



Produced by David Widger





                THE DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS M.A. F.R.S.

            CLERK OF THE ACTS AND SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY

    TRANSCRIBED FROM THE SHORTHAND MANUSCRIPT IN THE PEPYSIAN LIBRARY
 MAGDALENE COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE BY THE REV. MYNORS BRIGHT M.A. LATE FELLOW
                      AND PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE

                              (Unabridged)

                      WITH LORD BRAYBROOKE'S NOTES

                        EDITED WITH ADDITIONS BY

                        HENRY B. WHEATLEY F.S.A.

                          DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS.
                                  MARCH
                                1666-1667

March 1st.  Up, it being very cold weather again after a good deal of warm
summer weather, and to the office, where I settled to do much business
to-day.  By and by sent for to Sir G. Carteret to discourse of the
business of the Navy, and our wants, and the best way of bestowing the
little money we have, which is about L30,000, but, God knows, we have need
of ten times as much, which do make my life uncomfortable, I confess, on
the King's behalf, though it is well enough as to my own particular, but
the King's service is undone by it.  Having done with him, back again to
the office, and in the streets, in Mark Lane, I do observe, it being St.
David's day, the picture of a man dressed like a Welchman, hanging by the
neck upon one of the poles that stand out at the top of one of the
merchants' houses, in full proportion, and very handsomely done; which is
one of the oddest sights I have seen a good while, for it was so like a
man that one would have thought it was indeed a man.

     [From "Poor Robin's Almanack" for 1757 it appears that, in former
     times in England, a Welshman was burnt in effigy on this
     anniversary.  Mr. W. C. Hazlitt, in his edition of Brand's "Popular
     Antiquities," adds "The practice to which Pepys refers. . .  was
     very common at one time; and till very lately bakers made
     gingerbread Welshmen, called taffies, on St. David's day, which were
     made to represent a man skewered" (vol. i., pp. 60,61).]

Being returned home, I find Greeting, the flageolet-master, come, and
teaching my wife; and I do think my wife will take pleasure in it, and it
will be easy for her, and pleasant.  So I, as I am well content with the
charge it will occasion me.  So to the office till dinner-time, and then
home to dinner, and before dinner making my wife to sing.  Poor wretch!
her ear is so bad that it made me angry, till the poor wretch cried to see
me so vexed at her, that I think I shall not discourage her so much again,
but will endeavour to make her understand sounds, and do her good that
way; for she hath a great mind to learn, only to please me; and,
therefore, I am mighty unjust to her in discouraging her so much, but we
were good friends, and to dinner, and had she not been ill with those and
that it were not Friday (on which in Lent there are no plays) I had
carried her to a play, but she not being fit to go abroad, I to the
office, where all the afternoon close examining the collection of my
papers of the accounts of the Navy since this war to my great content, and
so at night home to talk and sing with my-wife, and then to supper and so
to bed with great pleasure.  But I cannot but remember that just before
dinner one of my people come up to me, and told me a man come from
Huntingdon would speak with me, how my heart come into my mouth doubting
that my father, who has been long sicke, was dead.  It put me into a
trembling, but, blessed be [God]! it was no such thing, but a countryman
come about ordinary business to me, to receive L50 paid to my father in
the country for the Perkins's for their legacy, upon the death of their
mother, by