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THE DIARY

OF

SAMUEL PEPYS

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THE DIARY

OF

SAMUEL PEPYS

WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES

BY

G. GREGORY SMITH

London
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

All rights reserved

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PREFACE

WHEN Lord Braybrooke first let us into these secrets of Mr. Pepys he took care to remind us that the confidence must not be misused. 'An exact Diary,' he said, quoting Puritan Prynne, 'is a window into his heart that maketh it, and therefore pity it is that any should look therein but either the friends of the party, or such ingenious foes as will not (especially in things. doubtful) make conjectural comments to his disgrace.' For this reason he set himself certain limits in the reprinting of these confessions, and he appears in the last and amplest edition to have it a little on his conscience that he may have made too free with the private document. Later editors and readers, on the other hand, are in such different mood, that if they have any regret, it is that they dare not go further than the most valiant have already ventured.

Fortunately, approval of Lord Braybrooke's treatment of the text of the Diary does not commit us to the unscholarly party of Dr. Bowdler. As no editor has as yet given us a complete version, the justification of a 'fuller,' and again of a 'yet fuller,' edition must rest entirely on the value of the additional matter. Perhaps one has no right to say that, taken as a whole, this supplement is of small account, for every tag of gossip, like every loose sheet in the stores of the British Museum, has some potential value. But we may say of it that it helps us little, if at all, to a better understanding of Samuel Pepys. Had Lord Braybrooke desired another quotation, he need not have gone further than the opening pages of the familiar Travels of Mr. Lemuel Gulliver. This volume,' says the imaginary Publisher, 'would have been at least twice as large, if I had not made bold to strike out innumerable passages relating to the winds and tides, as well as to the variations and bearings in the several voyages, together with the minute descriptions of the management of the ship in storms, in the style of sailors; likewise the account of longitudes and latitudes.' And there would

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