The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete - Samuel Pepys

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pronunciation of the name was fixed, but there is every reason to suppose that the spellings of Peyps and Peaps were intended to represent the sound Pepes rather than Peeps.

      In spite of all the research which has brought to light so many incidents of interest in the life of Samuel Pepys, we cannot but feel how dry these facts are when placed by the side of the living details of the Diary. It is in its pages that the true man is displayed, and it has therefore not been thought necessary here to do more than set down in chronological order such facts as are known of the life outside the Diary. A fuller “appreciation” of the man must be left for some future occasion.

      H. B. W.

       Table of Contents

      [The year did not legally begin in England before the 25th March

       until the act for altering the style fixed the 1st of January as the

       first day of the year, and previous to 1752 the year extended from

       March 25th to the following March 24th. Thus since 1752 we have

       been in the habit of putting the two dates for the months of January

       and February and March 1 to 24—in all years previous to 1752.

       Practically, however, many persons considered the year to commence

       with January 1st, as it will be seen Pepys did. The 1st of January

       was considered as New Year’s day long before Pepys’s time. The

       fiscal year has not been altered; and the national accounts are

       still reckoned from old Lady Day, which falls on the 6th of April.]

      Blessed be God, at the end of the last year I was in very good health, without any sense of my old pain, but upon taking of cold.

      [Pepys was successfully cut for the stone on March 26th, 1658. See

       March 26th below. Although not suffering from this cause again

       until the end of his life, there are frequent references in the

       Diary to pain whenever he caught cold. In a letter from Pepys to

       his nephew Jackson, April 8th, 1700, there is a reference to the

       breaking out three years before his death of the wound caused by the

       cutting for the stone: “It has been my calamity for much the

       greatest part of this time to have been kept bedrid, under an evil

       so rarely known as to have had it matter of universal surprise and

       with little less general opinion of its dangerousness; namely, that

       the cicatrice of a wound occasioned upon my cutting for the stone,

       without hearing anything of it in all this time, should after more

       than 40 years’ perfect cure, break out again.” At the post-mortem

       examination a nest of seven stones, weighing four and a half ounces,

       was found in the left kidney, which was entirely ulcerated.]

      I lived in Axe Yard,

      [Pepys’s house was on the south side of King Street, Westminster;

       it is singular that when he removed to a residence in the city, he

       should have settled close to another Axe Yard. Fludyer Street

       stands on the site of Axe Yard, which derived its name from a great

       messuage or brewhouse on the west side of King Street, called “The

       Axe,” and referred to in a document of the 23rd of Henry VIII—B.]

      having my wife, and servant Jane, and no more in family than us three. My wife … gave me hopes of her being with child, but on the last day of the year. … [the hope was belied.]

      [Ed. note: … are used to denote censored passages]

      The condition of the State was thus; viz. the Rump, after being disturbed by my Lord Lambert,

      [John Lambert, major-general in the Parliamentary army. The title

       Lord was not his by right, but it was frequently given to the

       republican officers. He was born in 1619, at Calton Hall, in the

       parish of Kirkby-in-Malham-Dale, in the West Riding of Yorkshire.

       In 1642 he was appointed captain of horse under Fairfax, and acted

       as major-general to Cromwell in 1650 during the war in Scotland.

       After this Parliament conferred on him a grant of lands in Scotland

       worth £1000 per annum. He refused to take the oath of allegiance to

       Cromwell, for which the Protector deprived him of his commission.

       After Cromwell’s death he tried to set up a military government.

       The Commons cashiered Lambert, Desborough, and other officers,

       October 12th, 1659, but Lambert retaliated by thrusting out the

       Commons, and set out to meet Monk. His men fell away from him, and

       he was sent to the Tower, March 3rd, 1660, but escaped. In 1662 he

       was tried on a charge of high treason and condemned, but his life

       was spared. It is generally stated that he passed the remainder of

       his life in the island of Guernsey, but this is proved to be

       incorrect by a MS. in the Plymouth Athenaeum, entitled “Plimmouth

       Memoirs collected by James Yonge, 1684” This will be seen from the

       following extracts quoted by Mr. R. J. King, in “Notes and Queries,”

       “1667 Lambert the arch-rebel brought to this island [St. Nicholas,

       at the entrance of Plymouth harbour].” “1683 Easter day Lambert

       that olde rebell dyed this winter on Plimmouth Island where he had

       been prisoner 15 years and more.”]

      was lately returned to sit again. The officers of the Army all forced to yield. Lawson

      [Sir John Lawson, the son of a poor man at Hull, entered the navy as

       a common sailor, rose to the rank of admiral, and distinguished

       himself during the Protectorate. Though a republican, he readily

       closed with the design of restoring the King. He was vice-admiral

       under the Earl of Sandwich, and commanded the “London” in the

       squadron which conveyed Charles II. to England. He was mortally

       wounded in the action with the Dutch off Harwich, June, 1665. He

       must not be confounded with another John Lawson, the Royalist, of

       Brough Hall, in Yorkshire, who was created a Baronet by Charles II,

       July 6th, 1665.]

      lies still in the river, and Monk—[George Monk, born 1608, created Duke of Albemarle, 1660, married Ann Clarges, March, 1654, died January 3rd, 1676.]—is with his army in Scotland. Only my Lord Lambert is not yet come into the Parliament, nor is it expected that he will without being forced to it. The new Common Council of the City do speak very high; and had sent to Monk their sword-bearer, to acquaint him with their desires for a free and full Parliament, which is at present the desires, and the hopes, and expectation of all. Twenty-two of the old secluded members

      [“The City sent and invited

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