Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

His Diary is like a good sirloin, which requires only
to be basted with its own drippings.”—Athenæum, 1848,
page 551.

NEW YORK:

SCRIBNER AND WELFORD.

LONDON: BICKERS AND SON.

1880.

[ocr errors]

CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. TOOKS COURT,

CHANCERY lane.

PREFACE.

HIS little book does not need any long Preface, as the title sufficiently explains the object aimed at: al

though the various subjects re

ferred to in the "Diary" are annotated in the different editions of that book, there is in none of them any complete analysis of the entire work or of the incidents of Pepys's life.

I have endeavoured in the following pages to draw together some of the most interesting incidents of the "Diary" relating both to Pepys's life and to the manners of his time, and also to illustrate them from other sources. I have used the best edition of the "Diary," by the Rev. Mynors Bright; but in order that this book may form a companion to all editions I have referred

vi

PREFACE.

to the date of the entries rather than to the volume and page. It must therefore be understood that the passages referred to when not met with in the other editions will be found among the hitherto unpublished matter of that of Mr. Bright. It has been my endeavour to illustrate the contents of this entertaining work more completely than has hitherto been attempted, and several of the circumstances of Pepys's life are here brought out for the first time. I may add that the whole of the present volume was printed off before the appearance of the excellent article in the July number of the "Edinburgh Review" (1880), as otherwise it might be supposed that certain points had been suggested by that article. I have, however, availed myself of its pages to make a correction of a small matter in the Index.

Mr. T. C. Noble has kindly communicated to me, since the completion of this book, a copy of Pepys's original marriage certificate from the Registers of St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, and I therefore insert it here to complete the account in Chapter I. "Samuell Peps of this parish Gent & Elizabeth De Sat Michell of Martins in the ffeilds Spinster. Published October 19th, 22nd, 29th [1655] and were married

« PreviousContinue »