to be a man and knows more." [July 25, 1663]
[I know things were larger when I was younger: I remember five-pound bags of sugar, eight-ounce containers of yogurt, one-pound cans of coffee, and half-gallon containers of ice cream. But I digress.]
At one point Pepys went to a Jewish synagogue, but his reaction was not exactly favorable: "But Lord! to see the disorder, laughing, sporting, and no attention, but confusion in all their service, more like brutes than people knowing the true God, would make a man forswear ever seeing them more and indeed I never did see so much, or could have imagined there had been any religion in the whole world so absurdly performed as this. [October 14, 1663] The only consolation is thinking about what his reaction would be to a Pentecostal Service.
I don't know if Pepys was just gullible or what, but he reports, "Among other things, he and the other Captains that were with us tell me that negros drowned look white and lose their blackness, which I never heard before." [April 11, 1662] And later he writes, "[In] time of thunder, so many barrels of beer as have a piece of iron laid upon them will not be soured, and the others will." [November 6, 1663]
Pepys goes to the workhouse in New Bridewell and says, "I did with great pleasure see the many pretty works, and the little children employed, every one to do something, which was a very fine sight, and worthy encouragement." [October 5, 1664] Clearly societal attitudes towards child labor have changed a lot in the last 350 years.
We worry about our infrastructure, but 1664 London had the same problem: "...so I faire to go through the darke and dirt over the bridge, and my leg fell in a hole broke on the bridge, but, the constable standing there to keep people from it, I was catched up, otherwise I had broke my leg." [October 26, 1664] Now, of course, we might have a warning sign, but no one standing there to catch us.
Someone tells Pepys of "a monster born of a hostler's wife at Salisbury, two women children, perfectly joyned at the lower part of their bellies, and every part perfect as two bodies, and only one payre of legs from the middle where they were joined. It was alive 24 hours, and cried and did as all hopefull children do; but being showed too much to people, was killed." [November 11, 1664] (One presumes Pepys means that the constant exhibition of the pair was what killed them, not that they were actively killed. One also presumes that this exhibition was not gratis.)
And bribery (or at any rate, "tipping") was not unknown even outside the government: "then [I] took coach to Hackney Church, where very full, and found much difficulty to get pews, I offering the sexton money, and he could not help me." [April 21, 1667]
On May 27, 1667, Pepys went to what we would think of as a fencing match between a butcher and a waterman. It rapidly degenerated: "But, Lord! to see how in a minute the whole stage was full of watermen to revenge the foul play, and the butchers to defend their fellow, though most blamed him; and there they all fell to it to knocking down and cutting many on each side. It was pleasant to see, but that I stood in the pit, and feared that in the tumult I might get some hurt." This sounds not unlike some sports event today.
Religious fanatics are nothing new to our time; on July 29, 1667, he writes, "[This] day a man, a Quaker, came named through the Hall, only very civilly toed about the privities to avoid scandal, and with a chafing-dish of fire and brimstone burning upon his head, did pass through the Hall, crying, "Repent! repent!"
Things we only know of from history books come a bit more alive when we read them in the Diary, as: "So to White Hall, and saw the King and Queen at dinner; and observed (which I never did before), the formality, but it is but a formality, of putting a bit of bread wiped upon each dish into the mouth of every man that brings a dish; but it should be in the sauce." [September 8, 1667] I love his insistence that it is but a formality; one wonders if that was true.
While it was not called origami, the art apparently was already known in England in Pepys's time: "... and there find one laying of my napkins against tomorrow in figures of all sorts, which is mighty pretty; and, it seems, it is his trade, and he gets much money by it." [March 13, 1668] Pepys is so impressed that he apparently hires him again, and finally (on January 22, 1669) writes of "the fellow that come to lay the cloth, and fold the napkins, which I like so well, as that I am resolved to give him 40s. to teach my wife to do it.
Lest you think that place-holders for lines and/or seats are a new phenomenon, on April 2, 1668, Pepys writes that he got to "the Duke of York's playhouse, at a little past twelve, to get a good place in the pit, against the new play, and there setting a poor man to keep my place, I out, and spent an hour at Martin's, my bookseller's, and so back again, where I find the house quite full. But I had my place, ..."
Pepys had a serious jealousy problem. He got it into his head that his wife was having an affair with her dancing instructor and so he writes, "I am ashamed to think what a course I did take by lying to see whether my wife did wear drawers to-day as she used to do." [May 15, 1663]
Then he feels sorry: "Up with my mind disturbed and with my last night's doubts upon me, for which I deserve to be beaten if not really served as I am fearful of being, especially since God knows that I do not find honesty enough in my own mind but that upon a small temptation I could be false to her, and therefore ought not to expect more justice from her, but God pardon both my sin and my folly herein." [May 16, 1663]
He even goes to the extent of swearing to levy fines against himself for future infractions: "... I having high words about her dancing to that degree that I did enter and make a vow to myself not to oppose her or say anything to dispraise or correct her therein as long as her month [of lessons] lasts, in pain of 2s. 6d. for every time," [May 20, 1663]
[This levying of fines against himself extended to other "vices" or "sins" as well; see the next section for comments.]
But all this does no good; soon enough he writes that of "how my jealousy wrought so far that I went softly up to see whether any of the beds were out of order or no," [May 26, 1663] And later, "I did watch to see my wife put on drawers," [June 4, 1663]
And later: "[My wife] answering me some way that I did not like I pulled her by the nose, indeed to offend her" [April 5, 1664] Okay, now we can add wife abuse to Pepys's list of sins. And later he writes, "Lay pretty while with some discontent abed, even to the having bad words with my wife, and blows too, about the ill-serving up of our victuals yesterday..." [October 7, 1664] And again: "I was very angry and begun to find fault with my wife for not commanding her servants as she ought. Thereupon she giving me some cross answer I did strike her over her left eye such a blow as the poor wretch did cry out and was in great pain, but yet her spirit was such as to endeavour to bite and scratch me." [December 19, 1664]
For all his jealousy about his wife, Pepys seems to think himself not bound by the same rules. There are so many examples, I could not include them all, but a few samples will suffice.
For example, he writes that he went "through the Fleete Ally to see a couple of pretty [strumpets] that stood off the doors there, and God forgive me I could scarce stay myself from going into their houses with them, so apt is my nature to evil after once, as I have these two days, set upon pleasure again." [May 29, 1663]
And later in an uncoded passage he writes that he "fell to talk with Mrs. Lane, and after great talk that she never went abroad with any man as she used heretofore to do, I with one word got her to go with me at the furthest Rhenish wine-house, where I did give her a Lobster and do so touse [tousle, rumple] her and feel her all over," [June 29, 1663]
He even describes his fantasies: "and to bed, before I sleep fancying myself to sport with Mrs. Stewart with great pleasure" [July 13, 1663] and "to bed, sporting in my fancy with the Queen." [July 15, 1663] It really is unbelievable how frank Pepys is in his diary!
But he also apparently loves his wife, writing that he is "sad for want of my wife, whom I love with all my heart, though of late she has given me some troubled thoughts." [June 15, 1663]
Pepys hits his low when he relates, "This night late coming in my coach, coming up Ludgate Hill, I saw two gallants and their footmen taking a pretty wench. ... They seek to drag he by some force, but the wench went, and I believe had her turn served, but God forgive me! what thoughts and wishes I had of being in their place." [February 4, 1664] I am sure that such attitudes persist to this day, but I doubt most would commit these thoughts to paper.
However, even if he had attempted to help the victim above, it might have had only a temporary result, since it appears that then, as now, the well-connected seem to get off from crimes that the poor and politically weak pay heavily for: "The rape upon a woman at Turnstile the other day, her husband being bound in his shirt, they both being in be together, it being night, by two Frenchmen, who did not only lye with her but abused her with a linke, is hushed up for £300, being the Queen Mother's servants." [February 22, 1664]
By May 28, 1667, he has mellowed at least to the point that he first describes "two pretty woman alone" being pursued by "some idle gentlemen [who] would needs take them up." The women would run away and join up with some other people, and the men would fall back, and eventually the women managed to get away from them by taking a boat. Pepys then writes, "I was so troubled to see them abused so; and could have found in my heart, as little desire of fighting as I have, to have protected the ladies." Of course, he didn't actually do anything to help them, but at least he is not fantasizing about joining the men.
And others are equally reprehensible. Pepys writes, "My uncle Wight came to me to my office this afternoon to speak with me about Mr. Maes's business again, and from me went to my house to see my wife, and strange to think that my wife should by and by send for me after he was gone to tell me that he should begin discourse of her want of children and he also, and how he thought it would be best for him and her to have one between them, and he would give her £500 either in money or jewells beforehand, and make the child his heir. He commended his body, and discoursed that for all he knew the thing was lawful." [May 11, 1664] Pepys's reaction is surprisingly mild considering how jealous he normally is. The whole thing sounds very strange--given the promised bequest and inheritance, it would seem as though he did not intend it to be kept a secret from Pepys, yet it is hard to believe he intended the thing openly.
(As an aside, it has always been treated as piling Pelion on Ossa for Henry VIII's ministers to accuse Anne Boleyn of adultery with her own brother, when the other "co-respondents" were so much more likely. But WOLF HALL makes clear that this accusation was not as far-fetched as it seems. Having had a daughter, Anne was still under pressure to produce a son and heir to the throne. If she was not conceiving with Henry, she may have decided to get some assistance. But she could not produce an heir that looked like her music teacher or Lord Thus-and-So. Her only option might have seemed her own brother, since producing a son who looked like a Boleyn would seem perfectly normal.)
Pepys does see to occasionally have a bout of conscience (though not very often), as when he writes, "From thence walked toward Westminster, and being in an idle and wanton humour, walked through Fleet Alley, and there stood a most pretty wench at one of the doors, so I took a turn or two, but by what sense of honour and conscience I would not go in..." [July 23, 1664]
One is reminded of Captain Renault in Casablanca when one reads, "I had my pleasure here of her, and she, like an impudent jade, depends upon my kindness to her husband, but I will have no more to do with her, let her brew as she has baked, ..." [August 15, 1664] At least Captain Renault would keep his word to assist the women who agreed to sleep with him (or so Rick said, and he would have no reason to lie).
Pepys's womanizing did occasionally prove an embarrassment to him. On October 1, 1666, he writes, "But pretty! how I took another woman for [Betty Mitchell], taking her a clap on the breech, thinking verily it had been her."
It is interesting, given the frankness in his diary, that Pepys should write that he spent most of a day "looking over and tearing and burning all the unnecessary letters, which I have had upon my file for four or five years backward, which I intend to do quite through all my papers, that I may have nothing but what is worth keeping and fit to be seen, if I should miscarry." [December 9,1666]
Every once in a while, Pepys does something to remind us what a scumbag he is. On December 21, 1666, a woman comes to him and he writes, "I took her to my chamber, and there it was to help her husband to the command of a little new pleasure boat building, which I promised to assist in. And here I had opportunity para baiser elle, and toucher ses mamailles' [to kiss her and to touch her breasts]..."
In July 1667 Pepys gets a bit of a scare, wherein his long-time mistress Mrs. Martin tells him that she is pregnant with his child. The panic lasts for only a couple of days.
But one wonders if that had any cautionary effect on Pepys. One is reminded of his past and his attitudes when not a paragraph later he writes about a woman who comes in complaining that she was "pulled into a stable [by a Dutch captain who] did tumble her and toss her ... when she knows that [she] hath suffered [Pepys] to do any thing with her a hundred times." The idea that she might actually have a preference in whom she lies with apparently does not occur to him.
By August 18, 1667, though, we definitely discover that Pepys has not turned over a new leaf regarding women: "[I] turned into St. Dunstan's Church, where I heard an able sermon of the minister of the place; and stood by a pretty, modest maid, whom I did labour to take by the hand and the body; but she would not, but got further and further, from me; and, at last, I could perceive her to take pins out of her pocket to prick me if I should touch her again-- which seeing I did forbear, and was glad I did spy her design." Good for her, and I just wish he had not noticed it ahead of time!
Finally, on October 25, 1668, it all comes to a head, when he writes, "... my wife, coming up suddenly, did find me embracing [Deb.] CON my hand SUB SU coats; and endeed, I was with my MAIN [hand] in her c*nny." [The final phrase is omitted even from Project Gutenberg's supposedly complete edition.] On November 9, 1668, he manages to get Deb. a note telling her to deny he had kissed her. His justification for this is pretty astonishing: "The truth is that I did adventure upon God's pardoning me this lie, knowing how heavy a thing it would be for me to the ruin of the poor girle, and next knowing that if my wife should know all it were impossible ever for her to be at peace with me again, and so our whole lives would be uncomfortable." How noble of him!
[I am also astonished that found as he was, whether or not he actually kissed Deb. would matter that much, but apparently it did--unless that is code for something else.]
And his concern for Deb. and for his wife might be more convincing if on November 13, 1668, he had not written, "... the truth is, I have a good mind to have the maidenhead of this girl, which I should not doubt to have if je could get some time para be con her."
All this led to that favorite passage of Helene Hanff's: "At last, about one o'clock, she come to my side of the bed, and drew my curtaine open, and with the tongs red hot at the ends, made as if she did design to pinch me with them, at which, in dismay, I rose up, and with a few words she laid them down..." [January 12, 1669) (This, of course, does not exactly match Hanff's description of "his wife chased him out of bed and round the bedroom with a red- hot poker." She also got the date wrong, citing it as 1668. Admittedly, that is how Pepys dated it, but we would call it 1669.)
Needless to say, all this led to much contention between him and his wife, with her noticing every time he even looked at another woman. Finally, he writes that his wife was "mighty dogged, and I vexed to see it, being mightily troubled, of late, at her being out of humour, for fear of her discovering any new matter of offence against me, though I am conscious of none; but do hate to be unquiet at home. So, late up, silent, and not supping, but hearing her utter some words of discontent to me with silence, and so to bed, weeping to myself for grief..." [December 21, 1668]
Pepys was a great one for making vows of avoiding plays, or wine, or whatever, during Lent, or until Whitsuntide, or for other lengths of time. But he tended to break them, as when he writes, "Though there was good singing and dancing, yet no fancy in the play, but something that made it less contenting was my conscience that I ought not to have gone by my vow, and, besides, my business commanded me elsewhere. But, however, as soon as I came home I did pay my crown to the poor's box, according to my vow, and so no harm as to that is done, but only business lost and money lost, and my old habit of pleasure wakened." [October 21, 1662]
And later: "... besides that I must by my oath give half as much more to the poor [as he spent on a play] ..." [May 4, 1663]
He does seem to take the vows somewhat seriously, specifically citing the spirit, rather than the letter, of them: "To my office to set down this day's passage, and, though my oath against going to plays do not oblige me against this house, because it was not then in being, yet believing that at the time my meaning was against all publique houses, I am resolved to deny myself the liberty of two plays at Court, which are in arreare to me for the months of March and April, which will more than countervail this excess, so that this month of May is the first that I must claim a liberty of going to a Court play according to my oath." [May 8, 1663]
Then again, he also looks for loopholes: "I only drinking some hypocras, which do not break my vowe, it being, to the best of my present judgement, only a mixed compound drink, and not any wine." [October 29, 1663] Hippocras is a drink made from wine, sugar, and spices, so saying it was not wine is sheer mendacity on his part. (It sounds like spiced Manischewitz.)
Ever resourceful, Pepys finds yet another way to bend his vow not to go to plays (or spend money on plays-it is not clear exactly how it is expressed), as he writes, "I got him to give my wife and me a play this afternoon, lending him money to do it, which is a fallacy that I have found now once, to avoyde my vowe with, but never to be more practised I swear..." [August 13, 1664] At least he does seem to feel guilty about bending the rules this way.
But he does not always feel guilty. When Lord Rutherford insists that Pepys accompany him to a play, Pepys writes, "And here I must confess breach of a vow in appearance, but I not desiring it, but against my will, and my oathe being to go neither at my own charge nor at another's, as I had done by becoming liable to give them another, as I a to Sir W. Pen and Mr. Creed; but here I neither know which of them paid for me, nor, if I did, am I obliged ever to return the like, or did it by desire or with any willingness. So that with a safe conscience I do think my oath is not broke and judge God Almightty will not think it other wise." [September 28, 1664]
And he also writes, "... but, Lord! to see in what readiness I am, upon the expiring of my vowes this day, to begin to run into all my pleasures and neglect of business." [May 15, 1665]
Pepys went to so many plays that he could not remember them all. On January 5, 1667, he writes of going to see "Mustapha", "A most excellent plays for words and design as ever I did see. I had seen it before by forgot it, so it was wholly new to me, which is the pleasure of my not committing these things to my memory."
There is a certain hypocrisy in Pepys"s complaint that "this day my wife begun to wear light-coloured locks, quite white almost, which, though it makes her look very pretty, yet not being natural, vexes me, that I will not have her wear them." [March 13, 1664] He seems to ignore that he wears a periwig which surely does not duplicate his hair perfectly.
One is reminded of how horrific surgery must have been before anesthetic, but also how people just accepted this, when we read, "My wife tells me that she hears that my poor aunt James hath had her breast cut off here in town, her breast having long been out of order. This day, after I had suffered my owne hayre to grow long, in order to wearing it, I find the convenience of periwiggs is so great, that I have cut off all short again, and will keep to periwiggs." This is all in one paragraph, as if having your hair cut is equivalent to a mastectomy. Was this indifference to painful surgery common in the period, or is Pepys particularly insensitive? [May 5, 1665]
In the midst of the Great Plague, Pepys wonders "what will be the fashion after the plague is done, as to periwiggs, for nobody will dare to buy any haire, for fear of infection, that it had been cut off of the heads of people dead of the plague." [September 3, 1665] By October 22, 1668, he has decided the danger is past, because he writes, "W. Batelier's Frenchman, a periwigg maker, comes and brings me a new one, which I liked and paid him for..."
Of a new book, Pepys writes, "It is dedicated to almost all the men of any great condition in England, so that the Epistles are more than the book itself, and both it and them not worth a turd," [May 28, 1663]
As noted in the section on the Great Fire, the Fire definitely drove the price of books up. But it was not just the Fire that drove the price of books up. On September 3, 1668, he writes that Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan "is now mightily called for; and what was heretofore sold for 8s, I now give 24s. for, at the second hand, and is sold for 30s., it being a book the Bishops will not let be printed again."]
Many of us have some of the same problems Pepys has: "The truth is, I have bought a great many books lately to a great value; but I think to buy no more till Christmas next, and those that I have will so fill my two presses [bookcases] that I must be forced to give away some to make room for them, it being my design to have no more at any time for my proper library than to fill them." [January 10, 1668]
One method for achieving this is a trifle unusual: "Thence to the Strand, to my bookseller's, and there staid an hour, and bought the idle, rogueish book, 'L'escholle des filles;' which I have bought in plain binding, avoiding the buying of it better bound, because I resolve, as soon as I have read it, to burn it, that it may not stand in the list of books, nor among them, to disgrace them if it should be found." [February 8, 1668]
There is a foreshadowing of the Great Fire when Pepys describes how a fire can spread very quickly and very widely: "Thence I walked to Cheapside, there to see the effect of a fire there this morning, since four o'clock; which I find in the house of Mr. Bois, that married Dr. Fuller's niece, who are both out of towne, leaving for a mayde and man in towne. It begun in their house, and hath burned much and many houses backward, though none forward; and that in the great uniform pile of buildings in the middle of Cheapside." [August 20, 1664] And when he gets there, he says, "... There found, by God's providence, the fire out; but if there had been any wind it must have burned all our stores, which is a most dreadfull consideration." [August 29, 1664]
And if Pepys (unintentionally) foreshadows the Great Fire, he also anticipates the Great Plague when he writes (several months before the plague reaches England), "We were told to-day of a Dutch ship of 3 or 400 tons, where all the men were dead of the plague, and the ship cast ashore at Gottenburgh." [September 24, 1664]
As noted, Pepys is known primarily for his entries on the Great Plague and the Great Fire. The former was hinted at in entries about the Plague on Dutch ships, but the first mention of it in London is on April 30, 1665, when Pepys writes, "Great fears of the sicknesse here in the City, it being said that two or three houses are already shut up. God preserve us all!" On May 24, he writes "of the plague growing upon us in this towne; and of remedies against it: some saying one thing, some another."
It is not surprising they could not cure the plague, when their "knowledge" of medicine was such that Pepys could write, "Waked in the morning ... with great pain to piss, and great pain in pissing by having, I think, drank too great a draught of cold drink before going to bed." [June 6, 1665]
On June 7, 1665, Pepys reports seeing houses marked with crosses and "Lord have mercy upon us" written on them, the first plague houses he had personally seen. Apparently most of these were marked by officials when the plague was discovered, because "Dr. Burnett ... hath ... gained great goodwill among his neighbors; for he discovered it himself first, and caused himself to be shut up of his own accord; which was very handsome." By June 10, Pepys's head "is filled also with other business enough, and particularly how to put my things and estate in order, in case it should please God to call me away, which dispose of to his glory!"
On June 15, the death toll from plague for the week was 112, up from 43 the preceding week. By June 21, he goes to Cripplegate and finds "all the towne almost going out of towne, the coaches and waggons being all full of people going into the country." However, anyone who wanted to come into the City had no problem finding a seat.
By July 18, they are burying the dead in "the open Tuttlefields ... but such as are able to pay dear for it, can be buried [in the New Chappel churchyard]." The death toll from plague this week was 1089; Pepys writes of yet more streets and neighborhoods affected. By August 3, the death toll was 2020 from plague, and 3000 total. One suspects some of the "non-plague" deaths may have been plague deaths that were concealed by families not wanting to be locked up in their houses.
However, there were also "pest-houses" and apparently sometimes those with the plague would be put in "pest coaches" and taken to them.
By August 8, more of Pepys's acquaintances are dying: "And poor Will, that used to sell us ale at the Hall-door, his wife and three children died, all, I think, in a day."
Apparently at the beginning of the plague, they carried the dead to be buried at night, but by August 12, "the people die so, that now it seems they are fain to carry the dead to be buried by day-light, the nights not sufficing to do it in." There is a 9 PM curfew, so that "the sick may have liberty to go abroad for ayre."
On August 22, Pepys sees a coffin with a dead body that is just sitting in a close because no one has been sent by the parish to bury it (though someone is set to watch over it that no one comes close). Pepys writes that this "is a most cruel thing: this disease making us more cruel to one another than if we are doggs."
August 31 had a weekly toll of 6102 dead from plague, 7496 total, though Pepys think the number closer to 10,000, because the poor that "cannot be taken notice of, through the greatness of the number," and "the Quakers and others that will not have any bell ring for them."
But he also tells more affecting stories, such as the one of a child of "a saddler, who had buried all the rest of his children of the plague, and himself and wife now being shut up and in despair of escaping, did desire only to save the life of this little child; and so prevailed to have it received stark-naked into the arms of a friend, who brought it (having out it into new fresh clothes to Greenwich; where upon hearing the story we did agree it should be permitted to be received and kept in the towne." [September 3, 1665]
One must remember that there seemed to be a different attitude towards death, or at least towards dead bodies, or at least towards the dead bodies of the lower classes. Pepys writes at one point, "[Mr, Povy] showed me a ... boy that he had, that died of a consumption, and being dead, he caused him to be dried in an oven, and lies there entire in a box." [September 7, 1665]
Apparently at some point quarantine grew lax--the death toll would drop for a week or two, and then rise again, but people were eager for any sign of the end of the plague. At any rate, Pepys writes of avoiding people in public as much as possible, "there being now no observation of shutting up of houses infected." [September 14, 1665] This completely understandable grasping at any possible end to the plague is seen in Pepys' comment on November 24, 1665, "It continuing to be a great frost, which gives us hope for a perfect cure of the plague."
The sermon he heard on October 5, 1665, has the chaplain "reproaching the imperfection of humane learning, [crying], 'All our physicians cannot tell us what an ague is, and all our arithmetique is not able to number the days of a man;' which, God Knows, is not the fault of arithmetique..."
But the plague dragged on for more than another year until September 2, 1666, when Pepys writes, "Some of our mayds sitting up late last night to get things ready against our feast today, Jane called us up about three in the morning, to tell us of a great fire they saw in the City." As they say, it's one damn thing after another, but in this case, it is usually said that at least the Great Fire burned out the rats and other carriers of the Great Plague. However, this appears not to be entirely true. It was not until November 20, 1666, that a "thanksgiving-day for the cessation of the plague; but, Lord! how the towne do say it is hastened before the plague is quite over, there dying some people still."
While during the Plague, people left their homes to flee to the country, during the Fire they were more concerned with removing their belongings: "... we were forced to begin to pack up our owne goods; and prepare for their removal; and did by moonshine (it being brave dry, and moon:shine, and warm weather) carry much of my goods into the garden, and Mr. Hater and I did remove my money and iron chests into my cellar, as thinking that the safest place. And got my bags of gold into my office, ready to carry away, and my chief papers of accounts also these, and my tallys into a box by themselves." [September 2, 1666]
Later, he writes, "Sir W. Batten not knowing how to remove his wine, did dig a pit in the garden, and laid it in there; and I took the opportunity of laying all the papers of my office that I could not otherwise dispose of." [September 4, 1666]
By September 9, 1666, the Fire has died down, and Dean Harding said in his sermon that "the City is reduced from a large folio to a decimotertio." Pepys seemed to think this ill-spoken, though he was definitely a bibliophile, reporting on October 5, 1666, "[His bookseller] do believe there is above; £50,000 of books burned [in the churchyard where they were sold]; all the great booksellers almost undone: not only these, but their warehouses at their Hall, and under Christchurch, and elsewhere being all burned. A great want thereof there will be of books, especially Latin books and foreign books; and, among others, the Polyglottes and new Bible, which he believes will be presently worth £40 a-piece."
And his predictions came true when he went to the Temple on March 21, 1667, and wrote later, "[It] is strange how 'Rycaut's Discourse of Turky,' which before the fire I was asked but 8s. for, there being all but twenty-two or thereabouts burned, I did now offer 20s., and he demands 50s, and I think I shall give it him, though it be only as a monument of the fire."
The Fire had a long-lived (if not lasting) effect on Pepys; he writes on September 15, 1666, "But much terrified in the nights now-a-days with dreams if fire, and falling down of houses." This is not surprising, since he writes as late as March 16, 1667, that "it is observable that within these eight days I did see smoke remaining, coming out of some cellars, from the late great fire, now above six months since." And he was still having nightmares and sleepless nights in February 1667.
On October 24, 1666, he again expressed what was probably a common fear of the time, "the danger of my having [his money] all in the house at once, in case of any disorder or troubles in the State, and therefore resolved to remove part of it to Brampton, and part some whither else, and part in my owne house, which is very necessary, and will tend to our safety, though I shall not think it safe out of my owne sight." When there were no trustworthy and stable banks where one could deposit money, how to protect it from thieves and other disorders was a major problem. It is not surprising when he writes on February 13, 1667, that he "mightily troubled to get a coach home; and, which is now [his] common practice, going over the ruins in the night, [he] rid with [his] sword drawn in the coach."
By October 10, 1667, fear of the Plague and Fire recurring, and of civil disorder, had died down enough that Pepys decided to dig up the gold he had buried at his father's house. "But, Lord! what a tosse I was for some time in, that they could not justly tell where it was; that I begun heartily to sweat, and be angry, that they should not agree better upon the place, and at last to fear that it was gone but by and by poking with a spit, we found it." And then it turns out that his father had buried it only six inches down, and in a spot completely visible from the road and the neighboring house (though his father does say he waited until all in the neighbor's house had gone to church). But wait--in addition to all this, the bags that the coins had been in had rotted, and the coins were loose. (Also, the "notes", by which I assume is meant banknotes, also rotted, so unless they were complete enough to redeem, they would have been a total loss.) When they counted the coins, Pepys was still short a hundred pieces; later at midnight he went out and found another forty-five. The next day they dug up more earth into pails and sifted them out of sight of the neighbor and found another thirty-four. The remaining twenty or so he concluded might have gone astray in the burying. [The notes say that in 1842, excavations at that house discovered an iron pot full of silver coins, all of which pre-dated the Restoration. While one cannot prove it, it is suspected that Pepys forgot he had also buried silver coins with the gold.]
On June 19, 1668, someone cried out there was a fire in Markelane, and Pepys writes, "I found [the fire] in a new-built house that stood alone in Minchin-lane, over against the Cloth-workers'-hall, which burned furiously: the house not yet quite finished; and the benefit of brick was well seen, for it burnt all inward, and fell down within itself; so no fear of doing more hurt." If nothing else, the Great Fire led to more buildings being built of brick.
An interesting piece of trivia: "One replies that there are many species where the male gives the denomination to both sexes, as swan and woodcock, but not above one where the female do, and that is a goose." [June 15, 1663] But is it true?
Pepys constantly wrote about his ailments, including his earlier kidney stone, and his constant digestive problems, such as "Early in the morning my last night's physic worked and did give me a good stool, and them I rose and had three or four stools, and walked up and down my chamber." TMI--and there is a lot more of this sort of description! [June 28, 1663]
Sir William Petty sett aside money in his will to fund a variety of inventions, including "he that could invent proper characters to express to another the mixture of relishes and tastes." [March 22, 1664] Now that would be useful!
Pepys mentions Gresham College several times [e.g., April 19, 1665] as a place where he goes to see various scientific experiments. While many of them would be considered unnecessarily cruel to animals today, apparently in Pepys's scientific inquiry was of interest even to those who were not in a scientific occupation.
Things we take for granted were great novelties or extravagances then; Pepys gets a pocket watch and says, "But, Lord! to see how much of my folly and childishness hangs upon me that I cannot forbear carrying my watch in my hand in the coach all this afternoon, and seeing what o'clock it is one hundred times..." [May 13, 1665]
When I read about "a [poor and] debauched man, that the College' have hired for 20s. to have some of the blood of a sheep let into his body," I was sure it would end badly. The experiment, on November 23, 1667, was performed on Arthur Coga. The blood of a sheep was used because "sanguis ovis symbolicam quandam facultatem habet cum sanguine Christi, quia Christus est agnus Dei." ["Sheep's blood has some symbolic power, like the blood of Christ, for Christ is the Lamb of God."] But apparently, though it failed to cure her perceived mental illness, the transfusion apparently did not kill him, making this the first successful human transfusion in England.
We are reminded of the realities of Pepys's time when we read, "... she is pretty well, but mighty full of the smallpox, by which all do conclude she will be wholly spoiled, which is the greatest instance of the uncertainty of beauty that could be in this age." [March 26, 1668]
Sometime in the middle of 1668, Pepys started having problems with his eyes. He was convinced he was going blind and that all the writing in his diary was one of the causes. So at this point, his diary becomes much briefer, with some days represented by a single paragraph. He eventually gave it up altogether on May 31, 1669, but the last year of so are covered much less thoroughly. However, the good news for posterity is that he maintained his level of detail through the restoration of Charles II, the Second Dutch- Anglo War, the Great Plague, the Great Fire, and the beginning of the rebuilding of London. He should be happy that he did not go blind, especially since his attempts at treatment were unlikely to be effective, e.g., "This morning I was let blood, and did bleed about fourteen ounces towards curing my eyes." [July 13, 1668]
And there you have it. Go to Evelyn Leeper's home page.