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FROM ENGLISH PROSE 1605-3682 MUiHral $untatintts 
FROM ENGLISH PROSE 
JOHN H. LINDSEY, M. D. 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
BOSTON 
RICHARD G. BADGER, PUBLISHER 
THE GORHAM PRESS Copyright, 1924, by Richard G. Badger 
All Rights Reserved 
Printed in the United States of America 
The Gobham Press, Boston, U. S. A. Should learned leech with solemn air unfold 
Thy leaves, beware, be civil, and be wise: 
Thy volume many precepts sage may hold, 
His well fraught head may find no trifling prize. 
-Democritus Junior to His Book. CONTENTS 
Page 
Sir John Mandeville H 
Sir Thomas More 15 
Francis Bacon 27 
Robert Burton 
Sir Thomas Browne 71 
Samuel Pepys 
Jonathan Swift 267 
George Berkeley 281 
Laurence Sterne 295 ILLUSTRATIONS 
Sir Thomas Browne frontispiece 
Facing Page 
Sir Thomas More 16 
Francis Bacon 28 
Frontispiece The Anatomy of Melancholy . 48 
Samuel Pepys 90 
Jonathan Swift 268 
George Berkeley 282 
Laurence Sterne ' . 296 SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE 
THE Voyages and Adventures of Sir John Man- 
deville, written about the year 1350, is said to 
be the first prose story-book in the formed English 
language and Sir John shares with King Alfred the 
title of Father of English Prose. 
Sir John Mandeville is reported to have been 
born in 1300 at St. Albans, Hertfordshire, and to 
have been a physician. 
Some doubt has been cast upon the existence of 
Sir John Mandeville in the flesh. The story of the 
marvelous voyages has been attributed to Jean de 
Bourgogne, a physician, who died at Liege in 1372 
and a translation into English is reported of the 
late fourteenth or of the fifteenth century. 
It has been suggested, also, that the work was 
compiled from the writings of William of Bol- 
dencele, Oderic of Pordenone and Vincent de 
Beauvais. 
The question whether Sir John Mandeville was 
himself or was a myth need not influence to a very 
great extent the enjoyment to be obtained from 
the rich style and vigorous imagination displayed 
in the book. 
The work contains comments of medical in- 
terest. Sir John Mandeville 
13 
WHEN Men pain themselves to array the Body, 
to make it seem fairer than God made it, 
they do great Sin. For Man should not devise nor 
ask greater Beauty, than God hath ordained Man 
to be at his Birth. 
FOR Gouts and Rheumatics, that distress me- 
those define the End of my Labour; against 
my Will, God knoweth! 
AND they live full orderly, and so soberly in 
Meat and Drink, that they live right long. 
And the most Part of them die without Sickness, 
when Nature faileth them, for old Age. SIR THOMAS MORE 
1480-1535 
SIR Thomas More was born in London, the son 
of Sir J. More, a judge. He was called to the 
bar in 1496 and entered Parliament in 1504. In 
1529 he became Lord Chancellor of England. 
Acknowledgment of the authority of the Pope 
involved the displeasure of Henry VIII and More 
was beheaded. He was beatified in 1886. 
fore's Utopia was published in Latin in 1516 
and in English in 1551. 
Raphe Robynson, the translator of Utopia, writes 
as follows: "I toke upon me to tourne, and trans- 
late oute of Latine into oure Englishe tonge the 
frutefull and profitable boke, which sir Thomas 
More knite compiled, and made of the new yle 
Utopia, conteining and setting forth the best state 
and fourme of a publique weale." SIR THOMAS MORE 
1478-1535 Sir Thomas More 
17 
HE is a folyshe phisition, that cannot cure his 
patientes disease, onles he caste him in an 
other syckenes. 
-Utopia 
VfEA, and whyles you goe aboute to doe youre 
1 cure of one parte, you shall make bygger the 
sore of an other parte, so the healpe of one caus- 
eth anothers harme. 
-Utopia 
SICKE bodies that be desperat and past cure, be 
wont with continual good cherissing to be kept 
and botched up for a time. 
-Utopia 18 
Sir Thomas More 
STURDY and valiaunte beggars, clokinge their 
idle lyfe under the coloure of some disease or 
sickenes. 
-Utopia 
BUT first and chieflie of all, respecte is had to 
the sycke, that be cured in the hospitalles . . . 
These hospitalles be so wel appointed, and with 
al thinges necessary to health so furnished, and 
more over so diligent attendaunce through the 
continual presence of cunning phisitians is given, 
that though no man be sent thether against his 
will, yet notwithstandinge there is no sicke per- 
sone in al the citie, that had not rather lye there, 
then at home in his owne house. When the stew- 
arde of the sicke hath received suche meates as 
the phisitians have prescribed, then the beste is 
equallye devided among the halles. 
-Utopia 
EVERY mother is nource to her owne childe, 
onles either death, or sycknes be the let. 
-Utopia Sir Thomas More 
19 
THEIR diners be verie short: but their suppers 
be sumwhat longer, because that after dyner 
foloweth laboure, after supper slepe and natural 
reste. whiche they thinke to be of more strength 
and eflicacie to wholsome and healthfull digestion. 
No supper is passed without musicke. Nor their 
bankettes lacke no conceytes nor jonketes. 
-Utopia 
FOR what naturall or trewe pleasure dost thou 
take of an other mans bare hede, or bowed 
knees? Will this ease the paine of thy knees, or 
remedie the phrensie of thy hede? 
-Utopia 
THE pleasure of the bodye they divide into ii. 
partes. The first is when delectation is sensi- 
bly felt and perceaved. . . . The seconde parte of 
bodely pleasure, they say, is that which consisteth 
and resteth in the quiete, and upryghte state of 
the bodye. 
-Utopia 20 
Sir Thomas More 
AND that trewlye is everye mannes owne propre 
healthe entermingled and disturbed with no 
griefe. For this, yf it be not letted nor assaulted 
with no greif, is delectable of it selfe, thoughe it 
be moved with no externall or outwarde pleasure. 
For though it be not so plain and manyfeste to 
the sense, as the gredye luste of eatynge and 
drynkynge, yet neverthelesse manye take it for 
the chiefeste pleasure. All the Utopians graunt it to 
be a right sovereigne pleasure, and as you woulde 
saye the foundation and grounde of all pleasures, 
as whiche even alone is liable to make the state 
and condition of life delectable and pleasaunt. 
And it beyng once taken awaye, there is no place 
lefte for any pleasure. For to be without greife 
not havinge health, that they call unsensibilitie, 
and not pleasure. 
-Utopia 
FOR where it is said, healthe can not be felt: 
this, they thinke, is nothing trew. For what 
man wakyng, saye they, feleth not himself in 
health: but he that is not? 
-Utopia Sir Thomas More 
21 
FOR seynge that in sycknesse (saye they) is 
greiffe, whiche is a mortal enemie to pleasure, 
even as sicknes is to health, why should not then 
pleasure be in the quietnes of health? For they 
say it maketh nothing to this matter, whether you 
saye that sycknesse is a griefe, or that in sickenes 
is griefe, for all commethe to one purpose. For 
whether health be a pleasure it selfe, or a neces- 
sary cause of pleasure, as tier is of heate, truelye 
bothe wayes it foloweth, that they cannot be with- 
oute pleasure, that be in perfect helth. 
-Utopia 
THE Utopians have long rejected and con- 
dempned the opinion of them, whiche sayde 
that stedfaste and quiete healthe . . . oughte not 
th erf ore to be counted a pleasure, bycause they 
saye it can not be presentlye and sensiblye per- 
ceaved and felte by some outwarde motion. But 
of the contrarie parte nowe they agree almooste all 
in this, that healthe is a moost soveraigne pleasure. 
-Utopia 22 
Sir Thomas More 
FURTHERMORE whiles we eat (say they) then 
heal the, which beganne to be appayred, fight- 
eth by the helpe of foode againste hunger. In the 
which fight, whiles health by litle and title getteth 
the upper hande, that same procedyng, and (as 
ye would say) that onwardnes to the wonte 
strength ministreth that pleasure, wherby we be so 
refreshed. Health therfore, whiche in the conflict 
is joyefull, shall it not be mery, when it hath goot- 
ten the victorie? But as soone as it hathe recov- 
ered the pristinate strength, which thing onely in 
all the fight it coveted, shal it incontinent be aston- 
ied? Nor shal it not know nor imbrace the owne 
wealthe and goodnes? 
-Utopia 
OF THESE pleasures that the body ministreth, 
they geve the preeminence to helth. For the 
delite of eating and drinking, and whatsoever hath 
any like pleasauntnes, they determyne to be pleas- 
ures muche to be desired, but no other wayes than 
for healthes sake. For suche thinges of their own 
proper nature be not so pleasaunt, but in that they 
resiste sickenesse privelie stealing on. 
-Utopia Sir Thomas More 
23 
IS THERE anye man so possessed with stonishe 
insensibilitie, or with lethargie, that is to say, 
the sleping sicknes, that he will not graunt healthe 
to be acceptable to him, and delectable? 
-Utopia 
THEREFORE like as it is a wise mans part, 
rather to avoid sicknes, then to wish for medi- 
cines, and rather to drive away and put to flight 
careful griefes, then to call for comfort: so it is 
muche better not to neade this kinde of pleasure, 
then thereby to be eased of the contrarie griefe. 
-Utopia 
FOR they judge it a great poynt of cruel tie, that 
anye body in their moste nede of helpe and 
comforte, should be caste of and forsaken, and 
that olde age, whych both bringeth sicknes with 
it, and is a syckenes it selfe, should unkindly and 
unfaythfullye be delte withall. 
-Utopia 24 
Sir Thomas More 
FOR thoughe there be almost no nation under 
heaven that hath lesse nede of Phisicke then 
they, yet this notwithstandyng, Phisicke is no 
where in greater honour. Bycause they counte the 
knowledge of it among the goodlyeste and most 
profytable partes of Philosophic. For whyles they 
by the helpe of this Philosophic searche oute the 
secrete mysteryes of nature, they thinke them- 
self es to receave therby not onlye wonderfull 
greate pleasure, but also to obteine great thankes 
and favour of the autour and maker therof. 
-Utopia 
THE sycke (as I sayde) they see to with great 
affection, and lette nothing at al passe concern- 
ing either Physicke or good diete, whereby they 
may be restored againe to their health. 
-Utopia Sir Thomas More 
25 
FOR al they beleve certeinly and sewerly that 
mans blesse shal be so great, that they do 
mourne and lament every mans sicknes, but no 
mans death, oneles it be one whome they see de- 
part from his life carefullie, and agaynst his will. 
-Utopia 
ALL that departe merely and ful of good hope, 
for them no man mourneth, but followeth the 
heerse with joyfull synging, commending the soules 
to God with great affection. And at the last, not 
with mourning sorrow, but with a great reverence 
they bourne the bodies. And in the same place 
they sette up a piller of stone, with the dead mans 
titles therin graved. When they be come home 
they reherse his vertuous manners and his good 
dedes. But no part of his life is so oft or gladly 
talked of as his meri deth. 
-Utopia FRANCIS BACON 
1561-1626 
FRANCIS BACON, born in London, was the son 
of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the 
Seals. 
He studied at the University of Cambridge and 
became a lawyer. In 1617 he was made Lord 
Keeper and later became Lord Chancellor. The 
titles of Baron Verulam and of Viscount St. Al- 
bans were given him. 
He was accused of accepting bribes, and al- 
though three appears some reason to believe that 
he had not really been unconscientious, he was 
fined and sentenced to prison. The fine was re 
moved and he was freed after two days and was 
pensioned. 
Bacon wrote in the field of philosophy and sci- 
ence. Many of his works are written in Latin. 
Prominent among his English writings are his Es- 
says which are said to be the first of that title in 
the English language. In being essentially col- 
lections of aphorisms the Essays differ in form 
from recent writings of that name. 
Bacon kept a so-called Promus or Common- 
place-Book in which he recorded thoughts that oc- 
curred to him or passages that he read. 
The comments in this Promus Book he called 
" salt-pits, that you may extract salt out of, and 
sprinkle as you will." 1561-1626 Francis Bacon 
29 
IT IS as Naturall to die, as to be borne; and to a 
little Infant, perhaps, the one, is as painfull, as 
the other. 
-Essaye of Death 
HE THAT dies in an earnest Pursuit, is like one 
that is wounded in hot Bloud; who, for the 
time, scarce feeles the Hurt; And therefore, a 
Minde fixt, and bent upon somewhat, that is good, 
doth avert the Dolors of Death: But above all, be- 
leeve it, the sweetest Canticle is, Nunc Dimittis; 
when a Man hath obtained worthy Ends, and Ex- 
pectations. Death hath this also; That it openeth 
the Gate, to good Fame, and extinguisheth Envie. 
-Essaye of Death 
NAY, retire Men cannot, when they would; 
neither will they, when it were Reason: But 
are impatient of privatenesse, even in Age, and 
Sicknesse, which require the Shadow. 
-Essaye of Great Place 30 
Francis Bacon 
rpHIS Envy, being in the Latine word Invidia, 
goeth in the Moderne languages, by the name 
of Discontentment: of which we shall speake in 
handling Sedition. It is a disease, in a State, like 
to Infection. For as Infection, spreadeth upon that, 
which is sound, and tainteth it; So when Envy is 
gotten once into a State, it traduceth even the best 
Actions thereof, and turneth them into an ill 
Odour. 
-Essaye of Envy 
INFECTIONS; which if you feare them, you call 
them upon you. 
-Essaye of Envy 
CERTAINLY, Men in Great Fortunes, are stran- 
gers to themselves, and while they are in the 
pusle of businesse, they have no time to tend their 
Health, either of Body, or Minde. 
-Essays of Great Place Francis Bacon 
31 
SURELY, as there are Mountebanques for the 
Naturall Body: So are there Mountebanques 
for the Politique Body: Men that undertake great 
Cures; And perhaps have been Lucky, in two or 
three Experiments, but want the Grounds of Sci- 
ence; And therfore cannot hold out. Nay you shall 
see a Bold Fellow, many times, doe Mahomets 
Miracle. ... So these men, when they have prom- 
ised great Matters, and failed most shamefully, 
(yet if they have the perfection of Boldnesse) 
they will but slight it over, and make a turne, and 
no more adoe. 
-Essaye of Boldnesse 
FOR the Rebellions of the Belly are the worst 
As for Discontentments, they are in the Poli- 
tique Body, like to Humours in the Naturall, which 
are apt to gather a preternaturall Heat, and to en- 
flame. 
-Essaye of Seditions and Troubles 32 
Francis Bacon 
FOR the Remedies: There may be some generall 
Preservatives, whereof wee will speake; As for 
the just Cure, it must answer to the Particular Dis- 
ease: And so be left to Counsel!, rather then Rule. 
-Essaye of Seditions and Troubles 
FOR he that turneth the Humors backe, and mak- 
eth the Wound bleed inwards, endangereth 
maligne Ulcers, and pernicious Impostumations. 
-Essaye of Seditions and Troubles 
A\R else the Remedie, is worse than the Disease. 
-Essaye of Seditions and Troubles Francis Bacon 
33 
BUT the great Atheists, indeed, are Hypocrites; 
which are ever Handling Holy Things, but 
without Feeling. So as they must needs be cauter- 
ized in the End. 
-Essaye of Atheisme 
rpHEREFORE, Care would be had, that (as it 
* fareth in ill Purgings) the Good be not taken 
away, with the Bad; which commonly is done, 
when the People is the Reformer. 
-Essaye of Superstition 
FOR their Merchants; They are Vena Porta; And 
if they flourish not, a Kingdome may have good 
Limmes, but will have empty Veines, and nourish 
little. 
-Essaye of Empire 34 
Francis Bacon 
FOR if a Man watch too long, it is odds he will 
fall asleepe. 
-Essaye of Delayes 
AS the Births of Living Creatures, at first, are 
ill shapen: So are all Innovations, which are 
the Births of Time. 
-Essaye of Innovations 
SURELY every Medicine is an Innovation; And 
he that will not apply New Remedies, must ex- 
pect New Evils. 
-Essaye of Innovations 
AFFECTED Dispatch, is one of the most danger- 
ous things to Businesse that can be. It is like 
that, which the Physicians call Predigestion, or 
Hasty Digestion; which is sure to fill the Body, full 
of Crudities, and secret Seeds of Diseases. 
-Essaye of Dispatch Francis Bacon 
35 
FOR Pre-occupation of Minde, ever requireth 
preface of Speech; Like a Fomentation to 
make the unguent enter. 
-Essaye of Dispatch 
APRINCIPALL Fruit of Friendship, is the Ease 
and Discharge of the Fulnesse and Swellings 
of the Heart, which Passions of all kinds doe cause 
and induce. We know Diseases of Stoppings, and 
Suffocations, are the most dangerous in the body; 
And it is not much otherwise in the Minde. 
-Essaye of Frendship 
YOU may take Sarza to open the Liver; Steele 
to open the Spleene; Flowers of Sulphur for 
the Lungs; Castoreum for the Braine; But no Re- 
ceipt openeth the Heart, but a true Frend; To 
whom you may impart, Griefes, Joyes, Feares, 
Hopes, Suspicions, Counsels, and whatsoever lieth 
upon the Heart, to oppresse it, in a kind of Civill 
Shrift or Confession. 
-Essaye of Frendship 36 
Francis Bacon 
FOR there is no Man, that imparteth his Joyes to 
his Frend, but he joyeth the more; And no 
Man, that imparteth his Griefes to his Frend, but 
hee grieveth the lesse. So that it is, in Truth of 
Operation upon a Mans Minds, of like vertue as 
the Alchymists use to attribute to their Stone, for 
Mans Bodie; That it worketh all Contrary Effects, 
but still to the Good, and Benefit of Nature. 
-Essaye of Frendship 
AND there is no such Remedy, against Flattery 
of a Mans Selfe, as the Liberty of a Frend. 
-Essaye of Frendship 
THE best Preservative to keepe the Minde in 
Healthe, is the faithfull Admonition of a Frend. 
-Essaye of Frendship Francis Bacon 
37 
THE Calling of a Mans Selfe, to a Strict Account, 
is a Medicine, sometime, too Piercing and Cor- 
rosive. Reading good Bookes of Morality, is a lit- 
tle Flat, and Dead. Observing our Faults in Oth- 
ers, is sometimes unproper for our Case. But the 
best Receipt (best (I say) to worke, and best to 
take) is the Admonition of a Frend. 
-Essaye of Frendship 
EVEN as if you would call a Physician, that is 
thought good, for the Cure of the Disease, you 
complaine of, but is unacquainted with your body; 
And therefore, may put you in way for a present 
Cure, but overthroweth your Health in some other 
kinde; And so cure the Disease, and kill the 
Patient. 
-Essaye of Frendship 
BUT Wounds cannot be Cured without Search- 
ing. 
-Essaye of Expence 38 
Francis Bacon 
KTO RODY can be healthfull without Exercise, 
neither Naturall Body, nor Politique: And 
certainly, to a Kingdome or Estate, a Just and Hon- 
ourable Warre, is the true Exercise. A Civill 
Warre, indeed, is like the Heat of a Feaver; But a 
Forraine Warre, is like the Heat of Exercise, and 
serveth to keepe the Body in Health: For in a 
Slothfull Peace, both Courages will effeminate, 
and Manners Corrupt. 
-Essaye of the true Greatnesse 
of Kingdomes and Estates 
THERE is a wisdome in this, beyond the Rules 
of Physicke: A Mans owne Observation, what 
he Andes Good of, and what he Andes hurt of, is 
the best Physicke to preserve Health. 
-Essaye of Regiment of Health 
BUT it is a safer Conclusion to say; This agreeth 
not well with me, therefore 1 will not continue 
it; Then this; 1 finde no offence of this, therefore 1 
may use it. 
-Essaye of Regiment of Health Francis Bacon 
39 
OTRENGTH of Nature in youth, passeth over 
many Excesses, which are owing a Man till 
his Age. 
-Essaye of Regiment of Health 
TXISCERNE of the Comming on of Yeares, and 
thinke not, to doe the same Things still; For 
Age will not be Defied. 
-Essaye of Regiment of Health 
OEWARE of sudden Change in any great point 
of Diet, and if necessity inforce it, fit the rest 
to it For it is a Secret, both in Nature, and State; 
That it is safer to change Many Things, then one. 
-Essaye of Regiment of Health 
TO BE free minded, and cheerefully 
Houres of Meat, and of Sleep, and of Exercise, 
is one of the best Precepts of Long lasting. 
-Essaye of Regiment of Health 40 
Francis Bacon 
EXAMINE thy Customes, of Diet, Sleepe, Exer- 
cise, Apparell, and the like; And trie in any 
Thing, thou shalt judge hurtfull, to discontinue it 
by little and little; But so, as if thou doest finde 
any Inconvenience by the Change, thou come 
backe to it againe: For it is hard to distinguish, 
that which is generally held good, and wholesome, 
from that, which is good particularly, and fit for 
thine owne Body. 
-Essaye of Regiment of Health 
IF YOU flie Physicke in Health altogether, it will 
* be too strange for your Body, when you shall 
need it. If you make it too familiar, it will work 
no Extraordinary Effect, when Sicknesse commeth. 
-Essaye of Regiment of Health 
I COMMEND rather, some Diet, for certaine Sea- 
* sons^ then frequent Use of Physicke, Except it 
be growen into a Custome. For Those Diets alter 
the Body more, and trouble it lesse. 
-Essaye of Regiment of Health Francis Bacon 
41 
r\ESPISE no new Accident, in your Body, but 
aske Opinion of it. 
-Essaye of Regiment of Health 
IN Sicknesse, respect Health principally; And in 
Health, Action. For those that put their Bodies, 
to endure in Health, may in most Sicknesses, 
which are not very sharpe, be cured onely with 
Diet, and Tendering. 
-Essaye of Regiment of Health 
CELSUS could never have spoken it as a Physi- 
cian, had he not been a Wise Man withall; 
when he giveth it, for one of the great precepts of 
Health and Lasting; That a Man doe vary, and en- 
terchange Contraries; But with an Inclination to 
the more benigne Extreme: Use Fasting, and full 
Eating, but rather full Eating; Watching and 
Sleep, but rather Sleep; Sitting, and Exercise, but 
rather Exercise; and the like. So shall Nature be 
cherished, and yet taught Masteries. 
-Essaye of Regiment of Health 42 
Francis Bacon 
OHYSICIANS are some of them so pleasing, and 
conformable to the Humor of the Patient, as 
they presse not the true Cure of the Disease; And 
some other are so Regular, in proceeding accord- 
ing to Art, for the Disease, as they respect not suf- 
ficiently the Condition of the Patient. Take one of 
a Middle Temper; Or if it may not be found in one 
Man, combine two of either sort: And forget not to 
call, as well the best acquainted with your Body, 
as the best reputed of for his Faculty. 
-Essaye of Regiment of Health 
MBITION is like Choler; Which is an Humour, 
** that maketh Men Active, Earnest, Full of 
Alacritie, and Stirring, if it be not stopped. But if it 
be stopped, and cannot have his Way, it becom- 
meth Adust, and thereby Maligne and Venomous. 
-Essaye of Ambition 
MERCHANDIZING; Which is the Vena Porta 
of Wealth in a State. 
-Essaye of Usurie Francis Bacon 
43 
yOUNG MEN, in the Conduct, and Mannage of 
* Actions, . . . Use Extreme Remedies at first; 
And, that which doubleth all Errours, will not ac- 
knowledge or retract them; Like an unready 
Horse, that will neither Stop, nor Turne. 
-Essaye of Youth and Age 
A ND certainly, the more a Man drinketh of the 
** World, the more it intoxicate th. 
-Essaye of Youth and Age 
SOME Bookes are to be Tasted, Others to be 
Swallowed, and Some Few to be Chewed and 
Digested. 
-Essaye of Studies 
NAY there is no Stond or Impediment in the Wit, 
but may be wrought out by Fit Studies: Like 
as Diseases of the Body, may have Appropriate 
Exercises. 
-Essaye of Studies 44 
Francis Bacon 
TJOWLING is good for the Stone and Reines; 
" Shooting for the Lungs and Breast; Gentle 
Walking for the Stomacke; Riding for the Head; 
And the like. 
-Essaye of Studies 
SO IF a Mans Wit be Wandring, let him Study 
the Mathematicks; For in Demonstrations, if 
his Wit be called away never so little, he must be- 
gin again: If his Wit be not Apt to distinguish or 
find differences, let him Study the Schoole-men; 
For they are Cymini sectorcs. If he be not Apt to 
beat over Matters, and to call up one Thing, to 
Prove and Illustrate another, let him Study the 
Lawyers Cases: So every Defect of the Minde, may 
have a Speciall Receit. 
-Essaye of Studies 
ENVY, which is the Canker of Honour, is best 
extinguished, by declaring a Mans Selfe, in his 
Ends, rather to seeke Merit, then Fame. 
-Essaye of Honor and Reputation Francis Bacon 
45 
SOME Men are Praised Maliciously to their Hurt, 
therby to stirre Envie and Jealousie towards 
them; Pessimum genus Inimicorum laudantiurn; 
In so much as it was a Proverb, amongst the Gre- 
cians; that, He that was praised to his Hurt, should 
have a Push rise upon his Nose: As we say; That 
a Blister will rise upon ones Tongue, that tell's a 
lye. 
-Essaye of Praise 
\ ND let no Man weakly conceive, that Just 
Laws, and True Policie, have any Antipathic: 
For they are like the Spirits, and Sinewes, that 
One moves with the Other. 
-Essaye of Judicature 46 
Francis Bacon 
fa NGER is certainly a kind of Basenesse: As it 
** appeares well, in the Weaknesse of those 
Subjects, in whom it reignes: Children, Women, 
Old Folkes, Sicke Folkes. 
-Essage of Anger 
THAT sick man does ill for himself, who makes 
his physician his heir. 
-Elegant Sentences ROBERT BURTON 
1576-1636 
OOBERT BURTON was born at Lindley in Lei- 
cestershire. In 1593 he went to Brazen Nose 
College. In November, 1616, the vicarage of St. 
Thomas, in the west suburb of Oxford, was con- 
ferred upon him, and in 1636 he was given the 
rectory of Segrave in Leicestershire. 
Burton is said to have determined, by means 
of calculation, that his death would occur in his 
sixty-second year. The event transpired in the 
predicted year. 
He is reported to have written the Anatomy of 
Melancholy to relieve his own melancholy but with 
the result of making it worse. 
The Anatomy of Melancholy is a ponderous, 
mystical work containing much quasi-medical ma- 
terial which does not lend itself readily to quota- 
tion. The preface, however, contains quotable re- 
marks of a medical trend. 
Burton used the pen-name of Democritus Junior. ROBERT BURTON 
1577-1640 
FRONTISPIECE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION Robert Burton 
49 
T^HERE is no greater cause of melancholy than 
* idleness, "no better cure than business," as 
Rhasis holds. 
-Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus 
Junior to the Reader 
K S APOTHECARIES we make new mixtures 
** every day, pour out of one vessel into an- 
other; and as those old Romans robbed all the 
cities of the world, to set out their bad-sited Rome, 
we skim off the cream of other men's wits, pick 
the choice flowers of their tilled gardens to set 
out our own sterile plots. 
-Democritus to the Reader 
1 MIGHT indeed (had I wisely done) observed 
that precept of the poet,-nonumque prematur 
in annum, and have taken more care: or, as Alex- 
ander the physician would have done by lapis la- 
zuli, fifty times washed before it be used I should 
have revised, corrected and amended this tract; 
but I had not (as I said) that happy leisure, no 
amanuenses or assistants. 
-Democritus to the Reader 50 
Robert Burton 
T^HOUGH there were many giants of old in 
* Physic and Philosophy, yet I say with Didacus 
Stella, "A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a 
giant may see farther than a giant himself;" I 
may likely add, alter, and see farther than my 
predecessors; and it is no greater prejudice for 
me to indite after others, than for TElianus Mon- 
taltus, that famous physician, to write de morbis 
capitis after Jason Pratensis, Heurnius, Hilde- 
sheim, &c., many horses to run in a race, one lo- 
gician, one rhetorician, after another. 
-Democritus to the Reader 
And as that great captain Zisca would have a 
drum made of his skin when he was dead, 
because he thought the very noise of it would put 
his enemies to flight, I doubt not but that these 
following lines, when they shall be recited, or 
hereafter read, will drive away melancholy 
(though I be gone), as much as Zisca's drum could 
terrify his foes. 
-Democritus to the Reader Robert Burton 
51 
J'T'IS a general fault, so Severinus the Dane com- 
* plains in physic, "unhappy men as we are, 
we spend our days in unprofitable questions and 
disputations,' intricate subtleties, de land caprind, 
about moonshine in the water, "leaving in the 
meantime those chiefest treasures of nature un- 
touched, wherein the best medicines for all man- 
ner of diseases are to be found, and do not only 
neglect them ourselves, but hinder, condemn, for- 
bid, and scoff at others, that are willing to inquire 
after them." These motives at this present have 
induced me to make choice of this medicinal sub- 
ject. 
-Democritus to the Reader 
VfET one caution let me give by the way to my 
* present, or my future reader, who is actually 
melancholy, that he read not the symptoms or 
prognostics in this following tract, lest by apply- 
ing that which he reads to himself, aggravating, 
appropriating things generally spoken, to his own 
person (as melancholy men for the most part do), 
he trouble or hurt himself, and get in conclusion 
more harm than good. 
-Democritus to the Reader 52 
Robert Burton 
IF ANY physician in the mean time shall infer, 
* Ne sutor ultra crepidam, and find himself 
grieved that I have intruded into his profession, I 
will tell him in brief, I do not otherwise by them, 
than they do by us. If it be for their advantage, I 
know many of their sect which have taken orders, 
in hope of a benefice, 'tis a common transition, and 
why may not a melancholy divine, that can get 
nothing but by simony, profess physic? Drusi- 
anus an Italian (Crusianus, but corruptly, Trith- 
emius calls him) "because he was not fortunate in 
his practice, forsook his profession, and writ after- 
wards in divinity." Marcilius Ficinus was semel 
et simul; a priest and a physician at once, and T. 
Linacer in his old age took orders. 
-Democritus to the Reader 
IF THIS my discourse be over-medicinal, or sav- 
our to much of humanity, I promise thee that I 
will hereafter make thee amends in some treatise 
of divinity. 
-Democritus to the Reader Robert Burton 
53 
IT IS a disease of the soul on which I am to treat, 
and as much as pertaining to a divine as to a 
physician, and who knows not what an agreement 
there is betwixt these two professions? A good 
divine either is or ought to be a good physician, a 
spiritual physician at least, as our Saviour calls 
himself, and was indeed, Matt, iv, 23; Luke v, 18; 
Luke vii, 8. 
They differ but in object, the one of the body, 
the other of the soul, and use divers medicines to 
cure: one amends animam per corpus, the other 
corpus per animam, as our Regius Professor of 
physic well informed us in a learned lecture of his 
not long since. One helps the vices and passions of 
the soul, anger, lust, desperation, pride, presump- 
tion, &c., by applying that spiritual physic; as the 
other uses proper remedies in bodily diseases. 
-Democritus to the Reader 
A DIVINE in this compound mixed malady can 
do little alone, a physician in some kinds of 
melancholy much less, both make an absolute 
cure. 
-Democritus to the Reader 54 
Robert Burton 
FROM the highest to the lowest have need of 
physic. 
-Democritus to the Reader 
WHO is not touched more or less in habit or 
disposition? If in disposition, "ill disposi- 
tions beget habits, if they persevere," saith Plu- 
tarch, habits either are, or turn to diseases. 
-Democritus to the Reader 
J'T'IS the same which Tully maintains in the sec- 
* ond of his Tuscalans, omnium insipientum 
animi in morbo sunt, et perturbatorum, fools are 
sick, and all that are troubled in mind: for what is 
sickness, but as Gregory Tholosanus defines it, "A 
dissolution or perturbation of the bodily league, 
which health combines:" and who is not sick, or 
ill-disposed? in whom doth not passion, anger, 
envy, discontent, fear and sorrow reign? Who la- 
bours not of this disease? 
-Democritus to the Reader Robert Burton 
55 
GIVE me but a little leave, and you shall see by 
what testimonies, confessions, arguments, I 
will evince it, that most men are mad, that they 
had as much need to go a pilgrimage to the Anti- 
cyrae (as in Strabo's time they did) as in our days 
they run to Compostella, our Lady of Sichem, or 
Lauretta, to seek for help; that it is likely to be as 
prosperous a voyage as that of Guiana, and that 
there is much more need of hellebore than of 
tobacco. 
-Democritus to the Reader 
r\ EMO GRIT US on the other side, burst out a 
laughing, their whole life seemed to him so 
ridiculous, and he was so far carried with this 
ironical passion, that the citizens of Abdera took 
him to be mad, and sent therefore ambassadors to 
Hippocrates, the physician, that he would exercise 
his skill upon him. But the story is set down at 
large by Hippocrates, in his epistle to Damogetus, 
which because it is not impertinent to this dis- 
course, I will insert verbatim almost as it is de- 
livered by Hippocrates himself, with all the cir- 
cumstances belonging unto it. 
-Democritus to the Reader 56 
Robert Burton 
AX/HEN Hippocrates was now come to Abdera 
' ' the people of the city came flocking about 
him, some weeping, some entreating of him, that 
he would do his best. After some little repast, he 
went to see Democritus, the people following him, 
whom he found (as before) in his garden in the 
suburbs all alone, "sitting upon a stone under a 
plane tree, without hose or shoes, with a book on 
his knees, cutting up several beasts, and busy at his 
study." The multitude stood gazing round about to 
see the congress. Hippocrates, after a little pause, 
saluted him by his name, whom he resaluted, 
ashamed almost that he could not call him like- 
wise by his, or that he had forgot it. Hippocrates 
demanded of him what he was doing: he told him 
that he was "busy in cutting up several beasts, to 
find out the cause of madness and melancholy." 
Hippocrates commended his work, admiring his 
happiness and leisure. And why, quoth Demo- 
critus, have not you that leisure? Because, re- 
plied Hippocrates, domestic affairs hinder, neces- 
sary to be done for ourselves, neighbours, friends; 
expenses, diseases, frailties and mortalities which 
happen; wife, children, servants, and such busi- 
nesses which deprive us of our time. At this speech Robert Burton 
57 
Democritus profusely laughed (his friends and 
the people standing by, weeping in the meantime, 
and lamenting his madness). 
-Democritus to the Reader 
IDO anatomise and cut up these poor beasts, to 
see these distempers, vanities, and follies, yet 
such proof were better made on man's body, if 
my kind nature would endure it: who from the 
hour of his birth is most miserable, weak, and 
sickly; when he sucks he is guided by others, when 
he is grown great practiseth unhappiness and is 
sturdy, and when old, a child again, and repenteth 
him of his life past. 
-Democritus to the Reader 
SO THAT if men would attempt no more than 
what they can bear, they should lead contented 
lives, and learning to know themselves, would 58 
Robert Burton 
limit their ambition, they would perceive then that 
nature hath enough without seeking such super- 
fluities, and unprofitable things, which bring noth- 
ing with them but grief and molestation. As a fat 
body is more subject to diseases, so are rich men to 
absurdities and fooleries, to many casualties and 
cross inconveniences. 
-Democritus M the Reader 
SEEING men are so fickle, so sottish, so intemp- 
erate, why should not I laugh at those to whom 
folly seems wisdom, will not be cured, and per- 
ceive it not? 
It grew late: Hippocrates left him; and no 
sooner was he come away, but all the citizens came 
about flocking, to know how he liked him. He 
told them in brief, that notwithstanding those 
small neglects of his attire, body, diet, the world 
had not a wiser, a more learned, a more honest 
man, and they were much deceived to say that he 
was mad. 
-Democritus to the Reader Robert Burton 
59 
HE THAT was a mariner to-day, is an apothe- 
cary to-morrow. 
-Democritus to the Reader 
J'T'IS not to be denied, the world alters every 
* day, Ruunt urbes, regna transferuntur, &c. 
variantur habitus, leges innovantur, as Petrarch 
observes, we change language, habits, laws, cus- 
toms, manners, but not vices, not diseases, not the 
symptoms of folly and madness, they are still the 
same. 
-Democritus to the Reader 
WOULD he, think you, or any man else, say 
that these men were well in their wits? 
Haec sani esse hominis quis sanus juret Orestes? 
Can all the hellebore in the Anticyrse cure these 
men? No sure, "an acre of hellebore will not 
do it." 
-Democritus to the Reader 60 
Robert Burton 
'T'HAT which is more to be lamented, they are 
* mad like Seneca's blind woman, and will not 
acknowledge, or seek for any cure of it. . . . If our 
leg or arm offend us, we covet by all means pos- 
sible to redress it; and if we labour of a bodily 
disease, we send for a physician; but for the dis- 
eases of the mind we take no notice of them. 
-Democritus to the Reader 
WE ARE torn in pieces by our passions, as so 
many wild horses, one in disposition, an- 
other in habit; one is melancholy, another mad; 
and which of us all seeks for help, doth acknowl- 
edge his error, or knows he is sick? 
-Democritus to the Reader 
WHO will say that a sick man is wise, that 
eats and drinks to overthrow the tempera- 
ture of his body? Can you account him wise or 
discreet that would willingly have his health, and 
yet will do nothing that should procure or con- 
tinue it? 
-Democritus to the Reader Robert Burton 
61 
\ S Tully determines out of an old poem, no mor- 
** tai men can avoid sorrow and sickness, and 
sorrow is an inseparable companion from mel- 
ancholy. 
-Democritus to the Reader 
WHERE they be generally riotous and conten- 
tions, where there be many discords, many 
laws, many lawsuits, many lawyers and many 
physicians, it is a manifest sign of a distempered, 
melancholy state, as Plato long since maintained: 
for where such kind of men swarm, they will make 
more work for themselves, and that body politic 
diseased, which was otherwise sound. 
-Democritus to the Reader 
NEMO in nostra civitate mendicus esto, saith 
Plato: he will have them purged from a com- 
monwealth, "as a bad humour from the body," 
that are like so many ulcers and boils, and must 
be cured before the melancholy body can be eased. 
-Democritus to the Reader 62 
Robert Burton 
IN EVERY so built city, I will have . . . hospitals 
* of all kinds, for children, orphans, old folks, 
sick men, mad men, soldiers, pest houses, &c. . . . 
and those hospitals so built and maintained, not 
by collections, benevolences, donaries, for a set 
number (as in ours,) just so many and no more 
. . . and that ex publico aerario, and so still 
maintained. ... I will have conduits of sweet and 
good water, aptly disposed in each town, com- 
mon granaries, as at Dresden in Misnia, Stetein 
in Pomerland, Noremberg, &c. Colleges of mathe- 
maticians, musicians, and actors, as of old at La- 
bedum in Ionia, alchymists, physicians, artists, and 
philosophers; that all arts and sciences may sooner 
be perfected and better learned. 
-Democritus to the Reader 
FRATERNITIES and companies, I approve of, 
as merchants' bourses, colleges of druggists, 
physicians, musicians, &c. 
-Democritus to the Reader Robert Burton 
63 
IF it were possible, I would have such priests as 
should imitate Christ, charitable lawyers 
should love their neighbours as themselves, tem- 
perate and modest physicians, politicians contemn 
the world, philosophers should know themselves, 
noblemen live honestly, tradesmen leave lying and 
cozening, magistrates corruption, &c., but this is 
impossible, I must get such as I may. I will there- 
fore have of lawyers, judges, advocates, physi- 
cians, chirurgeons, &c., a set number, and every 
man, if it be possible, to plead his own cause, to 
tell that tale to the judge which he doth to his 
advocate, . . . Those advocates, chirurgeons, and 
physicians, which are allowed to be maintained 
out of the common treasury, no fees to be given or 
taken upon pain of losing their places; or if they 
do, very small fees, and when the cause is fully 
ended. -Democritus to the Reader 
WHEREFORE I will suffer no beggars, rogues, 
vagabonds, or idle persons at all, that cannot 
give an account of their lives how they maintain 
themselves. If they be impotent, lame, blind, and 
single, they shall be sufficiently maintained in sev- 
eral hospitals, built for that purpose. 
-Democritus to the Reader 64 
Robert Burton 
NO MAN shall marry until he be 25, no woman 
until she be 20, nisi aliter dispensatum fuerit. 
. . . And when once they come to those years, pov- 
erty shall hinder no man from marriage, or any 
other respect, but all shall be rather enforced 
than hindered, except they be dismembered, or 
grievously deformed, infirm, or visited with some 
enormous hereditary disease, in body or mind; in 
such cases upon a great pain, or mulct, man or 
woman shall not marry, other order shall be taken 
for them to their content 
-Democritus to the Reader 
IT IS a wonder that Paulus Jovius relates of our 
northern countries, what an infinite deal of 
meat we consume on our tables; that I may truly 
say, 'tis not bounty, not hospitality, as it is often 
abused, but riot and excess, gluttony and prodi- 
gality; a mere vice; it brings in debt, want, and 
beggary, hereditary diseases, consumes their for- 
tunes, and overthrows the good temperature of 
their bodies. 
-Democritus to the Reader Robert Burton 
65 
A S IT is in a man's body, if either head, heart, 
stomach, liver, spleen, or any one part be 
misaffected, all the rest suffer with it: so is it with 
this economical body. 
-Democritus to the Reader 
'T'HESE acute and subtle sophisters, so much 
* honored, have as much need of hellebore as 
others. 
-Democritus to the Reader 
IF SCHOOL divinity be so censured. . . . What 
* shall become of humanity? Ars stulta, what 
can she plead? What can her followers say for 
themselves? Much learning . . . hath cracked 
their sconce, and taken such root, that . . . helle- 
bore itself can do no good, nor that renowned lan- 
thorn of Epictetus, by which if any man studied, 
he should be as wise as he was. 
-Democritus to the Reader 66 
Robert Burton 
D UDAEUS, in an epistle of his to Lupsetus, will 
have civil law to be the tower of wisdom; an- 
other honours physic, the quistessence of nature; 
a third tumbles them both down, and sets up the 
flag of his own peculiar science. 
-Democritus to the Reader 
L0VE is madness, a hell, an incurable disease. 
-Democritus to the Reader 
T CAN say no more than in particular, but in gen- 
* eral terms to the rest, they are all mad, their 
wits are evaporated, and as Ariosto feigns 1.34. 
kept in jars above the moon. . . . 
Convicted fools they are, madmen upon record; 
and I am afraid past cure many of them . . . the 
symptoms are manifest, they are all of Gotam 
parish. . . . what remains then but to send for 
Lorarios, those officers to carry them all together 
for company to Bedlam, and set Rabelais to be 
their physician. 
-Democritus to the Reader Robert Burton 
67 
HPO CONCLUDE, this being granted, that all the 
* world is melancholy, or mad, doats, and every 
member of it, I have ended my task, and suffi- 
ciently illustrated that which I took upon me to 
demonstrate at first. At this present I have no 
more to say. ... I can but wish myself and them 
a good physician, and all of us a better mind. 
-Democritus to the Reader 
A ND although for the above named reasons, I 
had a just cause to undertake this subject, to 
point at these particular species of dotage, that so 
men might acknowledge their imperfections, and 
seek to reform what is amiss; yet I have a more 
serious intent at this time; and to omit all imperti- 
nent digressions, to say no more of such as are 
improperly melancholy, or metaphorically mad, 
lightly mad, or in disposition, as stupid, angry, 
drunken, silly, sottish, sullen, proud, vain-glorious, 
ridiculous, beastly, peevish, obstinate, impudent, 
extravagant, dry, doting, dull, desperate, hare- 
brain, &c., mad, frantic, foolish, heteroclites, which 
no new hospital can hold, no physic help; my pur- 
pose and endeavour is, in the following discourse 68 
Robert Burton 
to anatomize this humour of melancholy, through 
all its parts and species, as it is an habit, or an 
ordinary disease, and that philosophically, medici- 
nally, to show the causes, symptoms, and several 
cures of it, that it may be the better avoided. 
Moved thereunto for the generality of it, and to do 
good, it being a disease so frequent, as Mercurialis 
observes, "in these our days; so often happening," 
saith Laurentius, "in our miserable times," as few 
there are that feel not the smart of it. 
-Democritus to the Reader 
OF THE same mind is <Elian Montalius, Melanc- 
thon, and others; Julius Caesar Claudinus 
calls it the "fountain of all other diseases, and so 
common in this crazed age of ours, that scarce one 
of a thousand is free from it;" and that splenetic 
hypochondriacal wind especially, which proceeds 
from the spleen and short ribs. 
-Democritus to the Reader Robert Burton 
69 
OEING then a disease so grievous, so common, I 
" know not wherein to do a more general serv- 
ice, and spend my time better, than to prescribe 
means how to prevent and cure so universal a 
malady, an epidemical disease, that so often, so 
much crucifies the body and mind. 
-Democritus to the Reader 
OBJECT then and cavil what thou wilt, I ward 
all with Democritus's buckler, his medicine 
shall salve it; strike where thou wilt, and when: 
Democritus dixit, Democritus will answer it. 
-Democritus to the Reader 
NO, I recant, I will not, I care, I fear, I confess 
my fault, acknowledge a great offence, . . . 
I have overshot myself, I have spoken foolishly, 
rashly, unadvisedly, absurdly, I have anatomized 70 
Robert Burton 
mine own folly. And now methinks upon a sud- 
den I am awaked as it were out of a dream; I 
have had a raving fit, a fantastical fit, ranged up 
and down, in and out, I have insulted over the 
most kind of men, abused some, offended others, 
wronged myself; and now being recovered, and 
perceiving mine error, cry with Orlando, Solvite 
me, pardon (o boni) that which is past, and I will 
make you amends in that which is to come; I 
promise you a more sober discourse in my follow- 
ing treatise. 
-Democritus to the Reader 
IF THOU knewest my modesty and simplicity, 
thou wouldst easily pardon and forgive what is 
here amiss, or by thee misconceived. If hereafter 
anatomizing this surly humour, my hand slip, as 
an unskilful 'prentice I lance too deep, and cut 
through skin and all at unawares, make it smart, 
or cut awry, pardon a rude hand, an unskilful 
knife, 'tis a most difficult thing to keep an even 
tone, a perpetual tenor, and not sometimes to lash 
out. 
-Democritus to the Reader SIR THOMAS BROWNE 
1605-1682 
SIR Thomas Browne, physician, was born in Lon- 
don and died at Norwich where he resided for 
many years. 
He was the author of Religio Medici, Inquiries 
into Vulgar and Common Errors, Hgdriotaphia, or 
Urn-Burial. 
Professor Saintsbury is quoted as characterizing 
Sir Thomas Browne as "the greatest prose writer 
perhaps, when all things are taken together, in the 
whole range of English." Sir Thomas Browne 
73 
FOR MY Religion, though there be several Cir- 
cumstances that might perswade the World I 
have none at all (as the general scandal of my 
Profession, the natural course of my Studies. . . .) 
yet, in despight thereof, I dare without usurpation 
assume the honorable stile of a Christian. 
-Religio Medici 
THOSE have not onely depraved understand- 
ings, but diseased affections, which cannot en- 
joy a singularity without an Heresie, or be the Au- 
thor of an Opinion without they be of a Sect also. 
-Religio Medici 
AS FOR those wingy Mysteries in Divinity, and 
airy subtleties in Religion, which have un- 
hing'd the brains of better heads, they never 
stretched the Pia Mater of mine. 
-Religio Medici 74 
Sir Thomas Browne 
I REMEMBER a Doctor in Physick, of Italy, who 
could not perfectly believe the immortality of 
the Soul, because Galen seemed to make a doubt 
thereof. With another I was familiarly acquainted 
in France, a Divine, and a man of singular parts, 
that on the same point was so plunged and 
gravelled with three lines of Seneca that all our 
Antidotes drawn from both Scripture and Phil- 
osophy, could not expel the poyson of his errour. 
-Religio Medici 
WHOSOEVER feels not the warm gale and gen- 
tle ventilation of this Spirit, though I feel 
his pulse, I dare not say he lives. 
-Religio Medici 
THAT we are the breath and similitude of God, 
it is indisputable, and upon record of Holy 
Scripture; but to call ourselves a Microcosm, or 
little World, I thought it only a pleasant trope of 
Rhetorick, till my neer judgement and second 
thoughts told me there was a real truth therein. 
-Religio Medici Sir Thomas Browne 
75 
POR first we are a rude mass, and in the rank 
of creatures which onely are, and have a dull 
kind of being, not yet priviledged with life, or pre- 
ferred to sense or reason; next we live the life of 
Plants, the life of Animals, the life of Men, and 
at last the life of Spirits, running on in one mys- 
terious nature those five kinds of existences, which 
comprehend the creatures, not onely of the World, 
but of the Universe. Thus is Man that great and 
true Amphibium, whose nature is disposed to live, 
not onely like other creatures in divers elements, 
but in divided and distinguished worlds: for 
though there be but one to sense, there are two to 
reason, the one visible, the other invisible; whereof 
Moses seems to have left description, and of the 
other so obscurely, that some parts thereof are yet 
in controversie. -Religio Medici 
IN OUR study of Anatomy there is a mass of mys- 
* terious Philosophy, and such as reduced the 
very Heathens to Divinity: yet, amongst all these 
rare discoveries and curious pieces I find in the 
Fabrick of Man, I do not so much content myself 
as in that I find not, there is no Organ or Instru- 
ment for the rational Soul. 
-Religio Medici 76 
Sir Thomas Browne 
POR in the brain, which we term the scat of Rca- 
* son, there is not anything of moment more 
than I can discover in the crany of a beast: and 
this is a sensible and no inconsiderable argument 
of the inorganity of the Soul, at least in that sense 
we usually so receive it. Thus we are men, and 
we know not how: there is something in us that 
can be without us, and will be after us; though it 
is strange that it hath no history what it was be- 
fore us, nor cannot tell how it entred in us. 
-Religio Medici 
WJOW, for these walls of flesh, wherein the Soul 
doth seem to be immured before the Resur- 
rection, it is nothing but an elemental composition, 
and a Fabrick that must fall to ashes. All flesh is 
grass, is not onely metaphorically, but litterally, 
true; for all those creatures we behold are but the 
herbs of the field, digested into flesh in them, or 
more remotely carnificd in our selves. Nay fur- 
ther, we are what we all abhor, Anthropophagi 
and Cannibals, dcvourcrs not onely of men, but of 
our selves; and that not in an allegory, but a posi- 
tive truth: for all this mass of flesh which we be- Sir Thomas Browne 
77 
hold, came in at our mouths; this frame we look 
upon, hath been upon our trenchers; in brief, we 
have devour'd our selves. 
-Religio Medici 
I THANK God I have not those strait ligaments, 
* or narrow obligations to the World, as to dote 
on life, or be convulst and tremble at the name of 
death. Not that I am insensible of the dread and 
horrour thereof; or by raking into the bowels of 
the deceased, continual sight of Anatomies, Skele- 
tons, or Cadaverous reliques, like Vespilloes, or 
Grave-makers, I am become stupid, or have forgot 
the apprehension of Mortality; but that, marshall- 
ing all the horrours, and contemplating the ex- 
tremities thereof, I find not anything therein able 
to daunt the courage of a man, much less a well- 
resolved Christian; and therefore am not angry at 
the errour of our first Parents, or unwilling to bear 
a part of this common fate, and like the best of 
them to dye, that is, to cease to breathe, to take a 
farewel of the elements, to be a kind of nothing 
for a moment, to be within one instant of a Spirit. 
-Religio Medici 78 
Sir Thomas Browne 
K ND sure there is no torture to the rack of a 
** disease, nor any Ponyards in death it self like 
those in the way or prologue to it . . . Were I of 
Caesar's Religion, I should be of his desires, and 
wish rather to go off at one blow, then to be sawed 
in pieces by the grating torture of a disease. 
-Religio Medici 
n/JEN that look no farther than their outsides, 
think health an appurtenance unto life, and 
quarrel with their constitutions for being sick; but 
I, that have examined the parts of man, and know 
upon what tender filaments that Fabrick hangs, 
do wonder that we are not always so; and, con- 
sidering the thousand doors that lead to death, do 
thank my God that we can die but once. 
-Religio Medici 
NOR can I think I have the true Theory of death, 
when I contemplate a skull, or behold a 
Skeleton, with those vulgar imaginations it casts 
upon us. 
-Religio Medici Sir Thomas Browne 
79 
THE Stoicks that condemn passion, and com- 
mand a man to laugh in Phalaris his Bull, 
could not endure without a groan a fit of the Stone 
or Colick. 
-Religio Medici 
I COULD digest a Salad gathered in a Church- 
yard, as well as in a Garden. 
-Religio Medici 
IT is a happiness to be born and framed unto vir- 
* tue, and to grow up from the seeds of nature, 
rather than the inoculation and forced graffs of 
education. 
-Religio Medici 
I MAKE not therefore my head a grave, but a 
* treasure, of knowledge. 
-Religio Medici 80 
Sir Thomas Browne 
I COULD lose an arm without a tear, and with 
few groans, methinks, be quartered into pieces; 
yet can I weep most seriously at a Play, and re- 
ceive with true passion the counterfeit grief of 
those known and professed Impostures. 
-Religio Medici 
TXEMOCRITUS, that thought to laugh the times 
U into goodness, seems to me as Hypochondri- 
ack as Heraclitus, that bewailed them. 
-Religio Medici 
1 CANNOT go to cure the body of my patient, but 
I forget my profession, and call unto God for 
his soul. -Religio Medici 
I KNOW most of the Plants of my Countrey, and 
* of those about me; yet methinks I do not know 
so many as when I did know but a hundred, and 
had scarcely ever Simpled further than Cheap- 
side. -Religio Medici Sir Thomas Browne 
81 
I FEEL not in me those sordid and unchristian 
desires of my profession; I do not secretly im- 
plore and wish for Plagues, rejoyce at Famines, re- 
volve Ephemerides and Almanacks in expectation 
of malignant Aspects, fatal conjunctions, and 
Eclipses. I rejoyce not at unwholesome Springs, 
nor unseasonable Winters; my Prayer goes with 
the Husbandman's; I desire everything in its 
proper season, that neither men nor the times be 
put out of temper. -Religio Medici 
I ET me be sick my self, if sometimes the malady 
" of my patient be not a disease unto me. I de- 
sire rather to cure his infirmities than my own 
necessities. Where I do him no good, methinks it 
is scarce honest gain; though I confess 'tis but the 
worthy salary of our well-intended endeavours. 
-Religio Medici 
I AM not only ashamed, but heartily sorry, that, 
* besides death, there are diseases incurable: yet 
not for my own sake, or that they be beyond my 
Art, but for the general cause and sake of hu- 
manity, whose common cause I apprehend as 
mine own. -Religio Medici 82 
Sir Thomas Browne 
AND to speak more generally, those three Noble 
Professions which all civil Commonwealths 
do honour, are raised upon the fall of Adam, and 
are not any way exempt from their infirmities; 
there are not only diseases incurable in Physick, 
but cases indissolvable in Laws, Vices incorrigible 
in Divinity. 
-Religio Medici 
I CAN cure the Gout or Stone in some, sooner 
than Divinity, Pride, or Avarice in others. I 
can cure Vices by Physick when they remain in- 
curable by Divinity, and shall obey my Pills when 
they contemn their precepts. 
-Religio Medici 
I BOAST nothing, but plainly say, we all labour 
against our own cure; for death is the cure of 
all diseases. There is no Catholicon or universal 
remedy I know, but this; which, though nauseous 
to queasie stomachs, yet to prepared appetites is 
Nectar, and a pleasant potion of immortality. 
-Religio Medici Sir Thomas Browne 
83 
OOR it is also thus in nature: the greatest Bal- 
1 somes do lie enveloped in the bodies of most 
powerful Corrosives. I say, moreover, and I 
ground upon experience, that poisons contain 
within themselves their own Antidote, and that 
which preserves them from the venome of them- 
selves, without which they were not deleterious to 
others onely, but to themselves also. 
-Religio Medici 
OUT IT is the corruption that I fear within me, 
not the contagion of commerce without me. 
'Tis that unruly regiment within me, that will de- 
stroy me; 'tis I that do infect my self; the man 
without a Navel yet lives in me; I feel that origi- 
nal canker corrode and devour me; and therefore 
Defenda me DIOS de me, "Lord deliver me from 
my self," is a part of my Letany, and the first voice 
of my retired imaginations. 
-Religio Medici 84 
Sir Thomas Browne 
T^HERE is no man alone, because every man is a 
* Microcosm, and carries the whole World 
about him. -Religio Medici 
I7OR THE World, I count it not an Inn, but an 
* Hospital; and a place not to live, but to dye in. 
-Religio Medici 
NATURE tells me I am the Image of God, as well 
as Scripture; he that understands not thus 
much, hath not his introduction or first lesson, and 
is yet to begin the Alphabet of man. 
-Religio Medici 
WE ARE somewhat more than ourselves in our 
sleeps, and the slumber of the body seems 
to be but the waking of the soul. It is the ligation 
of sense, but the liberty of reason; and our waking 
conceptions do not match the Fancies of our 
sleeps. -Religio Medici Sir Thomas Browne 
85 
FOR to me, avarice seems not so much a vice, as 
a deplorable piece of madness; to conceive 
ourselves pipkins, or be perswaded that we are 
dead, is not so ridiculous, nor so many degrees be- 
yond the power of Hellebore, as this. 
-Religio Medici 
IF THE example of the Mite be not only an act 
of wonder, but an example of the noblest 
Charity, surely poor men may also build Hospitals, 
and the rich alone have not erected Cathedrals. 
-Religio Medici 
BESIDE, to preserve the living, and make the 
dead to live, to keep men out of their urns, 
and discourse of human fragments in them, is not 
impertinent unto our profession; whose study is 
life and death, who daily behold examples of mor- 
tality, and of all men least need artificial memen- 
toes, or coffins by our bedside, to mind us of our 
graves. 
-Dedication of Urn-Burial 86 
Sir Thomas Browne 
OUT who knows the fate of his bones, or how 
often he is to be buried? 
-Dedication of Urn-Burial 
A NTIQUITY held too light thoughts from objects 
** of mortality, while some drew provocatives 
of mirth from anatomies, and jugglers showed 
tricks with skeletons; when fiddlers made not so 
pleasant mirth as fencers, and men could sit with 
quiet stomachs, while hanging was played before 
them. Old considerations made few mementos by 
skulls and bones upon their monuments. 
-Urn-Burial 
A DIALOGUE between two infants in the womb 
concerning the state of this world, might 
handsomely illustrate our ignorance of the next, 
whereof methinks we yet discourse in Plato's den, 
and are but embryon philosophers. 
-Urn-Burial Sir Thomas Browne 
87 
IF THE nearness of our last necessity brought a 
* nearer conformity into it, there were a happi- 
ness in hoary hairs, and no calamity in half-senses. 
But the long habit of living indisposeth us for dy- 
ing; when avarice makes us the sport of death, 
when even David grew politickly cruel, and Solo- 
mon could hardly be said to be the wisest of men. 
But many are too early old, and before the date of 
age. 
-Urn-Burial 
BUT to subsist in bones, and be but pyramidally 
extant, is a fallacy in duration. 
-Urn-Burial 
THERE is no antidote against the opium of time, 
which temporally considereth all things: our 
fathers find their graves in our short memories, 
and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our 
survivors. 
-Urn-Burial 88 
Sir Thomas Browne 
WHO cares to exist like Hippocrates' patients, 
or Achilles' horses in Homer, under naked 
nominations, without deserts and noble acts, which 
are the balsam of our memories, the entelechia and 
soul of our subsistences? 
-Urn-Burial 
TO be ignorant of evils to come, and forgetful of 
evils past, is a merciful provision in nature, 
whereby we digest the mixture of our few and evil 
days, and, our delivered senses not relapsing into 
cutting remembrances, our sorrows are not kept 
raw by the edge of repetitions. 
-Urn-Burial SAMUEL PEPYS 
1633-1703 
SAMUEL PEPYS was educated at St. Paul's 
school in London and at Magdalen College, 
Cambridge. He held public offices especially in 
connection with the navy and became President of 
the Royal Society. 
In particular Pepys is known by the Diary he 
kept. For many years this Diary, written in short- 
hand, remained at Magdalen College. It was de- 
ciphered by Rev. J. Smith and was published in 
1825. 
The Diary gives a remarkable account of the 
period of the Restoration and of Pepys' personal 
affairs. 
Of especial interest to physicians is the graphic 
and tragic account of the Great Plague which is 
given in the Diary. Of medical interest, also, is 
Pepys' resolve to keep as a festival March twenty- 
sixth, the day on which he "was cut for the 
stone at Mrs. Turner's in Salisbury Court." SAMUEL PEPYS 
1633-1703 Samuel Pepys 
91 
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. 
-1659-60, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
'T'HEN my wife and I, it being a great frost, went 
* to Mrs. Jem's in expectation to eat a sack- 
posset, but Mr. Edward not coming, it was put off; 
and I left my wife playing at cards with her, and 
went myself to Mr. Fage, to consult concerning my 
nose, who told me it was nothing but cold. 
-Jan. 5, 1659-60, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO Mrs. Jem, and found her up and merry, as it 
did not prove the small-pox, but the swine- 
pox; so I played a game or two at cards with her. 
-Jan. 13, 1659-60, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 92 
Samuel Pepys 
OODE to Huntsmore to Mr. Bowyer's, where I 
found him, and all well, and willing to have 
my wife come and board with them while I was at 
sea. Here I lay, and took a spoonful of honey and 
a nutmeg, scraped for my cold, by Mr. Bowyer's 
direction. 
-March 12, 1660, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THIS day it is two years since it pleased God that 
I was cut for the stone at Mrs. Turner's in 
Salisbury Court; and did resolve while I live to 
keep it a festival, as I did the last year at my house, 
and forever to have Mrs. Turner and her company 
with me. But now it pleased God that I am pre- 
vented to do it openly; only within my soul I can 
and do rejoice, and bless God, being at this time, 
blessed be His holy name, in as good health as 
ever I was in my life. 
-March 26,1660, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
93 
AT supper, the three Doctors of Physique again 
at my cabin; where I put Dr. Scarborough in 
mind of what I heard him say, that children do, in 
every day's experience, look several ways with 
both their eyes, till custom teaches them otherwise; 
and that we do now see with but one eye, our eyes 
looking in parallel lines. 
-May 2k, 1660, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO my Lord's lodgings, where Tom Guy come 
to me, and there staid to see the King touch 
people for the King's evil. But he did not come 
at all, it rained so; and the poor people were forced 
to stand all the morning in the rain in the garden. 
Afterward he touched them in the Banquetting- 
house. 
-June 23, 1660, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 94 
Samuel Pepys 
A/TAJOR Hart come to me, whom I did receive 
with wine and anchovies, which made me 
so dry, that I was ill with them all night, and was 
fain to have the girl rise and fetch me some drink. 
-Aug. 27, 1660, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THIS day the Duke of Gloucester died of the 
smallpox, by the great negligence of the doc- 
tors. 
-Sept. 13, 1660, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO Mr. Lilly's, where not finding Mr. Spong, I 
went to Mr. Greatorex, where I met him, and 
where I bought of him a drawing pen; and he did 
show me the manner of the lamp-glasses, which 
carry the light a great way, good to read in bed by, 
and I intend to have one of them; and we looked at 
his wooden jack in his chimney, that goes with 
the smoake, which indeed is very pretty. 
-Oct. 2k, 1660, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
95 
T^HIS day I hear that the Princess Royall has the 
* smallpox. 
-Dec. 20, 1660, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THIS day the Princess Royall died at White Hall. 
-Dec. 2k, 1660, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO White Hall by water, and dined with my 
Lady Sandwich, who at table did tell me how 
much fault was laid upon Dr. Frazer and the rest 
of the Doctors, for the death of the Princess. 
-Dec. 26, 1660, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
ABOUT the middle of the night I was very ill- 
I think with eating and drinking too much- 
and so I was forced to call the mayde, who pleased 
my wife and I in her running up and down so in- 
nocently in her smock. 
-Dec. 27, 1660, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 96 
Samuel Pepys 
T the end of the last and the beginning of 
** this year, I do live in one of the houses be- 
longing to the Navy Office, as one of the principal 
officers, and have done now about half-a-year; my 
family being, myself, my wife, Jane, Will, Hewer, 
and Wayneman, my girl's brother. Myself in con- 
stant good health, and in a most handsome and 
thriving condition. Blessed be Almighty God for it. 
-1660-61, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THIS day comes news, by letters from Ports- 
* mouth, that the Princess Henrietta is fallen 
sick of the meazles on board the London, after the 
Queen and she was under sail. And so was forced 
to come back into Portsmouth harbour; and in 
their way, by negligence of the pilot, run upon the 
Horse sand. The Queen and she continued aboard, 
and do not intend to come on shore till she sees 
what will become of the young Princess. This 
newes do make people think something indeed, 
that three of the Royal Family should fall sick of 
the same disease, one after another. 
-Jan. 11, 1660-61, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
97 
T^OOK Mr. Holliard to the Greyhound, where he 
* did advise me above all things, both as to the 
stone and the decay of my memory (of which I 
now complain to him), to avoid drinking often, 
which I am resolved, if I can, to leave off. 
-Jan. 18, 1660-61, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
Imet with Dr. Thomas Fuller: he tells me of his 
last and great book that is coming out: that is, 
the History of all the Families in England; and 
could tell me more of my owne, than I knew my- 
self. And also to what perfection he hath now 
brought the art of memory; that he did lately to 
four eminently great scholars dictate together in 
Latin, upon different subjects of their proposing, 
faster than they were able to write, till they were 
tired; and that the best way of beginning a sen- 
tence, if a man should be out and forget his last 
sentence, (which he never was), that then his last 
refuge is to begin with an Utcunque. 
-Jan. 22, 1660-61, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 98 
Samuel Pepys 
I ORD'S day.-Took physique all day, and, God 
forgive me, did spend it in reading of some 
little French romances. 
-Feb. 10, 1660-61, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
1U[Y wife come home, and she had got her teeth 
new done by La Roche, and are indeed now 
pretty handsome, and I was much pleased with it. 
-March 11, 1661, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THIS is my great day that three years ago I was 
cut of the stone, and, blessed be God, I do yet 
find myself very free from pain again. 
-March 26, 1661, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
99 
UP among my workmen, my head akeing all day 
from last night's debauch. At noon dined 
with Sir W. Batten and Pen, who would have me 
drink two good draughts of sack to-day, to cure 
me of my last night's disease, which I thought 
strange, but I think find it true. 
-April 3, 1661, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
T^O Whitehall by water from Towre-wharfe, 
where we could not pass the ordinary way, be- 
cause they were mending of the great stone steps 
against the Coronacion. Met my Lord with the 
Duke; and after a little talk with him, I went to 
the Banquet-house, and there saw the King heale, 
the first time that ever I saw him do it; which he 
did with great gravity, and it seemed to me to be 
an ugly office and a simple one. 
-April 13, 1661, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 100 
Samuel Pepys 
WAKED in the morning, with my head in a sad 
taking through the last night's drink, which 
I am very sorry for: so rose, and went out with Mr. 
Creed to drink our morning draught, which he did 
give me in chocolate to settle my stomach. 
-April 2k, 1661, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
T night comes my wife not well, from my 
** father's, having had a fore-tooth drawn out 
to-day, which do trouble me. 
-May 8, 1661, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
FINDING my head grow weak now-a-days, if I 
come to drink wine, and therefore hope that 
I shall leave it off of myself, which I pray God I 
could do. 
-May 74, 1661, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
101 
CAPTAIN Ferrers and Mr. Howe and myself to 
Mr. Wilkinson's at the Crowne: then to my 
Lord's, where we went and sat talking and laugh- 
ing in the drawing-room a great while. All our 
talk upon their going to sea this voyage, which 
Captain Ferrers is in some doubt whether he shall 
do or no, but swears that he would go, if he were 
sure never to come back again; and I, giving him 
some hopes, he grew so mad with joy that he fell 
a-dancing and leaping like a madman. Now it fell 
out that the balcone windows were opened, and 
he went to the rayle and made an offer to leap over, 
and asked what if he should leap over there. I 
told him I would give him 40 pounds if he did not 
go to sea. With that thought, I shut the doors, and 
W. Howe hindered him all we could; yet he opened 
them again, and, with a vault, leaps down into the 
garden:-the greatest and most desperate frolic 
that I ever saw in my life. I run to see what was 
become of him, and we found him crawled upon 
his knees, but could not rise; so we went down into 
the garden, and dragged him to a bench, where he 
looked like a dead man, but could not stir; and, 
though he had broke nothing, yet his pain in his 
back was such as he could not endure. With this 
my Lord (who was in the little new room) come to 102 
Samuel Pepys 
us in amaze, and bid us carry him up, which, by 
our strength we did, and so laid him in East's bed- 
room, by the doore; where he lay in great pain. 
We sent for a doctor and chyrurgeon, but none 
to be found, till, by-and-by, by chance comes in 
Dr. Clerke, who is afraid of him. So we went for a 
lodging for him. 
-May 19, 1661, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
1WENT to Clerke's at the Legg, and there we 
dined very merry, there coming to us Captain 
Ferrers, this being the first day of his going abroad 
since his leape a week ago, which I was greatly 
glad to see. 
-May 27, 1661, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
B/JYSELF in good health, but mighty apt to take 
cold, so that this hot weather I am fain to 
wear a cloth before my stomach. 
-June 30, 1661, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
103 
DINED with my Lady, who is in some mourning 
for her brother, Mr. Samuel Crewe, who died 
yesterday of the spotted fever. 
-July 3, 1661, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
nODE to Impington, where found my old uncle 
sitting all alone, like a man out of the world: 
he can hardly see; but all things else he do pretty 
livelyly. 
-July 15, 1661, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
IN the afternoon had notice that my Lord Hinch- 
* ingbroke is fallen ill, which I fear is with the 
fruit that I did give them on Saturday last at my 
house; so in the evening I went thither, and there 
found him very ill, and in great fear of the small- 
pox. 
Aug. 12, 1661, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 104 
Samuel Pepys 
yO the Wardrobe, and found my young Lord 
* very ill, so my Lady intends to send her other 
three sons, Sidney, Oliver, and John, to my house, 
for fear of the small-pox. Home, and there found 
my Lady's three sons come, of which I am glad 
that I am in condition to do her and my Lord any 
service in this kind; but my mind is yet very much 
troubled about my Lord of Sandwich's health. 
-Aug. 13, 1661, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
K T home, I found a letter from Mr. Creed of 
July last, that tells me that my Lord is rid of 
his pain (which was wind got into the muscles of 
his right side) and his feaver, and is now in hopes 
to go abroad in a day or two, which do give me 
mighty great comfort. 
-Aug. Ik, 1661, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
105 
AT the office all the morning, though little to do; 
because all our clerkes are gone to the buriall 
of Tom Whitton, one of the Comptroller's clerkes, 
a very ingenious and a likely young man to live, 
as any in the Office. But it is such a sickly time 
both in the City and country every where, of a 
sort of fever, that never was heard of almost, un- 
less it was in a plague-time. Among others, the 
famous Tom Fuller is dead of it; and Dr. Nicholls, 
Dean of Paul's; and my Lord General Monk is 
very dangerously ill. Dined at home with the 
children, and were merry. My aunt Fenner is 
upon the point of death. 
-Aug. 16, 1661, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
1 FOUND a letter from my Lord Sandwich, who 
is now very well again of his feaver, but not yet 
gone from Alicante, where he lay sick, and was 
twice there bled. This letter dated the 22nd of 
July last, which puts me out of doubt of his being 
ill. 
-Aug. 26, 1661, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 106 
Samuel Pepys 
THE season very sickly everywhere of strange 
and fatal fevers. 
-Aug. 31, 1661, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
I ORD'S Day.-What at dinner and supper I 
drink, I know not how, of my own accord, so 
much wine, that I was even almost foxed, and my 
head aked all night; so home and to bed, without 
prayers, which I never did yet, since I come to the 
house, of a Sunday night: I being now so out of 
order that I durst not read prayers, for fear of be- 
ing perceived by my servants in what case I was. 
-Sept. 29, 1661, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TOOK coach as far as my cozen Scott's, and my 
wife and I staid there at the christening of my 
cozen's boy, where my cozen Samuel Pepys of Ire- 
land and I were godfathers, and I did name the 
child Samuel. There was a company of pretty Samuel Pepys 
107 
women there in the chamber, but we staid not, 
but went with the minister into another room, and 
eat and drank-my she-cozen Stradwick being 
godmother. It cost me 20s. between the midwife 
and the two nurses to-day. 
Nov. 19, 1661, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
SO home, and after supper and by barber had 
trimmed me, I sat down to end my journell 
for this year, and my condition at this time, by 
God's blessing, is that my health is very good, and 
so my wife's, in all respects: my servants, W. 
Hewer, Sarah, Nell, and Wayneman: my house at 
the Navy Office. 
-Dec. 31, 1661, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
WAKING this morning out of my sleep on a 
sudden, I did with my elbow hit my wife a 
great blow over her face and neck, which waked 
her with pain, at which I was sorry, and to sleep 
again. 
-Jan. f, 1661-62, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 108 
Samuel Pepys 
OEFORE twelve o'clock comes, by appointment, 
Mr. Peter and the Dean, and Colonel Honi- 
wood, brothers, to dine with me; but so soon, that 
I was troubled at it. Mr. Peter did show us the 
experiment, which I had heard taiko of, of the 
chymicall glasses, which break all to dust by 
breaking off a little small end; which is a great 
mystery to me. My aunt Wright and my wife and 
I to cards, she teaching us to play at gleeke, which 
is a pretty game; but I have not my head so free 
as to be troubled with it. 
-Jan. 13, 1661-62, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THIS morning, Mr. Berkenshaw come again, and 
after he had examined me and taught me 
something in my work, he and I went to break- 
fast in my chamber upon a collar of brawn; and 
after we had eaten, asked me whether we had not 
committed a fault in eating to-day; telling me, 
that it is a fast-day ordered by the Parliament, to 
pray for more seasonable weather; it having hith- 
erto been summer weather, that it is, both as to 
warmth and every other thing, just as if it were 
the middle of May or June, which do threaten a Samuel Pepys 
109 
plague, as all men think, to follow, for so it was 
almost the last winter; and the whole year after 
hath been a very sickly time to this day. 
-Jan. 15, 1661-62, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
STOAKES told us that notwithstanding the coun- 
try of Gambo is so unhealthy, yet the people of 
the place live very long, so as the present king 
there is 150 years old, which they count by rains: 
because every year it rains continually four 
months together. He also told us, that the kings 
there have above 100 wives a-piece. 
-Jan. 16, 1661-62, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
I ORD'S Day.-Thanks be to God, since my leav- 
ing drinking of wine, I do find myself much 
better, and do mind my business better and do 
spend less money, and less time lost in idle com- 
pany. 
-Jan. 26, 1661-62, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 110 
Samuel Pepys 
I ORD'S Day.-I took physique this day, and was 
1 all day in my chamber, talking with my wife 
about her laying out of £20, which I had long since 
promised her to lay out in clothes against Easter 
for herself, and composing some ayres, God for- 
give me! At night to prayers and to bed. 
-Feb. 9, 1661-62, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
I ORD'S Day.-My cold being increased, I staid 
at home all day, pleasing myself with my 
dining-room, now graced with pictures, and read- 
ing of Dr. Fuller's Worthys: so I spent the day. 
This day, by God's mercy, I am 29 years of age, 
and in very good health, and like to live and get 
an estate; and if I have a heart to be contented, I 
think I may reckon myself as happy a man as any 
in the world, for which God be praised. So to 
prayers and to bed. 
-Feb. 23, 1661-62, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
WALKING in the garden with Sir W. Pen: his 
son William is at home, not well. But all 
things, I fear, do not go well with them-they look 
discontentedly, but I know not what ails them. 
-March 16, 1662, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
111 
T^O Westminster Hall, and there bought Mr. 
* Grant's book of observations upon the weekly 
bills of mortality, which appears to me, upon first 
sight, to be very pretty. 
-March 2^, 1662, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
UP early. This being, by God's blessing, the 
fourth solemne day of my cutting for the 
stone this day four years, and am, by God's mercy, 
in very good health, and like to do well; the Lord's 
name be praised for it! At noon come my good 
guest, Madam Turner, The., and cozen Norton, 
and a gentleman, one Mr. Lewin, of the King's 
Life-guard, by the same token he told us of one 
of his fellows killed this morning in a duel. I had 
a pretty dinner for them; viz., a brace of stewed 
carps, six roasted chickens, and a jowle of salmon, 
hot, for the first course; a tanzy, and two neat's 
tongues, and cheese, the second. Merry all the 
afternoon, talking, and singing, and piping on the 
flageolette. We had a man-cook to dress dinner 
to-day, and sent for Jane to help us. 
-March 26, 1662, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 112 
Samuel Pepys 
TO Sir Thomas Crewe's lodgings. He hath been 
ill, and continues so, under fits of appoplexy. 
-March 31, 1662, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
WITH Sir W. Pen by water to Deptford; and 
among the ships now going to Portugall with 
men and horse, to see them dispatched. So to 
Greenwich; and had a fine pleasant walk to Wool- 
wich, having in our company Captain Minnes, 
whom I was much pleased to hear talk. Among 
other things, he and the Captains that were with 
us tell me that negros drowned look white, and 
lose their blackness, which I never heard before. 
-April 11, 1662, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO Mr. Holliard's in the morning, thinking to be 
let blood, but he was gone out. 
-April 17, 1662, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
113 
THE Doctor and I lay together at Wiard's, the 
chyrurgeon's, in Portsmouth: his wife a very 
pretty woman. 
-April 23, 1662, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
ALL the morning at Portsmouth, at the Pay, and 
then to dinner, and again to the Pay; and at 
night got the Doctor to lie with me, and much 
pleased with his company; but I was much 
troubled in my eyes, by reason of the healths I 
have this day been forced to drink. 
-April 25, 1662, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THE Doctor and I begun philosophy discourse 
exceeding pleasant. He offers to bring me 
into the college of virtuosoes, and my Lord 
Brouncker's acquaintance, and show me some an- 
atomy, which makes me very glad; and I shall 
endeavour it, when I come to London. Sir. W. 
Pen much troubled upon letters come last night. 114 
Samuel Pepys 
Showed me one of Dr. Owen's to his son, whereby 
it appears his son is much perverted in his opinion 
by him; which I now perceive is one thing that 
hath put Sir William so long off the hookes. 
-April 28, 1662, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
MR. HOLLIARD come to me, and let me blood, 
about sixteen ounces, I being exceeding full 
of blood, and very good. I begun to be sick; but, 
lying upon my back, I was presently well again, 
and did give him 5s. for his pains. After dinner, 
my arm tied up with a black ribbon, I walked with 
my wife to my brother Tom's; our boy waiting on 
us with his sword, which this day he begins to 
wear, to outdo Sir W. Pen's boy, who this day, 
and Sir W. Batten's, do begin to wear new liverys; 
but I do take mine to be the neatest of them all. 
-May b, 1662, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
MY arm not being well, my wife to buy some 
things for herself, and a gowne for me to 
dress myself in. 
-May 5, 1662, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
115 
I ORD'S Day.-To trimming myself, which I 
have this week done every morning, with a 
pumice stone, which I learnt of Mr. March, when 
I was last at Portsmouth; and I find it very easy, 
speedy, and cleanly, and shall continue the prac- 
tice of it. 
-May 25, 1662, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TpO Church, and heard a good sermon of Mr. 
* Woodcocke's at our church; only in his latter 
prayer for a woman in child-bed, he prayed that 
God would deliver her from the hereditary curse 
of childe-bearing, which seemed a pretty strange 
expression. 
-May 25, 1662, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
HAD Sarah to comb my head clean, which I 
found so foul with powdering and other 
troubles, that I am resolved to try how I can keep 
my head dry without powder; and I did also in a 
sudden fit cut off all my beard, which I had been a 
great while bringing up, only that I may with my 
pumice stone do my whole face as I now do my 116 
Samuel Pepys 
chin, and so save time, which I find a very easy 
way, and gentile. She also washed my feet in a 
bath of herbes, and so to bed. 
-May 31, 1662, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
BEFORE we slept, I telling upon discourse with 
Captain Cocke the manner of my being cut of 
the stone, which pleased him much. So to sleep. 
-Aug. 2, 1662, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO-NIGHT my barber sent me his man to trim 
me, who did live in King's Streete in West- 
minster lately, and tells me that three or four that 
I knew in that streete, tradesmen, are lately fal- 
len mad, and some of them dead, and the others 
continue mad. They live all within a door or two 
of one another. 
-Sept. 20, 1662, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
117 
HE tells me, that it is believed the Queen is with 
child, for that the coaches are ordered to ride 
very easily through the streets. 
-Oct. 9, 1662, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
UP betimes, and after a little breakfast, and a 
very poor one, like our supper, and such as 
I cannot feed on, because of my she-cozen Clax- 
ton's gouty hands. 
-Oct. 11, 1662, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO see Mr. Moore, who recovers well; and his 
doctor coming to him-one Dr. Merritt-we 
had some of his very good discourse of anatomy 
and other things, very pleasant. 
-Oct. 19, 1662, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 118 
Samuel Pepys 
I MET Mr. Mills, who tells me that he could get 
nothing out of the mayde hard by, that did 
poison herself, before she died, but that she did it 
because she did not like herself, nor anything she 
did a great while. It seems she was well-favored 
enough, but crooked, and this is all she could be 
got to say, which is very strange. 
-Oct. 28, 1662, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO visit Sir W. Pen, who, continues still bed-rid. 
-Nov. 30, 1662, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO wait on my Lord Sandwich, whom I found 
not very well, and Dr. Clerke with him. He 
is feverish, and hath sent for Mr. Pierce to let him 
blood. 
-Jan. 19, 1662-63, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO my Lord's, and there find him expecting his 
fit to-night of an ague. 
-Jan 22, 1662-63, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
119 
TO my Lord, who had his ague-fit last night, and 
I staid talking with him an hour alone in his 
chamber, about sundry publick and private mat- 
ters. 
-Jan. 25, 1662-63, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
I HAVE news this day from Cambridge that my 
brother hath his bachelor's cap put on; but that 
which troubles me is, that he hath the pain of the 
stone, it beginning just as mine did. I pray God 
help him. 
-Jan. 27, 1662-63, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TRO my Lord Sandwich's, whom I find missing 
* his ague-fit to-day, and is pretty well, playing 
at dice, and by this I see how time and example 
may alter a man. 
-Jan. 28, 1662-63, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 120 
Samuel Pepys 
WHILE my wife dressed herself, Creed and I 
walked out to see what play was acted to- 
day, and we find it "The Slighted Mayde." To 
the Duke's house, where we saw it well acted, 
though the play hath little good in it, being most 
pleased to see the little girl dance in boy's apparel, 
she having very fine legs, only bends in the hams, 
as I perceive all women do. 
-Feb. 23, 1662-63, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
A BOUT 11 o'clock, Commissioner Pett and 1 
walked to Chyrurgeons' Hall, we being all 
invited thither, and promised to dine there, where 
we were led into the Theatre; and by and by 
comes the reader, Dr. Tearne, with the Master and 
Company, in a very handsome manner: and all 
being settled, he begun his lecture; and his dis- 
course being ended, we had a fine dinner and 
good learned company, many Doctors of Phi- 
sique, and we used with extraordinary great re- 
spect. Among other observables, we drunk the 
King's health out of a gilt cup given by King Henry 
VIII. to this Company, with bells hanging at it, 
which every man is to ring by shaking, after he 
hath drunk up the whole cup. 
-Feb. 27, 1662-63, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
121 
BUT all the Doctors at table conclude, that there 
is no pain at all in hanging, for that it do stop 
the circulation of the blood; and so stops all sense 
and motion in an instant. 
-Feb. 27, 1662-63, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THIS day is five years since it pleased God to 
preserve me at my being cut of the stone, of 
which I bless God I am in all respects well. 
-March 26, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THIS being my feast, in lieu of what I should 
have had a few days ago, for the cutting of 
the stone, very merry at, before, and after dinner, 
and the more for that my dinner was great, and 
most neatly dressed by our own only may de. 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 anchoves, good wine of several 
sorts, and all things mighty noble, and to my great 
content. 
-April 4, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 122 
Samuel Pepys 
WILL being gone, with my leave, to his father's 
this day for a day or two, to take physique 
these holydays. 
-April 19, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
I WENT homeward, after a little discourse with 
* Mr. Pierce, the surgeon, who tells me . . . that 
the other day Dr. Clarke and he did dissect two 
bodies, a man and a woman, before the King, with 
which the King was highly pleased. 
-May 11, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
AFTER dinner, I went up to Sir Thomas Crewe, 
who lies there not very well in his head, be- 
ing troubled with vapours and fits of dizzinesse. 
-May 15, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
123 
LORD'S Day.-Meeting Mr. Lewis Phillips of 
Brampton, he and afterwards others tell me 
that news come last night to Court, that the King 
of France is sick of the spotted fever, and that 
they are struck in again; and this afternoon my 
Lord Mandeville is gone from the King to make 
him a visit; which will be great news, and of great 
import through Europe. 
-May 2b, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TpHEN into the Great Garden up to the Banquet- 
* ing House; and there by my Lord's glass we 
drew in the species very pretty. 
-May 27, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THE King of France was given out to be 
poisoned and dead; but it proves to be the 
measles: and he is well, or likely to be soon well 
again. 
-May 31, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 124 
Samuel Pepys 
AT table discoursing of thunder and lightning, 
Sir W. Rider did tell a story of his own 
knowledge, that a Genoese gaily in Leghorne 
Roads was struck by thunder, so as the mast was 
broke a-pieces, and the shackle upon one of the 
slaves was melted clear off his leg without hurting 
his leg. Sir William went on board the vessel, and 
would have contributed toward the release of the 
slave whom Heaven had thus set free; but he could 
not compass it, and so he was brought to his fet- 
ters again. 
-June 26, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
SO home, Sir J. Minnes and I in his coach to- 
gether, talking all the way of chymistry, 
wherein he do know something-at least, seems so 
to me, that cannot correct him. 
-July 5, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
125 
AND so, after a little bayte, I paying all the 
reckonings the whole journey, at Ware, to 
Buntingford, where my wife, by drinking some 
cold beer, being hot herself, presently after 'light- 
ing begins to be sick, and become so pale, and I 
alone with her in a great chamber there, that I 
thought she would have died, and so in great hor- 
ror, and having a great trial of my true love and 
passion for her, called the maids and mistress of 
the house, and so with some strong water, she 
come to be pretty well again; and so to bed, and I 
having put her to bed with great content, I called 
in my company, and supped in the chamber by 
her, and being very merry in talk, supped and then 
parted. 
-Sept. 14, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
WAKED with a very high wind, and said to my 
wife, "I pray God I hear not of the death of 
any great person, this wind is so high!" fearing 
that the Queen might be dead. So up; and going by 
coach with Sir W. Batten and Sir J. Minnes to 
St. James's, they tell me that Sir W. Compton, 
who it is true had been a little sickly for a week or 
a fortnight, but was very well upon Friday at night 126 
Samuel Pepys 
last at the Tangier Committee with us, was dead,- 
died yesterday: at which I was most exceedingly 
surprised, he being, and so all the world saying 
that he was, one of the worthyest men and best 
officers of State now in England. 
-Oct. 19, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
COMING to St. James's, I hear that the Queen 
did sleep five hours pretty well to-night, and 
that she waked and gargled her mouth, and to 
sleep again; but that her pulse beats fast, beating 
twenty to the King's or my Lady Suffolk's eleven; 
but not so strong as it was. It seems she was so 
ill as to be shaved, and pidgeons put to her feet, 
and to have the extreme unction given her by the 
priests, who were so long about it that the doctors 
were angry. The King, they all say, is most fondly 
disconsolate for her, and weeps by her, which 
makes her weep; which one this day told me he 
reckons a good sign, for that it carries away some 
rheume from the head. This morning Captain 
Allen tells me how the famous Ned Mullins, by a 
slight fall, broke his leg at the ancle, which fes- 
tered; and he had his leg cut off on Saturday, but Samuel Pepys 
127 
so ill done, notwithstanding all the great chyrur- 
geons about the town at the doing of it, that they 
fear he will not live with it. 
-Oct. 19, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
OEING invited to dinner to my Lord Barkeley's, 
and so, not knowing how to spend out time till 
noon, Sir W. Batten and I took coach and to the 
Coffee-house in Cornhill; where much talk about 
the Turke's proceedings, and that the plague is got 
to Amsterdam, brought by a ship from Algiers; 
and it is also carried to Hambrough. The Duke 
says the King purposes to forbid any of their ships 
coming into the river. 
-Oct. 19, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THIS evening, at my Lord's lodgings, Mrs. Sarah 
talking with my wife and I how the Queen do, 
and how the King attends her, being so ill. She 
tells us that the Queen's sickness is the spotted 
fever; that she was as full of the spots as a leop- 
ard: which is very strange that it should be no 
more known; but perhaps it is not so. 
-Oct. 20, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 128 
Samuel Pepys 
THE Queen slept pretty well last night, but her 
fever continues upon her still. It seems she 
hath never a Portuguese doctor here. To Mr. Hol- 
liard, who tells me that Mullins is dead of his leg 
cut off the other day, and most basely done. 
-Oct. 23, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THE Queen is in a good way of recovery; and 
Sir Francis Pridgeon hath got great honour by 
it, it being all imputed to his cordiall, which in her 
despaire did give her rest, and brought her to some 
hopes of recovery. 
-Oct. 2k, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
PVR. PIERCE tells me that the Queen is in a way 
U to be pretty well again, but that her delirium 
in her head continues still; that she talks idle, not 
by fits, but always, which in some lasts a week 
after so high a fever-in some more, and in some 
forever; that this morning she talked mightily that 
she was brought to bed, and that she wondered 
that she should be delivered without pain and 
without being sick, and that she was troubled that Samuel Pepys 
129 
her boy was but an ugly boy. But the King being 
by said, "No, it is a very pretty boy."-"Nay," says 
she, "if it be like you, it is a fine boy indeed, and I 
would be very well pleased with it." 
-Oct. 26, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
MR. COVENTRY tells me to-day that the Queen 
had a very good night last night; but yet it 
is strange that still she raves and talks of little 
more than of her having of children, and fancys 
now that she hath three children, and that the 
girle is very like the King. And this morning, 
about five o'clock, the physician, feeling her pulse, 
thinking to be better able to judge, she being still 
and asleep, waked her, and the first word she said 
was, "How do the children?" 
-Oct. 27, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
WE went into the Buttry, and there stayed and 
talked, and then into the Hall again, and 
there wine was offered, and they drunk, I only 
drinking some hypocras, which do not break my 
vowe, it being, to the best of my present judge- 130 
Samuel Pepys 
ment, only a mixed compound drink, and not any 
wine. If I am mistaken, God forgive me! but I 
do hope and think I am not. 
-Oct. 29, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TTHE Queen mends apace, they say; but yet talks 
* idle still. 
-Oct. 29, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THE Queen continues light-headed, but in hopes 
to recover. The plague is much in Amster- 
dam, and we in fear of it here, which God defend. 
-Oct. 31, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
AT noon to the coffee-house, and there heard a 
long and most passionate discourse between 
two doctors of physick, of which one was Dr. Al- 
len, whom I knew at Cambridge, and a couple of 
apothecarys: these maintaining chymistry against 
their Galenicall physick; and the truth is, one of 
the apothecarys, whom they charged most, did Samuel Pepys 
131 
speak very prettily-that is, his language and 
sense good, though perhaps he might not be so 
knowing a physician as to offer to contest with 
them. At last they come to some cooler terms, 
and broke up. 
-Nov. 3,1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO the Coffee-house, and among other things 
heard Sir John Cutler say, that of his own 
experience 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. 
-Nov. 6, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THE Queen, I hear, is now very well again, and 
that she hath bespoke herself a new gown. 
-Nov. 10,1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
AT noon to the Coffee-house, where, with Dr. 
Allen, some good discourse about physick 
and chymistry. And among other things, I tell- 
ing him what Dribble, the German Doctor, do 132 
Samuel Pepys 
offer of an instrument to sink ships; he tells me 
that which is more strange, that something made 
of gold, which they call in chymistry Aurum Fulmi- 
nans, a grain, I think he said, of it, put into a silver 
spoon and fired, will give a blow like a musquett, 
and strike a hole through the silver spoon down- 
ward, without the least force upward; and this he 
can make a cheaper experiment of, he says, with 
iron prepared. 
-Nov. 11, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
AyjY Lord Treasurer we found in his bed-cham- 
* ber, being laid up of the goute. 
-Nov. 19, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THE plague, it seems grows more and more at 
Amsterdam; and we are going upon making 
of all ships coming from thence and Hambrough, 
or any other infected places, to perform their 
Quarantine, for thirty days, as Sir Richard Browne 
expressed it in the order of the order of the Coun- 
cil, contrary to the import of the word, though, in Samuel Pepys 
133 
the general acceptation, it signifies now the thing, 
not the time spent in doing it, in Holehaven; a 
thing never done by us before. 
-Nov. 26, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
1MET Dr. Clerke, and fell to discourse of Dr. 
Knapp, who tells me he is the King's physician, 
and is become a sollicitor for places for people, 
and I am mightily troubled with him. He tells 
me that he is the most impudent fellow in the 
world, that gives himself out to be the King's 
physician, but is not so. But I may learn what 
impudence there is in the world, and how a man 
may be deceived in persons. . . . The Queen is 
pretty well, and goes out of her chamber to her 
little chapel in the house. 
-Dec. 7, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
LUELLIN tells me that W. Symon's wife is dead, 
for which I am sorry, she being a good 
woman, and tells me an odde story of her saying 
before her death, being in good sense, that there 
stood her uncle Scobell. 
-Dec. 12, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 134 
Samuel Pepys 
T^O the Duke, where I heard a large discourse be- 
* tween one that goes over an agent from the 
King to Leghorne and thereabouts, to remove the 
inconveniences his ships are put to by denial of 
pratique; which is a thing that is now-a-days made 
use of only as a cheat, for a man to buy a bill of 
health for a piece of eight, and any enemy may 
agree with the intendent of the Saute for ten 
pieces of eight or so, that he shall not give me a 
bill of health, and so spoil me in my design, what- 
ever it be. This the King will not endure, and so 
resolves, either to have it removed or to keep all 
ships from coming in or going out there, so long 
as his ships are stayed for want hereof. 
-Dec. Ik, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
1VIY brother's man come to tell me that my 
*** cozen, Edward Pepys, was dead at Mrs. 
Turner's, for which my wife and I are very sorry, 
and the more for that his wife was the only hand- 
some woman of our name. 
-Dec. 15, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
135 
THE Duchesse of Yorke is fallen sick of the 
meazles. 
-Dec. 28, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
MY father and mother well in the country; and 
at this time the young ladies of Hinching- 
broke with them-their house having the smallpox 
in it. The Queen, after a long and sore sickness, 
is become well again. 
-Dec. 31, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THE Duchesse of Yorke is growing well again. 
-Dec. 31, 1663, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TWELFTH Day.-This morning I began a prac- 
tice which I find, by the ease I do it with, that I 
shall continue, it saving me money and time; that 
is, to trimme myself with a razer: which pleases 
me mightily. 
-Jan. 6, 1663-6^, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 136 
Samuel Pepys 
OY appointment, took Luellin, Mount, and W. 
Symons, and Mr. Pierce, the surgeon, home 
to dinner with me, and were merry. We spent all 
the afternoon together, and then to cards with my 
wife, who this day put on her Indian blue gown, 
which is very pretty. We had great pleasure this 
afternoon, among other things, to talk of our old 
passages together in Cromwell's time; and how 
W. Symons did make me laugh and wonder to- 
day when he told me how he had made shifts to 
keep in, in good esteem and employment, through 
eight governments in one year, the year 1659, 
which were indeed, and he did name them all; 
and then failed unhappy in the ninth, viz., that of 
the King's coming in. He made good to me the 
story which Luellin did tell me the other day, of 
his wife upon her death-bed; how she dreamt of 
her uncle Scobell, and did foretell, from some dis- 
course she had with him, that she should die four 
days thence, and not sooner, and did all along say 
so, and did so. 
-Jan. 8, 1663-6^, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
MY eyes began to fail me, and to be in pain, 
which I never felt to now-a-days. 
-Jan. 19, 1663-6^, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
137 
HTO my brother's, whom I find not well in bed, 
* sick, they say, of a consumption. 
-Jan. 20, 1663-6b, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
AT the Coffee-house, where I sat with Sir G. As- 
cue and William Petty, who in discourse 
is, methinks, one of the most rational men that 
ever I heard speak with a tongue, having all his 
notions the most distinct and clear, and did 
among other things, (saying, that in all his life 
these three books were the most esteemed and 
generally cried up for wit in the world-"Religio 
Medici," "Osborne's Advice to a Son," and "Hudi- 
bras"), say that in these-the two first princi- 
pally-the wit lies, and confirming some pretty 
sayings, which are generally like paradoxes, by 
some argument smartly and pleasantly urged, 
which takes with people who do not trouble them- 
selves to examine the force of an argument, which 
pleases them in the delivery, upon a subject which 
they like. 
-Jan. 27, 1663-6^, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 138 
Samuel Pepys 
CALLED to see my brother Tom, who was not 
at home, though they say he is in a deep con- 
sumption, and will not live two months. 
-Jan. 28, 1663-6^, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
GRESHAM College he mightily laughed at, for 
spending time only in weighing of ayre, and 
doing nothing else since they sat. 
-Feb. 1, 1663-6^, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
MY pain do leave me without coming to any 
great excess; but my cold that I had got I 
suppose was not very great, it being only the leav- 
ing of my wastecoate unbuttoned one morning. 
-Feb. 10, 1663-6^, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
SHROVE Tuesday.-This day, by the blessing of 
God, I have lived thirty-one years in the 
world: and, by the grace of God, I find myself not 
only in good health in every thing, and particu- 
larly as to the stone, but only pain upon taking Samuel Pepys 
139 
cold, and also in a fair way of coming to a better 
esteem and estate in the world, than ever I ex- 
pected. But I pray God give me a heart to fear a 
fall, and to prepare for it! 
-Feb. 23, 1663-6b, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
¥JE told the King and the ladies, plainly speak- 
** ing of death and of the skulls and bones of 
dead men and women, how there is no difference; 
that nobody could tell that of the great Marius or 
Alexander from a pyoneer; nor, for all the pains 
the ladies take with their faces, he that should 
look in a charnel-house could not distinguish 
which was Cleopatra's, or fair Rosamond's, or 
Jane Shore's. 
-March 25, 166b, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TTHIS being my solemn feast for my cutting of 
the stone, it being now, blessed be God! this 
day six years since the time; and I bless God I do 
in all respects find myself free from that disease, 
or any signs of it. 
-March 26, 166b, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 140 
Samuel Pepys 
the Physique Garden in St. James's Parke; 
* where I first saw orange trees, and other fine 
trees. 
-April 19, 166b, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
IN the Duke's chamber there is a bird, given him 
by Mr. Pierce, the surgeon, come from the East 
Indys-black the greatest part, with the finest col- 
lar of white about the neck; but talks many things, 
and neyes like the horse and other things, the best 
almost that ever I heard bird in my life. 
-April 25, 166b, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
T^O see my Lady Sandwich, where we find all the 
children, and my Lord recovered, and the 
house so melancholy, that I thought my Lady had 
been dead, knowing that she was not well; but it 
seems she hath the meazles, and I fear the small- 
pox, poor lady. 
-April 29, 166b, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
141 
HTHE plague increases at Amsterdam. 
-May k, 166k, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
IVfY eyes beginning every day to grow less and 
less able to bear with long reading or writ- 
ing, though it be by daylight; which I never ob- 
served till now. 
-May 5, 166b, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TPO my Lady Sandwich's, who, good Lady, is now, 
* thanks be to God! so well as to sit up, and sent 
to us, if we were not afraid to come up to her. So 
we did; but she was mightily against my wife's 
coming so near her; though, poor wretch! she is 
as well as ever she was, as to the meazles, and 
nothing can I see upon her face. 
-May 9, 166b, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
\X7ITH Mr. Pierce, the surgeon, to see an experi- 
* ' ment of killing a dog, by letting opium into 
his hind-leg. He and Dr. Clerke did fail mightily 142 
Samuel Pepys 
in hitting the vein, and in effect did not do the 
business after many trials; but, with the little they 
got in the dog did presently fall asleep, and so lay 
till we cut him up, and a little dog also, which they 
put it down his throat-he also staggered first, and 
then fell asleep, and so continued. Whether he 
recovered or no, after I was gone, I know not. 
-May 16, 166k, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
' I ^O the 'Change and Coffee House, where great 
* talk of the Dutch preparing of sixty sail of 
ships. The plague grows mightily among them, 
both at sea and land. 
-June 22, 166k, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
J ORD'S Day.-At my Lord Sandwich's; where 
•L1 his little daughter, my Lady Katherine, was 
brought, to have her cheeke looked after, which is 
and hath long been sore. But my Lord will rather 
have it be as it is, with a scarr in her face, than 
endanger it being worse by tampering. 
-June 26, 166k, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
143 
OUT on a half shirt first this summer, it being 
* very hot; and yet so ill-tempered I am grown, 
that I am afraid I shall catch cold, while all the 
world is afraid to melt away. To the Mitre, and 
there comes Dr. Burnett to us; and there I begun 
to have his advice about my disease, and then in- 
vited him to my house; and I am resolved to put 
myself into his hands. 
-June 28, 166k, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
Z^OMES Dr. Burnett, who did write me down 
some direction what to do, but not with the 
satisfaction I expected. I did give him a piece, 
with good hopes, however, that his advice will be 
of use to me. 
-July 1, 166k, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THE reason of Dr. Clerke's not being here was, 
* the King being sick last night, and let blood, 
and so he durst not come away to-day. 
-July 6, 166k, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 144 
Samuel Pepys 
THENCE I and Will to see the Wells, half a mile 
off, and there I drunk three glasses, and 
walked, and come back and drunk two more: and 
so we rode home, round by Kingsland, Hackney, 
and Mile End, till we were quite weary; and, not 
being very well, I betimes to bed. 
-July 11, 166b, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
T^R. BURNETT showed me the manner of eat- 
ing turpentine, which pleases me well, for it 
is with great ease. 
-July 17, 166^, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
WTO news, only the plague is very hot still, and 
* * encreases among the Dutch. 
-July 25, 166k, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
A BROAD to find out one to engrave my tables 
upon my new sliding rule with silver plates, 
it being so small, that Browne, that made it, can- 
not get one to do it. So I got Cocker, the famous Samuel Pepys 
145 
writing-master, to do it, and I set an hour by him 
to see him design it all; and strange it is to see 
him, with his natural eyes, to cut so small at his 
first designing it, and read it all over, without any 
missing, when for my life I could not, with my best 
skill, read one word, or letter of it; but it is use. 
He says, that the best light for his life to do a very 
small thing by, contrary to Chaucer's words to the 
Sun, "that as he should lend his light to them that 
small seals grave," it should be by an artificial 
light of a candle, set to advantage, as he could do 
it. I find the fellow, by his discourse, very in- 
genious: and, among other things, a great admirer 
of, and well read in, the English poets, and under- 
takes to judge of them all, and that not imperti- 
nently. 
-Aug. 10, 166b, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
COME Mr. Reeve, with a microscope and scoto- 
scope. For the first I did give him £5 10s., a 
great price, but a most curious bauble it is, and he 
says, as good, nay, the best he knows in England. 
The other he gives me, and is of value; and a 
curious curiosity it is to discover objects in a dark 
room with. 
-August 13, 166b, Diarg of Samuel Pepys. 146 
Samuel Pepgs 
WITH Sir J. Minnes; he talking of his cures 
abroad, while he was with the King as a doc- 
tor. And among others Sir J. Denham, he told 
me, he had cured to a miracle. 
-August 15, 166k, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
SIR W. BATTEN did give me three bottles of his 
Essence water, which I drank, and I found 
myself mightily cooled with them and refreshed. 
-August 17, 166k, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
I ORD'S Day.-Mr. Coventry told us the Duke 
" was gone ill of a fit of an ague to bed: so we 
sent this morning to see how he do. 
-August 21, 166k, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
pRETTY well in health, since I left off wearing 
* of a gowne within doors all day, and then go 
back with my legs into the cold, which brought 
me daily pain. 
-August 31, 166k, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
147 
1HAVE had a bad night's rest to-night, not sleep- 
ing well, as my wife observed; and I thought 
myself to be mightily bit with fleas, and in the 
morning she chid her maids for not looking the 
fleas a'days. But, when I rose, I found that it is 
only the change of the weather from hot to cold, 
which, as I was two winters ago, do stop my pores, 
and so my blood tingles and itches all day, all 
over my body. 
-Sept. 3, 166k, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
COME W. Boyer, and dined with us; but strange 
to see how he could not endure onyons in 
sauce to lamb, but was overcome with the sight of 
it, and so was forced to make his dinner of an egg 
or two. 
-Sept. 5, 166k, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THIS afternoon, it seems, Sir J. Minnes fell sick 
at church, and, going down the gallery stairs, 
fell down dead, but come to himself again, and is 
pretty well. 
-Sept. 11, 166k, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 148 
Samuel Pepys 
AFTER dinner, many people come in, and kept 
me all the afternoon; among other, the Mas- 
ter and Wardens of Chyrurgeons' Hall, who staid 
arguing their cause with me. 
-Sept. 15, 166k, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
MET Mr. Pargiter, and he would needs have me 
drink a cup of horse-radish ale, which he 
and a friend of his, troubled with the stone, have 
been drinking of, which we did, and then walked 
into the fields as far almost as Sir G. Whitmore's, 
all the way talking of Russia, which, he says, is a 
sad place: . . . 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 dis- 
eases there is their sweating-houses; or, people 
that are poor, they get into their ovens, being 
heated, and there lie. 
-Sept. 16, 166k, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
149 
T TOME to bed; having got a strange cold in my 
* * head, by flinging off my hat at a dinner, and 
sitting with the wind in my neck. 
-Sept. 22, 166k, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
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. 
-Sept. 2k, 166k, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
LORD'S Day.-My throat being yet very sore, 
and my head out of order, went not to church, 
but spent all the morning reading of "The Madd 
Lovers," a very good play. Read another play, 
"The Custome of the Country," which is a very 
poor one, methinks. 
-Sept. 25, 166k, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
COMES Mr. Cocker to see me, and I discoursed 
with him about his writing and ability of 
sight, and how I shall do to get some glass or other 150 
Samuel Pepys 
to help my eyes by candlelight; and he tells me he 
will bring me the helps he hath, within a day or 
two, and show me what he do. 
-Oct. 5, 166k, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
COME Mr. Cocker, and brought me a globe of 
glasse and a frame of oyled paper, as I de- 
sired, to show me the manner of his gaining light 
to grave by, and to lessen the glaringness of it at 
pleasure by an oyled paper. This I bought of him, 
giving him a crowne for it; and so, well satisfied, 
he went away. 
-Oct. 7, 166k, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THIS day, by the blessing of God, my wife and I 
have been married nine years: but my head, 
being full of business, I did not think of it to 
keep it in any extraordinary manner. But bless 
God for our long lives, and loves, and health 
together, which the same God long continue, I 
wish, from my very heart! 
-Oct. 10, 166k, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
151 
TAKING leave, W. Joyce and I set out, calling 
T. Price at Bugden, and got by night to Steven- 
age, and there mighty merry, though I in bed more 
weary than the other two days, which I think, pro- 
ceeded from our galloping so much; but I find that 
a coney skin in my breeches preserves me perfect- 
ly from galling. 
-Oct. 15, 166b, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
W/JY little girle Susan is fallen sick of the 
A** meazles, we fear, or, at least, of a scarlett 
fevour. 
-Nov. 10, 166b, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
CAPTAIN COCKE is made Steward for sick and 
wounded seamen. 
-Nov. 22, 166b, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
SO ends the old year, I bless God, with great joy 
to me, not only from my having made so good 
a year of profit, as having spent £420 and laid up 152 
Samuel Pepys 
£540, and upwards; but I bless God I never have 
been in so good plight as to my health in so 
very cold weather as this, nor indeed in any hot 
weather, these ten years, as I am at this day, and 
have been these four or five months. But I am at 
a great loss to know whether it be my hare's foote, 
or taking every morning of a pill of turpentine, or 
my having left off the wearing of a gowne. 
-Dec. 31, 166^4, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
WALKED to White Hall. In my way saw a 
woman that broke her thigh, by her heels 
slipping up upon the frosty street. 
-Jan. 9, 166^-65, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
WITH Sir W. Pen in his coach to my Lord 
Chancellor's, where, by and by, Mr. Coven- 
try; Sir W. Pen, Sir J. Lawson, Sir G. Ascue, and 
myself were called in to the King, there being sev- 
eral of the Privy Council, and my Lord Chancellor 
lying at length upon a couch, of the goute, I sup- 
pose; ... So we withdrew, and the merchants were 
called in. Staying without, my Lord FitzHarding Samuel Pepys 
153 
come thither, and fell to discourse of Prince Ru- 
pert's disease, telling the horrible degree of its 
breaking out on his head. He observed, also, from 
the Prince, that courage is not what men take it 
to be, a contempt of death; for, says he, how 
chagrined the Prince was, the other day, when 
he thought he should die, having no more mind 
to it than another man. But, says he, some men 
are apt to think they shall escape than another 
man in fight while another is doubtfull he shall 
be hit. But, when the first man is sure he shall 
die, as now the Prince is, he is as much troubled 
and apprehensive of it as any man else; for, says 
he, since we told him that we believe he would 
overcome his disease, he is as merry, and swears 
and laughs and curses, and do all the things of a 
man in health, as ever he did in his life; which, 
methought, was a most extraordinary saying, be- 
fore a great many persons there of quality. 
-Jan. 15, 166^-65, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO my bookseller's, and there took home Hook's 
book of Microscopy, a most excellent piece, 
and of which I am very proud. Homeward, in my 
way buying a hare, and taking it home, which 154 
Samuel Pepys 
arose upon my discourse to-day with Mr. Batten, 
in Westminster Hall, who showed me my mistake 
that my hare's foot hath not the joynt to it; and 
assures me he never had his cholique since he 
carried it about him; and it is a strange thing 
how fancy works, for I no sooner handled his foot, 
but I become very well, and so continue. 
-Jan. 20, 166k-65, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
NOW mighty well, and truly I can but impute it 
to my fresh hare's foote. 
-Jan. 21, 166k-65, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
HOME to supper, having a great cold, got on 
Sunday last, by sitting too long with my 
head bare, for Mercer to comb and wash my eares. 
-Jan. 2k, 166k-65, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
155 
'T'HENCE with Creed to Gresham College, where 
* I had been by Mr. Povy the last week pro- 
posed to be admitted a member; and was this day 
admitted, by signing a book and being taken by 
the hand of the President, my Lord Brouncker, 
and some words of admittance said to me. But 
it is a most acceptable thing to hear their dis- 
course, and see their experiments; which were this 
day on fire, and how it goes out in a place where 
the ayre is not free, and sooner out where the ayre 
is exhausted, which they showed by an engine on 
purpose. After this being done, they to the Crown 
Tavern, behind the 'Change, and there my Lord 
and most of the company to a club supper; Sir P. 
Neale, Sir R. Murray, Dr. Clerke, Dr. Whistler, Dr. 
Goddard, and others, of the most eminent worth. 
Above all, Mr. Boyle was at the meeting, and above 
him Mr. Hooke, who is the most, and promises the 
least, of any man in the world that ever I saw. 
Here excellent discourse till ten at night, and then 
home. 
-Feb. 15, 166^-65, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THIS day, by the blessing of Almighty God, I 
have lived thirty-two years in the world, and 156 
Samuel Pepys 
am in the best degree of health at this minute that 
I have been almost in my life time, and at this 
time in the best condition of estate that ever I was 
in-the Lord make me thankful. 
-Feb. 23, 166^-65, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
T^HEN to the meeting, where Sir G. Carteret's 
* two sons, his own, and Sir N. Slaning, were 
admitted of the Society: and this day I did pay 
my admission money, 40s., to the Society. Here 
was very fine discourses and experiments, but I do 
lack philosophy enough to understand them, and 
so cannot remember them. Among others, a very 
particular account of the making of the several 
sorts of bread in France, which is accounted the 
best place for bread in the world. 
-March 1, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TpO Gresham College, and there saw several 
* pretty experiments. 
-March 8, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
157 
ANON to Gresham College, where, among other 
good discourse, there was tried the great poy- 
son of Maccassa upon a dogg, but it had no effect 
all the time we sat there. 
-March 15, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
T^HIS night, my Lady Wood died of the small- 
pox, and is much lamented among the great 
persons for a good-natured woman and a good 
wife. 
-March 17, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
SIR WILLIAM PETTY did tell me that in good 
earnest he hath in his will left some parts of 
his estate to him that could invent such^and such 
things. As among others, that could discover truly 
the way of milk coming into the breasts of a 
woman; and he that could invent proper charac- 
ters to express to another the mixture of relishes 
and tastes. And says, that to him that invents gold, 
he gives nothing for the philosopher's stone; for, 
says he, they that find out that, will be able to pay 
themselves. But, says he, by this means it is bet- 158 
Samuel Pepys 
ter than to go to a lecture; for here my executors, 
that must part with this, will be sure to be well 
convinced of the invention before they do part 
with their money. 
-March 22, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THENCE to Gresham College, and there did see 
a kitting killed almost quite, but that we could 
not kill her, with such a way: the ayre out of a re- 
ceiver, wherein she was put, and then the ayre be- 
ing let in upon her, revives her immediately-nay, 
and this ayre is to be made by putting together a 
liquor and some body that ferments-the steam 
of that do do the work. 
-March 22, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
I ORD'S Day and Easter Day.-With my wife to 
church. Home to dinner, my wife and I, 
Mercer staying the Sacrament, alone. This is the 
day seven years which, by the blessing of God, I 
have survived of my being cut of the stone, and 
am now in very perfect good health, and have long 
been; and though the last winter hath been as Samuel Pepys 
159 
hard a winter as any have been these many years, 
yet I never was better in my life, nor have not, 
these ten years, gone colder in the summer that I 
have done all this winter, wearing only a doublet, 
and a waistcoat cut open on the back; abroad, a 
cloak, and within doors a coat I slipped on. Now 
I am at a loss to know whether it be my hare's 
foot which is my preservation; for I never had a 
fit of the collique since I wore it, or whether it be 
my taking of a pill of turpentine every morning. 
-March 26, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
AND so, being very pleasant at dinner, away 
home, Creed with me, and there met Povy; 
and we to Gresham College, where we saw some 
experiments upon a hen, a dog, and a cat, of the 
Florence poyson. The first it made for a time 
drunk, but it come to itself again quickly; the sec- 
ond it made vomit mightily, but no other hurt. The 
third I did not stay to see the effect of it. 
-April 19, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 160 
Samuel Pepys 
GREAT fears of the sicknesse here in the City, 
it being said that two or three houses are al- 
ready shut up. God preserve us all! 
-April 30, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
IV/JY Lord Chief-Justice Hide did die suddenly 
* ' this week, a day or two ago, of an apoplexy. 
-May 3, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO the Coffee-house, where all the news is of 
the Dutch being gone out, and of the plague 
growing upon us in this town; and of remedies 
against it: some saying one thing, and some an- 
other. 
-May 2b, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THIS day, much against my will, I did in Drury 
Lane see two or three houses marked with a 
red cross upon the doors, and "Lord have mercy 
upon us!" writ there; which was a sad sigh* to 
me, being the first of the kind that, to my remem- Samuel Pepys 
161 
brance, I ever saw. It put me into an ill concep- 
tion of myself and my smell, so that I was forced 
to buy some roll-tobacco to smell to and chaw, 
which took away the apprehension. 
-June 7,1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
K T one at home to dinner-my wife, mother, 
** and Mercer dining at W. Joyce's; I giving her 
a caution to go round by the Half Moone to his 
house, because of the plague. 
-June 8, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
I TOME, where my people busy to make ready a 
* * supper against night for some guests, in lieu 
of my stone-feasts. 
-June 9, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
IN the evening home to supper; and there, to my 
great trouble, hear that the plague is come into 
the City, though it hath, these three or four weeks 
since its beginning, been wholly out of the City; 162 
Samuel Pepys 
but where should it begin but in my good friend 
and neighbour's, Dr. Burnett, in Fenchurch Street: 
which, in both points, troubles me mightily. 
-June 10, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THEY being gone, I out of doors a little, to show, 
forsooth, my new suit. I saw poor Dr. Bur- 
nett's door shut; but he hath, I hear, gained great 
goodwill among his neighbours: for he discovered 
it himself first, and caused himself to be shut up 
of his own accord: which was very handsome. 
-June 11, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THE town grows very sickly, and people to be 
afraid of it: there dying this last week of the 
plague 112, from 43 the week before; whereof but 
one in Fenchurch Streete, and one in Broad 
Streete, by the Treasurer's office. 
-June 15, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
163 
IT struck me very deep this afternoon going with 
* a hackney coach from Lord Treasurer's down 
Holborne, the coachman I found to drive easily 
and easily, at last stood still, and come down 
hardly able to stand, and told me that he was sud- 
denly struck very sick, and almost blind-he could 
not see; so I 'light, and went into another coach, 
with a sad heart for the poor man and for myself 
also, lest he should have been struck with the 
plague. Sir John Lawson, I hear, is worse than 
yesterday: the King went to see him to-day most 
kindly. It seems his wound is not very bad; but 
he hath a fever, a thrush, and a hickup, all three 
together, which are, it seems, very bad symptoms. 
-June 17, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THENCE to see Sir J. Lawson, who is better, but 
continues ill-his hickup not being yet gone, 
could have little discourse with him. 
-June 19, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 164 
Samuel Pepys 
T^HIS day I informed myself that there died four 
of five at Westminster of the plague, in sev- 
eral houses, upon Sunday last, in Bell Alley, over 
against the Palace-gate: yet people do think that 
the number will be fewer in the town than it was 
the last week. 
-June 20, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
T TOME, by hackney-coach, which is become a 
* very dangerous passage now-a-days, the 
sickness encreasing mightily. 
-June 23, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
'T'HE plague encreases mightily, I this day see- 
ing a house, at a bitt-maker's, over against St. 
Clement's Church, in the open street, shut up: 
which is a sad sight. 
-June 27, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TN my way to Westminster Hall, I observed sev- 
* eral plague-houses in King's Street and near 
the Palace. 
-June 28, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
165 
BY water to White Hall, where the Court full of 
waggons and people ready to go out of town. 
This end of the town every day grows very bad 
of the plague. The Mortality Bill is come to 267; 
which is about ninety more than the last: and of 
these but four in the City, which is a great blessing 
to us. 
-June 29, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
T TOME; calling at Somerset House, where all 
* * were packing up too: the Queen-Mother set- 
ting out for France this day, to drink Bourbon 
waters this year, she being in a consumption; and 
intends not to come till winter come twelve- 
months. 
-June 29, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
T^HUS this book of two years ends. Myself and 
* family in good health, consisting of myself 
and wife, Mercer, her woman, Mary, Alice, and 
Susan, our maids, and Tom, my boy. In a sickly 
time of the plague growing on. 
-June 30, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 166 
Samuel Pepys 
' | *0 Westminster, where, I hear, the sickness en- 
* creases greatly. Sad at the news, that seven or 
eight houses in Burying Hall Street are shut up of 
the plague. 
-July 1, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
'T'HE season growing so sickly, that it is much to 
* be feared how a man can escape having a 
share with others in it, for which the good Lord 
God bless me! or make me fitted to receive it. 
-July 3, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
DY water to Woolwich, where I found my wife 
come, and her two maids, and very prettily 
accommodated they will be; and I left them going 
to supper, grieved in my heart to part with my 
wife, being worse by much without her, though 
some trouble there is in having the care of a 
family at home this plague time. 
-July 5, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
167 
I COULD not see Lord Brouncker, nor had much 
mind, one of the two great houses within two 
doors of him being shut up: and, Lord! the num- 
ber of houses visited, which this day I observed 
through the town, quite round in my way, by Long 
Lane and London Wall. 
-July 6, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
LORD'S Day.-To Sir G. Carteret, and there find 
my Lady in her chamber, not very well, but 
looks the worst almost that ever I did see her in 
my life. It seems her drinking of the water at 
Tunbridge did almost kill her. 
-July 9, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
AND, having promised Harman yesterday, I to 
his house. . . . The most observable thing 
I found there to my content, was to hear him and 
his clerk tell me, that in this parish of Michell's 
Cornhill, one of the middlemost parishes, and a 
great one of the town, there hath, notwithstanding 
this sickliness, been buried of any disease, man, 
woman, or child, not one for thirteen months last 168 
Samuel Pepys 
past; which is very strange. And the like, in a 
good degree in most other parishes, I hear, saving 
only of the plague in them. 
-July 9, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
A BOVE 700 died of the plague this week. 
-July 13, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
I WAS much troubled this day to hear, at West- 
* minster, how the officers do bury the dead in 
the open Tuttle-fields, pretending want of room 
elsewhere; whereas the new chapel church-yard 
was walled-in at the publick charge in the last 
plague-time, merely for want of room; and now 
none, but such as are able to pay dear for it, can 
be buried there. 
-July 18, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
169 
WALKED to Redriffe, where I hear the sick- 
ness is, and indeed is scattered almost every- 
where, there dying 1089 of the plague this week. 
My Lady Carteret did this day give me a bottle of 
plague-water home with me. 
-July 20, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
LORD! to see how the plague spreads! it being 
now all over King's Streete, at the Axe, and 
next door to it, and in other places. 
-July 20, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
LATE in my chamber, setting some papers in or- 
der; the plague growing very raging, and my 
apprehensions of it great. 
-July 2/, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO Fox-hall, where to the Spring garden; but i 
do not see one guest there, the town being so 
empty of anybody to come thither. Only, while I 
was there, a poor woman come to scold with the 170 
Samuel Pepys 
master of the house that a kinswoman, I think, of 
her's, that was nearly dead of the plague, might be 
buried in the church-yard; for, for her part, she 
should not be buried in the commons, as they said 
she should. I by coach home, not meeting with but 
two coaches and but two carts from White Hall 
to my own house, that I could observe, and the 
streets mighty thin of people. I met this noon 
with Dr. Burnett, who told me, and I find in the 
news-book this week that he posted upon the 
'Change, that whoever did spread the report that, 
instead of dying of the plague, his servant was by 
him killed, it was forgery, and shewed me the ac- 
knowledgment of the Master of the pest-house, 
that his servant died of a bubo on his right groine, 
and two spots on his right thigh, which is the 
plague. 
-July 22, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
OUR good humour in everybody continuing, I 
slept till seven o'clock. Sad the story of the 
plague in the City, it growing mightily. This day 
my Lord Brouncker did give me Grant's book 
upon the Bills of Mortality, new printed and en- Samuel Pepys 
171 
larged. To my office: thence by coach to the Duke 
of Albemarle's, not meeting one coach, going nor 
coming. 
-July 25, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
SAD news of the death of so many in the parish 
of the plague, forty last night. The bell al- 
ways going. . . . This day poor Robin Shaw at 
Backewell's died, and Backewell himself now in 
Flanders. The King himself asked about Shaw, 
and being told he was dead, said he was very sorry 
for it. The sickness is got into our parish this 
week, and is got, indeed, every where; so that I 
begin to think of setting things in order, which I 
pray God enable me to put, both as to soul and 
body. 
-July 26, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
AT home met the weekly Bill, where above 100 
encreased in the Bill; and of them, in all, 
about 1700 of the pieague, which hath made the 
officers this day resolve of sitting at Deptford, 
which puts me to some consideration what to do. 
-July 27, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 172 
Samuel Pepys 
T^O DAGENHAMS; . . . But, Lord! to see in 
* what fear all the people here do live. How 
they are afraid of us that come to them, insomuch 
that I am troubled at it, and wish myself away. But 
some cause they have; for the chaplain, with 
whom, but a week or two ago, we were here 
mighty high disputing, is since fallen into a fever, 
and dead, being gone hence to a friend's a good 
way off. A sober and a healthful man. 
-July 28, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
IT was a sad noise to hear our bell to toll and ring 
* so often to-day, either for deaths or burials; I 
think, five or six times. 
-July 30, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
ANON the coach comes: in the mean time, there 
coming a News thither with his horse to go 
over, that told us he did come from Islington this 
morning; and that Proctor, the vintner, of the 
Miter, in Wood Street, and his son, are dead this 
morning there, of the plague: he having laid out Samuel Pepys 
173 
abundance of money there, and was the greatest 
vintner for some time in London for great enter- 
tainments. 
-July 31, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
T^HUS we end this month, as I said, after the 
* greatest glut of content that ever I had; only 
under some difficulty because of the plague, which 
grows mightily upon us, the last week being about 
1,700 or 1,800 of the plague. 
-July 31, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
'T'HENCE down, and Mr. Brisband and I to bil- 
liards: anon come my Lord and Sir G. Cart- 
eret in, who have been looking abroad and visiting 
some farms that Sir G. Carteret hath thereabouts, 
and, among other things, report the greatest 
stories of the bigness of the calfes they find there, 
ready to sell to the butchers-as big, they say, as 
little cowes, and that they do give them a piece of 
chalke to licke, which they hold makes them white 
in the flesh within. 
-Aug. 1, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 174 
Samuel Pepys 
UP, it being a public fast, as being the first 
Wednesday of the month, for the plague; 
within doors all day, and upon my monthly ac- 
counts late. I did find myself really worth £1,900, 
for which the great God of Heaven and Earth be 
praised! 
-Aug. 2, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
A ND so to the ferry, where I was forced to stay 
a great while before I could get my horse 
brought over, and then mounted, and rode very 
finely to Dagenhams; all the way, people, citizens, 
walking to and fro, enquire how the plague is in 
the City this week by the Bill; which, by chance, 
at Greenwich, I had heard was 2,020 of the plague, 
and 3,000 and odd, of all diseases; but methought 
it was a sad question to be so often asked me. 
-Aug. 3, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
MR. MARR telling me, by the way, how a maid 
servant of Mr. John Wright's, who lives 
thereabouts, falling sick of the plague, she was 
removed to an outhouse, and a nurse appointed to 
look to her; who, being once absent, the maid got Samuel Pepys 
175 
out of the house at the window, and run away. 
The nurse coming and knocking, and, having no 
answer, believed she was dead, and went and told 
Mr. Wright so; who and his lady were in great 
straight what to do to get her buried. At last, re- 
solved to go to Burntwood, hard by, being in the 
parish, and there get people to do it. But they 
would not: so he went home full of trouble, and 
in the way met the wench walking over the com- 
mon, which frightened him worse than before; 
and was forced to send people to take her, which 
he did; and they got one of the pest-coaches, and 
put her into it, to carry her to a pest-house. 
-Aug. 3, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO my office a little, and then to the Duke of 
Albemarle's, about some business. The streets 
empty all the way, now, even in London, which is 
a sad sight. And to Westminster Hall, where talk- 
ing, hearing very sad stories from Mrs. Mumford; 
among others, of Mr. Mitchell's son's family. 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. So home, through the City again, wishing I 
may have taken no ill in going; but I will go, I 
think, no more thither. 
-Aug. 8, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 176 
Samuel Pepys 
OY and by to the office, where we sat all the 
" morning; in great trouble to see the Bill this 
week rise so high, to above 4,000 in all, and of 
them above 3,000 of the plague. Home, to draw 
over anew my will, which I had bound myself by 
oath to dispatch by to-morrow night; the town 
growing so unhealthy, that a man cannot depend 
upon living two days. 
-Aug. 10, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
'T'HE people die so, that now it seems they are 
* fain to carry the dead to be buried by daylight, 
the nights not sufficing to do it in. And my Lord 
Mayor commands people to be within at nine at 
night all, as they say, that the sick may have lib- 
erty to go abroad for ayre. There is one also dead 
out of one of our ships at Deptford, which troubles 
us mightily-the Providence, fire-ship, which was 
just fitted to go to sea; But they tell me, to-day, no 
more sick on board. And this day W. Bodham 
tells me that one is dead at Woolwich, not far 
from the Rope-yard. I am told, too, that a wife of 
one of the groomes at Court is dead at Salisbury; 
so that the King and Queen are speedily to be all 
gone to Wilton. So God preserve us! 
-Aug. 12, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
177 
I ORD'S Day.-It being very wet all day, clearing 
*-J all matters, and giving instructions in writing 
to my executors, thereby perfecting the whole bus- 
iness of my will, to my very great joy; so that I 
shall be in much better state of soul, I hope, if it 
should please the Lord to call me away this sickly 
time. I find myself worth, besides Brampton es- 
tates, the sum of £2,164, for which the Lord be 
praised! 
-Aug. 13, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
GREAT fears we have that the plague will be a 
great Bill this week. 
-Aug. 1^, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
IT was dark before I could get home, and so land 
at Church-yard stairs, where, to my great 
trouble, I met a dead corps of the plague, in the 
narrow alley, just bringing down a little pair of 
stairs. But I thank God I was not much disturbed 
at it. However, I shall beware of being late abroad 
again. 
-Aug. 15, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 178 
Samuel Pepys 
TO the Exchange, where I have not been a great 
while. But, Lord! how sad a sight it is to see 
the streets empty of people, and very few upon 
the 'Change! Jealous of every door that one sees 
shut up, lest it should be the plague; and about us 
two shops in three, if not more, generally shut up. 
This day, I had the ill news from Dagenhams, that 
my poor Lord of Hinchingbroke his indisposition 
is turned to the smallpox. Poor gentleman! that 
he should be come from France so soon to fall 
sick, and of that disease too, when he should be 
gone to see a fine lady, his mistress! I am most 
heartily sorry for it. 
-Aug. 16, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
I ATE in the dark to Gravesend, where great is 
is the plague, and troubled to stay there so 
long for the tide. 
-Aug. 18, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
SO to sleep; being very well, but weary, and the 
better by having carried with me a bottle of 
strong water; whereof, now and then, a sip did me 
good. -Aug. 19, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
179 
THENCE with a lanthorn, in great fear of meet- 
ing of dead corpses, carrying to be buried; but, 
blessed be God! met none, but did see now and 
then a link, which is the mark of them, at a dis- 
tance. 
-Aug. 20, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
A/I ESSEN GERS went to get a boat for me, to 
AVI carry me to Woolwich, but all to no pur- 
pose: so I was forced to walk it in the dark, at ten 
o'clock at night, with Sir J. Minnes's George with 
me, being mightily troubled for fear of the doggs 
at Coome farme, and more for fear of rogues by 
the way, and yet more because of the plague which 
is there, which is very strange, it being a single 
house, all alone from the town, but it seems they 
use to admit beggars, for their own safety, to lie in 
their barns, and they brought it to them. 
-Aug. 21, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
1WENT away, and walked to Greenwich, in my 
way seeing a coffin with a dead body therein, 
dead of the plague, lying in an open close belong- 180 
Samuel Pepys 
ing to Coome farme, which was carried out last 
night, and the parish have not appointed any body 
to bury it; but only set a watch there all day and 
night, that nobody should go thither or come 
thence: this disease making us more cruel to one 
another than we are to dogs. Walked to Redriffe, 
troubled to go through the little lane where the 
plague is, but did, and took water and home, where 
all well. 
-Aug. 22, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THIS day I am told that Dr. Burnett, my physi- 
cian, is this morning dead of the plague; 
which is strange, his man dying so long ago, and 
his house this month open again. Now himself 
dead. Poor unfortunate man! 
-Aug. 25, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
BY water home, in my way seeing a man taken 
up dead, out of the hold of a small catch that 
lay at Deptford. I doubt it might be the plague, Samuel Pepys 
181 
which, with the thought of Dr. Burnett, did some- 
thing disturb me. So home, sooner than ordinary, 
and, after supper, to read melancholy alone, and 
then to bed. 
-A ug. 26, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO Mr. Colvill, the goldsmith's, having not for 
some days been in the streets; but now how 
few people I see, and those looking like people 
that had taken leave of the world. 
-Aug. 28, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO Greenwich, and called at Sir Theophilus Bid- 
dulph's, a sober, discreet man, to discourse of 
the preventing of the plague in Greenwich, and 
Woolwich, and Deptford, where in every place it 
begins to grow very great. 
-Aug. 29, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 182 
Samuel Pepys 
k BROAD, and met with Hadley, our clerkc, who, 
** upon my asking how the plague goes, told me 
it encreases much, and much in our parish; for, 
says he, there died nine this week, though I have 
returned but six: which is a very ill practice, and 
makes me think it is so in other places; and there- 
fore the plague much greater than people take it 
to be. I went forth, and walked towards Moore- 
fields to see, God forgive my presumption! whether 
I could see any dead corpse going to the grave; 
but, as God would have it, did not. But, Lord! 
how every body's looks, and discourse in the street, 
is of death, and nothing else; and few people go- 
ing up and down, that the town is like a place dis- 
tressed and forsaken. 
-Aug. 30, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
UP: and, after putting several things in order 
to my removal, to Woolwich; the plague hav- 
ing a great encrease this week, beyond all expecta- 
tion, of almost 2,000, making the general Bill 7,000, 
odd 100; and the plague above 6,000. Thus this 
month ends with great sadness upon the publick, 
through the greatness of the plague everywhere 
through the kingdom almost. Every day sadder Samuel Pepys 
183 
and sadder news of its encrease. In the City died 
this week 7,496, and of them 6,102 of the plague. 
But it is feared that the true number of the dead 
this week is near 10,000; partly from the poor that 
cannot be taken notice of, through the greatness 
of the number, and partly from the Quakers and 
others that will not have any bell ring for them. 
-Aug. 31, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
A S to myself, I am very well, only in fear of the 
** plague, and as much of an ague, by being 
forced to go early and late to Woolwich, and my 
family to lie there continually. 
-Aug. 31, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
I ORD'S Day.-Up, and put on my coloured silk 
suit very fine, and my new periwigg, bought a 
good while since, but durst not wear, because the 
plague was in Westminster when I bought it; and 
it is a wonder what will be the fashion after the 
plague is done, as to periwiggs, for nobody will 
dare to buy any haire, for fear of the infection, 
that it had been cut off the heads of people dead 
of the plague. 
-Sept. 3, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 184 
Samuel Pepys 
AMONG other stories, one was very passionate, 
methought, of a complaint brought against a 
man in the town, for taking a child from London 
from an infected house. Aiderman Hooker told 
us it was the child of a very able citizen in Gra- 
cious Street, a saddler, who had buried all the rest 
of his children of the plague, and himself and 
wife now being shut up 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 put 
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 town. 
-Sept. 3, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO London, to pack up more things; and there I 
saw fires burning in the street, as it is through 
the whole City, by the Lord Mayor's order. Thence 
by water to the Duke of Albemarle's: all the way 
fires on each side of the Thames, and strange to 
see in broad daylight two or three burials upon 
the bankside, one at the very heels of another: 
doubtless, all of the plague; and yet at least forty 
or fifty people going along with every one of them. 
-Sept. 6, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
185 
TO the Tower, and there sent for the Weekly 
Bill, and find 8,252 dead in all, and of them 
6,978 of the plague; which is a most dreadful num- 
ber, and shows reason to fear that the plague hath 
got that hold that it will yet continue among us. 
-Sept. 7, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TPHE decrease of 500 and more, which is the first 
* decrease we have yet had in the sickness since 
it begun; and great hopes that the next week it 
will be greater. 
-Sept, lb, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
WITH Captain Cocke, and there drank a cup of 
good drink, which I am fain to allow myself 
during this plague time, by advice of all, and not 
contrary to my oath, my physician being dead, 
and chyrurgeon out of the way, whose advice I 
am obliged to take. In much pain to think what 
I shall do this winter time; for going every day to 
Woolwich I cannot, without endangering my life; 
and staying from my wife at Greenwich is not 
handsome. 
-Sept. 15, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 186 
Samuel Pepys 
DUT, Lord! what a sad time it is to see no boats 
upon the river; and grass grows all up and 
down White Hall court, and nobody but poor 
wretches in the streets! And, which is the worst 
of all, the Duke showed us the number of the 
plague this week, brought in the last night from the 
Lord Mayor; that it encreased about 600 more than 
the last, which is quite contrary to our hopes and 
expectations, from the coldness of the late season. 
For the whole general number is 8,297, and of 
them the plague 7,165; which is more in the whole, 
by above 50, than the biggest Bill yet: which is 
very grievous to us all. I find Sir W. Batten and 
his lady gone home to Walthamstow, with some 
necessity, hearing that a maid-servant of their's is 
taken ill. 
-Sept. 20, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
Here i saw this week's Bill of Mortality, where- 
in, blessed be God! there is above 1,800 de- 
crease, being the first considerable decrease we 
have had. 
-Sept. 27, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
187 
SIR Martin Noell is this day dead of the plague, 
in London, where he hath lain sick of it these 
eight days. 
-Sept. 29, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THE great burden we have upon us at this time 
at the office, is the providing for prisoners and 
sick men that are recovered, they lying before our 
office doors all night and all day, poor wretches. 
-Sept. 30, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
IDO end this month with the greatest content, 
and may say that these last three months, for 
joy, health, and profit, have been much the great- 
est that ever I received all my life in any twelve 
months, having nothing upon me but the consider- 
ation of the sickliness of the season to mortify me. 
-Sept. 30, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 188 
Samuel Pepys 
THIS night comes Sir George Smith to see me 
at the office, and tells me how the plague is de- 
creased this week 740, for which God be praised! 
but that it encreases at our end of the town still. 
-Oct. 4, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
'T'HEN to Mr. Evelyn's, to discourse of our con- 
founded business of prisoners, and sick and 
wounded seamen, wherein he and we are so much 
put out of order. 
-Oct. 6, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TFALKING with him in the highway, come 
*. close by the bearers with a dead corpse of the 
plague; but, Lord! to see what custom is, that I 
am come almost to think nothing of it. 
-Oct. 7, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
189 
TO the office, where ended my business with the 
Captains; and I think, of twenty-two ships, 
we shall make shift to get out seven, God help us! 
men being sick, or provisions lacking. 
-Oct. 8, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
AND they tell us that, in Westminster, there is 
never a physician and but one apothecary 
left, all being dead; but that there are great hopes 
of a great decrease this week: God send it! 
-Oct. 16, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO the Still Yard, which place, however, is now 
shut up of the plague; but I was there, and we 
now make no bones of it. 
-Oct. 17, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THE 'Change pretty full, and the town begins to 
be lively again, though the streets very empty, 
and most shops shut. 
-Oct. 26, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 190 
Samuel Pepys 
I ORD'S Day.-In the street, at Woolwich, did 
overtake and almost run upon two women 
crying and carrying a man's coflin between them; 
I suppose the husband of one of them, which, me- 
thinks, is a sad thing. 
-Oct. 29, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
liyjEETING yesterday the Searchers, with their 
rods in their hands, coming from Captain 
Cocke's house, I did overhear them say that his 
Black did not die of the Plague. 
-Oct. 31, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THUS we end the month merrily; and the more 
that, after some fears that the plague would 
have increased again this week, I hear for certain 
that there is above 400 less; the whole number of 
deaths being 1388, and of them of the plague 1031. 
-Oct. 31, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
191 
I HEAR that one of the little boys at my lodging 
is not well; and they suspect, by their sending 
for plaister and fume, that it may be the plague; 
so I sent Mr. Hater and W. Hewer to speak with 
the mother; but they returned to me, satisfied that 
there is no hurt nor danger, but the boy is well, 
and offers to be searched. 
-Nov. 'i, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
I ORD'S Day.-To the Cocke-pitt, where I heard 
the Duke of Albemarle's chaplain make a sim- 
ple sermon: among other things, reproaching the 
imperfection of humane learning, he cried-"All 
our physicians cannot tell 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 that our understandings reach 
not the thing. I hear that the plague increases 
much at Lambeth, St. Martin's, and Westminster, 
and fear it will all over the city. 
-Nov. 5, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 192 
Samuel Pepys 
IT being a fast-day, all people were at church, and 
the office quiet: so I did much business, and at 
noon adventured to my old lodging. By water to 
Deptford, and, about eight o'clock at night, did 
take water, being glad I was out of the town; for 
the plague, it seems, rages there more than ever. 
-Nov. 8, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THE Bill of Mortality, to all our griefs, is en- 
creased 399 this week, and the encrease gener- 
ally through the whole City and suburbs, which 
makes us all sad. 
-Nov. 9, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
CAPTAIN COCKE and I in his coach through 
Kent Streete, a sad place through the plague, 
people sitting sick and with plaisters about them in 
the street begging. 
-Nov. Ik, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
193 
THIS day I hear that my pretty grocer's wife, 
Mrs. Beverham, over the way there, her hus- 
band is lately dead of the plague at Bow, which I 
am sorry for, for fear of losing her neighbourhood. 
-Nov. 14, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THE plague, blessed be God! is decreased 400; 
making the whole this week about 1300 and 
odd: for which the Lord be praised! 
-Nov. 15, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
IWAS very glad to hear that the plague is come 
very low; that is, the whole under 1000, and 
the plague 600 and odd: and great hopes of a 
further decrease, because of this day's being a very 
exceeding hard frost, and continues freezing. 
-Nov. 22, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TPO London, and there, in my way, at my old 
oyster shop in Gracious Streete, brought two 
barrels of my fine woman of the shop, who is 194 
Samuel Pepys 
alive after all the plague, which now is the first 
observation or inquiry we make at London con- 
cerning everybody we know. To the 'Change, 
where very busy with several people, and mightily 
glad to see the 'Change so full, and hopes of an- 
other abatement still the next week. I went home 
with Sir G. Smith to dinner, sending for one of my 
barrels of oysters, which were good, though come 
from Colchester, where the plague hath been so 
much. 
-Nov. 2b, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
GREAT joy we have this week in the weekly 
Bill, it being come to 544 in all, and but 333 
of the plague; so that we are encouraged to get to 
London soon as we can. And my father writes as 
great news of joy to them, that he saw York's wag- 
gon go again this week to London, and full of pas- 
sengers; and tells me that my aunt Bell hath been 
dead of the plague these seven weeks. 
-Nov. 30, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
195 
'T'O Mr. Pierce's, where he and his wife made 
* me drink some tea. Away to the 'Change, and 
there hear the ill news, to my great and all our 
great trouble, that the plague is encreased again 
this week, notwithstanding there hath been a long 
day or two great frosts; but we hope it is only the 
effects of the late close, warm weather, and, if the 
frost continue the next week, may fall again: but 
the town do thicken so much with people, that it is 
much if the plague do not grow again upon us. 
-Dec. 13, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THE weather hath been frosty these eight or 
nine days, and so we hope for an abatement 
of the plague the next week, or else God have 
mercy upon us! for the plague will certainly con- 
tinue the next year, if it do not. 
-Dec. 22, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
HOME to my wife, and angry about her desiring 
a maid yet, before the plague is quite over. 
-Dec. 27, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 196 
Samuel Pepys 
BUT now the plague is abated almost to nothing, 
and I intending to get to London as fast as I 
can. 
-Dec. 31, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
MY whole family hath been well all this while, 
and all iny friends I know of, saving my 
aunt Bell, who is dead, and some children of my 
cozen Sarah's, of the plague. But many of such as 
I know very well, dead; yet, to our great joy, the 
town fills apace, and shops begin to be open again. 
Pray God continue the plague's decrease! for that 
keeps the Court away from the place of business, 
and so all goes to rack as to publick matters, they 
at this distance not thinking of it. 
-Dec. 31, 1665, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
I TO the Duke of Albemarle and back again: and, 
* at the Duke's, with great joy, I received the 
good news of the decrease of the plague this week 
to 70, and but 253 in all; which is the least Bill 
hath been known these twenty years in the City, Samuel Pepys 
197 
though the want of people in London is it, that 
must make it so low, below the ordinary number 
for Bills. 
-Jan. 3, 1665-66, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
T^HEN to dancing and supper, and mighty merry 
till Mr. Rolt come in, whose pain of the 
toothache made him no company, and spoilt ours: 
so he away, and then my wife's teeth fell of aching, 
and she to bed. So forced to break up all with a 
good song, and so to bed. 
-Jan. 3, 1665-66, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO the office, where we met first since the plague, 
which God preserve us in! 
-Jan. 9, 1665-66, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THE plague is encreased this week from seventy 
to eighty-nine. 
-Jan. 10, 1665-66, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 198 
Samuel Pepys 
A ND pretty merry, though not perfectly so, be- 
** cause of the fear that there is of a great en- 
crease again of the plague this week. 
-Jan. 13, 1665-66, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
IIAIGHTILY troubled at the news of the plague's 
being encreased, and was much the saddest 
news that the plague hath brought me from the be- 
ginning of it; because of the lateness of the year, 
and the fear we may with reason have of its con- 
tinuing with us the next summer. The total be- 
ing now 375, and the plague 158. 
-Jan. 16, 1665-66, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THE first meeting of Gresham College since the 
plague. Dr. Goddard did fill us with talk, in 
defence of his and his fellow physicians going out 
of town in the plague-time; saying, that their par- 
ticular patients were most gone out of town, and 
they left at liberty; and a great deal more. But 
what, among other fine discourse, pleased me 
most, was Sir G. Ent, about respiration; that it is Samuel Pepys 
199 
not to this day known, or concluded on, among 
physicians, nor to be done either, how the action is 
managed by nature, or for what use it is. 
-Jan. 22, 1665-66, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
GOOD news beyond all expectation of the de- 
crease of the plague, being now but 79, and 
the whole but 272. So home with comfort to bed. 
-Jan. 23, 1665-66, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
'T'O White Hall, and, to my great joy, people be- 
gin to bustle up and down there, the King 
holding his resolution to be in town to-morrow, 
and hath good encouragement, blessed be God! to 
do so, the plague being decreased this week to 56, 
and the total to 227. 
-Jan. 31, 1665-66, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
MY wife tells me my aunt James is lately dead 
of the stone. 
-Feb. 4, 1665-66, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 200 
Samuel Pepys 
TO supper, and to bed, being now-a-days, for 
these four or five months, mightily troubled 
with my snoring in my sleep, and know not how to 
remedy it. 
-Feb. 10, 1665-66, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
COMES Mr. Caesar, my boy's lute-master, whom 
I have not seen since the plague before, but he 
hath been in Westminster all this while, very well; 
and tells me, in the height of it, how bold people 
there were, to go in sport to one another's burials; 
and in spite, too, ill people would breathe in the 
faces, out of their windows, of well people going 
by. 
-Feb. 12, 1665-66, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
ILL news this night, that the plague is encreased 
* this week, and in many places else about the 
town, and at Chatham and elsewhere. 
-Feb. 13, 1665-66, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
201 
T^O White Hall. . . . Thence took coach, and 
home, calling by the way at my bookseller's 
for a book writ about twenty years ago in prophe- 
cy of this year coming on, 1666, explaining it to be 
the mark of the beast. 
-Feb. 18, 1665-66, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
UP, and to the office; where, among other busi- 
nesses, Mr. Evelyn's proposition about pub- 
lick Infirmarys was read and agreed on, he being 
there: and at noon I took him home to dinner, be- 
ing desirous of keeping my acquaintance with 
him; and a most excellent humoured man I still 
find him, and mighty knowing. 
-Feb. 20, 1665-66, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THENCE with my Lord Brouncker to Gresham 
College, the first time after the sickness that 
I was there, and the second time any met. 
-Feb. 21, 1665-66, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 202 
Samuel Pepys 
AX/E are much troubled that the sickness in gen- 
' * eral, the town being so full of people, should 
be but three, and yet of the particular disease of 
the plague there should be ten encrease. 
-Feb. 22, 1665-66, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
SO I supped, and was merry at home all the eve- 
ning, and then rather it being my birthday 33 
years, for which God be praised that I am in so 
good a condition of health and estate, and every- 
thing else as I am, beyond expectation, in all. 
-Feb. 23, 1665-66, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
BLESSED be God! a good Bill this week we 
have; being but 237 in all, and 42 of the 
plague, and of them but six in the City: though my 
Lord Brouncker says, that these six are most of 
them in new parishes, where they were not the 
last week. 
-March 1, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
203 
THE plague encreased this week 29 from 28, 
though the total fallen from 238 to 207. 
-March 13, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
HOME, having a great cold; so to bed, drinking 
butter-ale. 
-March 17, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO the Duke of York, and did our usual business 
with him; but, Lord! how anything is yielded 
presently, even by Sir W. Coventry, that is pro- 
pounded by the Duke, as now to have Troutbecke, 
his old surgeon, intended to go Surgeon-General 
to the ileete, to go Physician-General of the fleete, 
of which there never was any precedent in the 
world, and he for that to have £20 per month. 
-March 21, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
MEETING Dr. Allen, the physician, he, and I, 
and another walked in the Park, a most 
pleasant, warm day, and to the Queen's chapel; 204 
Samuel Pepys 
where I do not so dislike the musick. Here I saw 
on a post an invitation to all good Catholicks to 
pray for the soul of such a one departed this life. 
The Queen, I hear, do not yet hear of the death of 
her mother, she being in a course of physick, that 
they dare not tell it her. 
-April 1, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THE plague is, to our great grief, encreased nine 
this week, though decreased a few in the total. 
And this encrease runs through many parishes, 
which makes us much fear the next year. 
-April 5, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THE Court full this morning of the news of Tom 
Cheffin's death, the King's closet-keeper. He 
was as well last night as ever, playing at tables in 
the house, and not very ill this morning at six 
o'clock, yet dead before seven: they think, of an 
imposthume in his breast. But it looks fearfully 
among people now-a-days, the plague, as we hear, 
encreasing every where again. 
-April 8, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
205 
THE plague, I hear, encreases in the town much, 
and exceedingly in the country everywhere. 
-April 23, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THE plague, blessed be God! is decreased sixteen 
this week. 
-April 25, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
WEARY to bed, after having my hair of my 
head cut shorter, even close to my skull, for 
coolness, it being mighty hot weather. 
-April 29, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
SO ends this month with great layings-out. Good 
health and gettings, and advanced well in the 
whole of my estate, for which God make me 
thankful! 
-April 30, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 206 
Samuel Pepys 
UP, and to send up and down for a nurse to take 
the girle home, and would have given any- 
thing. I offered, to the only one that we could get, 
20s. per week, and we to find clothes, and bed- 
ding, and physick, and would have given 30s., as 
demanded, but desired an hour or two's time. 
-May 3, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
'T'HIS day come home again my little girle Susan, 
* her sickness proving an ague, and she had a 
fit soon almost as she come home. The fleete is 
not yet gone from the Nore. The plague encreases 
in many places, and is 53 this week with us. 
-May 12, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
R/|Y right eye sore, and full of humour of late, I 
AVI think, by my late change of my brewer, and 
having of 8s. beer. 
-May 23, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
207 
SO I down and who should it be but Mr. Daniel, 
all muffled up, and his face as black as the 
chimney, and covered with dirt, pitch, and tar, 
and powder, and muffled with dirty clouts, and his 
right eye stopped with oakum. He is come last 
night, at five o'clock, from the fleete, with a com- 
rade of his that hath endangered another eye. 
They were set on shore at Harwich this morning, 
and at two o'clock, in a catch, with about twenty 
more wounded men from the Royall Charles. 
-June b, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
'T'HE Duke was forced to come to anchor on Fri- 
* day, having lost his sails and rigging. No par- 
ticular person spoken of to be hurt but Sir W. 
Clcrke, who hath lost his leg, and bore it bravely. 
The Duke himself had a little hurt in his thigh, but 
signified little. 
-June k, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
BY water to St. James's, it being a monthly fast- 
day for the plague. 
-June 6, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 208 
Samuel Pepys 
SIR William Clerke lost his leg; and in two days 
died. 
-June 7, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
MINGS is shot through the face, and into the 
shoulder, where the bullet is lodged. Young 
Holmes is also ill wounded, and Atber in the 
Rupert. 
-June 8, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
T^HIS evening we hear that Sir Christopher 
• Mings is dead of his late wounds; and Sir W. 
Coventry did commend him to me in a most ex- 
traordinary manner. 
-June 10, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
I, WITH my Lady Pen and her daughter, to see 
* Harman, whom we find lame in bed. His bones 
of his ancle are broke, but he hopes to do well 
soon. 
-June 11, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
209 
WALKED to Mrs. Bagwell's, and went into her 
house; but I was not a little fearful of what 
she told me but now, which is, that her servant 
was dead of the plague, and that she had new- 
whitened the house all below stairs, but that above 
stairs they are not so fit for me to go up to, they be- 
ing not so. So I parted thence, with a very good 
will, but very civilly, and away to the water-side, 
and sent for a pint of sack, and drank what I 
would, and give the waterman the rest. 
-June 13, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
UP, but in some pain of the collique. I have of 
late taken too much cold by washing my feet, 
and going in a thin silk waistcoat, without any 
other coat over it, and open-breasted. 
-June 20, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
LATE to bed; and, while I was undressing my- 
self, our new ugly maid Luce had like to have 
broke her neck in the dark, going down our upper 
stairs; but, which I was glad of, the poor girle did 210 
Samuel Pepys 
only bruise her head, but at first did lie on the 
ground groaning, and drawing her breath, like 
one a-dying. 
-June 30, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
T^HANKS be to God! the plague is, as I hear, in- 
* creased but two this week; but in the country, 
in several places, it rages mightily, and particu- 
larly in Colchester, where it hath long been, and 
is believed will quite depopulate the place. 
-July 4, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
AND then he begun to say what a great man 
** Warcupp was, and something else, and what 
was that but a great Iyer; and told me a story, 
how at table he did, they speaking about anti- 
pathys, say, that a rose touching his skin anywhere 
would make it rise and pimple; and, by and by 
the dessert coming, with roses upon it, the Duchess 
bid him try, and they did; but they rubbed and 
rubbed, but nothing would do in the world, by 
which his lie was found. 
-July 12, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
211 
AND so took up my wife and Betty Michell 
and her husband, and away into the fields, 
to take the ayre, as far as beyond Hackney, and so 
back again, in our way drinking a great deal of 
milke, which I drank to take away my heartburne. 
Home, and to bed in some pain, and fear of more. 
In mighty pain all night long, which I impute to the 
milk that I drank upon so much beer, and the cold, 
to my washing my feet the night before. 
-July 15, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
AND I, drinking no wine, had metheglin for the 
King's own drinking, which did please me 
mightily. 
-July 25, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
DINED at home: Mr. Hunt and his wife, who is 
very gallant, and newly come from Cam- 
bridge, because of the sickness, with us. 
-July 26, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 212 
Samuel Pepys 
T^O the Pope's Head, where my Lord Brouncker 
and his mistress dined, and Commissioner 
Pett, Dr. Charleton, and myself, were entertained 
with a venison pasty by Sir W. Warren. Here 
very pretty discourse of Dr. Charleton's, concern- 
ing Nature's fashioning every creature's teeth ac- 
cording to the food she intends them; and that 
men's, it is plain, was not for flesh, but fruit, and 
that he can at any time tell the food of a beast un- 
known by the teeth; and that all children love 
fruit, and none brought to flesh, but against their 
wills, at first. 
-July 28, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
IN Fenchurch Street met with Mr. Battersby; says 
he, "Do you see Dan Rawlinson's door shut 
up ? " which I did, and wondered. "Why," says he, 
"after all this sickness, and himself spending all 
the last year in the country, one of his men is now 
dead of the plague, and his wife and one of his 
maids sick, and himself shut up;" which troubles 
me mightily. So home; and there do hear also 
from Mrs. Sarah Daniel, that Greenwich is at this 
time much worse than ever it was, and Deptford 
too: and she told us that they believed all the Samuel Pepys 
213 
town would leave the town, and come to London; 
which is now the receptacle of all the people from 
all infected places. God preserve us! 
-Aug. 6, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
T RECEIVE fresh intelligence that Deptford and 
* Greenwich are now afresh exceedingly afflicted 
with the sickness more than ever. 
-Aug. 7, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
T^ISCOURSED with Mr. Hooke about the nature 
of sounds, and he did make me understand 
the nature of musicall sounds made by strings, 
mighty prettily; and told me that having come to a 
certain number of vibrations proper to make any 
tone, he is able to tell how many strokes a tly 
makes with her wings, those flies that hum in their 
flying, by the note that it answers to in musique, 
during their flying. That, I suppose, is a little too 
much refined; but his discourse in general of 
sound was mighty fine. 
-Aug. 8, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 214 
Samuel Pepys 
TPO St. James's, where we attended with the rest 
* of my fellows on the Duke, whom I found with 
two or three patches upon his nose and about his 
right eye, which came from his being struck with 
the bough of a tree the other day in his hunting; 
and it is a wonder it did not strike out his eye. 
-Aug. 8, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
1\/|RS. Rawlinson is dead of the sickness, and her 
maid continues mighty ill. He himself is 
got out of the house. I met with Mr. Evelyn in the 
street, who tells me the sad condition at this very 
day at Deptford, for the plague, and more at 
Deale, within his precinct, as one of the Commis- 
sioners for sick and wounded seamen, that the 
towne is almost quite depopulated. 
-Aug. 9, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
HOMEWARD, and hear in Fenchurch Streete, 
that now the maid is also dead at Mr. Raw- 
linson's; so that there are three deade in all, the 
wife, a man-servant, and maid-servant. 
-Aug. 10, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
215 
WITH Captain Erwin, discoursing about the 
East Indys, where he hath often been. And, 
among other things, he tells me how the King of 
Syam seldom goes out without thirty or forty 
thousand people with him, and not a word spoke, 
nor a hum or cough in the whole company to be 
heard. He tells me, the punishment frequently 
there for malefactors, is cutting off the crowne of 
their head, which they do very dexterously, leav- 
ing their brains bare, which kills them presently. 
-Aug. 17, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
SIR John Minnes come home to-night, not well, 
from Chatham, where he hath been at a pay, 
holding it at Upnor Castle, because of the plague 
so much in the towne of Chatham. He hath, they 
say, got an ague, being so much on the water. 
-Aug. 17, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
WAKED this morning, about six o'clock, with a 
violent knocking at Sir J. Minnes's door, to 
call up Mrs. Hammon, crying out that Sir J. Minnes 
is a-dying. I saw him on Saturday, after his fit of 216 
Samuel Pepys 
the ague, and then he was pretty lusty, which 
troubles me mightily; for he is a very good, harm- 
less, honest gentleman, though not fit for business. 
-Aug. 20, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
I VISITED Sir J. Minnes, who is much impatient 
by this few days' sickness, and I fear indeed it 
will kill him. 
-Aug. 20, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
SIR J. Minnes had a very bad fit this day, and a 
hickup do take him, which is a very bad sign. 
-Aug. 26, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
SO down to Deptford again, to fetch the rest, and 
there eat a bit of dinner at the Globe, with the 
master of the Bezan with me, while the labourers 
went to dinner. Here I hear that this poor town 
do bury still of the plague seven or eight in a day. 
-Sept. 13, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
217 
TROUBLED at my wife's hair coming off so 
much. 
-Sept. 18, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THENCE to White Hall, with Sir W. Batten and 
Sir W. Pen, to Wilkes's: and there did hear 
many stories of Sir Henry Wood, about Lord Nor- 
wich drawing a tooth at a health. 
-Sept. 19, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THIS day I put on two shirts, the first time this 
year, and do grow well upon it; so that my dis- 
ease is nothing but wind. 
-Sept. 19, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
BUT Sir G. Carteret says news is come that De 
Ruyter is dead, or very near it, of a hurt in 
his mouth, upon the discharge of one of his own 
guns; which puts him into a fever, and he likely 
to die, if not already dead. 
-Sept. 20, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 218 
Samuel Pepys 
DE RUYTER is not dead, but like to do well. 
-Sept. 27, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO dinner alone with my brother, with whom I 
had now the first private talk I have had, and 
find he hath preached but twice in his life. I did 
give him some advice to study pronunciation, but I 
do fear he will never make a good speaker, nor, 
I fear, any general good scholar; for I do not see 
that he minds optickes or mathematiques of any 
sort, nor anything else that I can find. I know not 
what he may be at divinity and ordinary school- 
learning. However, he seems sober, and that 
pleases me. 
-Oct. 17, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
* 
AND so, it being very cold, to White Hall, and 
was mighty fearfull of an ague, my vest being 
new and thin, and the coat cut not to meet be- 
fore, upon my vest. 
-Nov. 4, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
219 
OEING come home, we to cards, till two in the 
" morning, and drinking lamb's-wool. So to 
bed. 
-Nov. 9, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
'T'O the Pope's Head, where all the Houblons 
* were, and Dr. Croone. Dr. Croone told me, 
that, at the meeting at Gresham College to-night, 
which, it seems, they now have every Wednesday 
again, there was a pretty experiment of the blood 
of one dog let out, till he died, into the body of 
another on one side, while all his own run out on 
the other side. The first died upon the place, and 
the other very well, and likely to do well. This 
did give occasion to many pretty wishes, as of the 
blood of a Quaker to be let into an Archbishop, 
and such like; but, as Dr. Croone says, may, if it 
takes, be of mighty use to man's health, for the 
mending of bad blood by borrowing from a better 
body. 
-Nov. Ik, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 220 
Samuel Pepys 
THIS noon I met with Mr. Hooke, and he tells me 
the dog which was filled with another dog's 
blood, at the College the other day, is very well, 
and like to be so as ever, and doubts not its being 
found of great use to men; and so do Dr. Whistler, 
who dined with us at the tavern. 
-Nov. 16, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO church, it being thanksgiving-day for the ces- 
sation of the plague; but, Lord! how the town 
do say that it is hastened before the plague is quite 
over, there being some people still ill of it, but 
only to get ground for plays to be publickly acted, 
which the Bishops would not suffer till the plague 
was over; and one would think so, by the sudden- 
ness, of the notice given of the day, which was last 
Sunday, and the little ceremony. 
-Nov. 20, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TILL dark at dinner, and then broke up with 
great pleasure, especially to myself; and they 
away, only Mr. Carteret and I to Gresham College, 
where they meet now weekly again, and here they Samuel Pepys 
221 
had good discourse how this late experiment of 
the dog, which is in perfect good health, may be 
improved for good uses to men. 
-Nov. 28, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
1THIS morning did buy me a pair of green spec- 
tacles, to see whether they will help my eyes 
or no. 
-Dec. 2k, 1666, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
K/fY wife up, and with Mrs. Pen to walk in the 
fields to frost-bite themselves. 
-Jan. 2, 1666-67, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
MY Lady Batten home, her ague-fit coming on 
her at table. 
-Jan. 4, 1666-67, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 222 
Samuel Pepys 
T WERE I hear from Mr. Hayes that Prince Rupert 
is very bad still, and so bad, that he do now 
yield to be trepanned. 
-Jan. 28, 1666-67, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
T ORD'S Day.-To White Hall, and there to Sir 
W. Coventry's chamber, and there staid till 
he was ready, talking, and among other things of 
the Prince being trepanned, which was in doing 
just as we passed through the Stone Gallery, we 
asking at the door of his lodgings, and were told 
so. We are full of wishes for the good success; 
though I dare say but few do really concern our- 
selves for him in our hearts. With others into 
the House, and there hear that the work is done to 
the Prince in a few minutes without any pain at 
all to him, he not knowing when it was done. It 
was performed by Moulins. Having cut the out- 
ward table, as they call it, they find the inner all 
corrupted, so as it come out without any force; 
and their fear is, that the whole inside of his head 
is corrupted like that, which do yet make them 
afraid of him; but no ill accident appeared in the 
doing of the thing, but all with all imaginable sue- Samuel Pepys 
223 
cess, as Sir Alexander Frazier did tell me him- 
self, I asking him, who is very kind to me. 
-Feb. 3, 1666-67, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
I TEARD this morning that the Prince is much 
* better, and hath good rest. 
-Feb. 5, 1666-67, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
l\yiR. Holliard dined with us, and pleasant com- 
pany he is. I love his company, and he se- 
cures me against ever having the stone again. 
--Feb. 28, 1666-67, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
1MET with a sad letter from my brother, who 
tells me my mother is declared by the doctors 
to be past recovery, and that my father is also very 
ill: so that I fear we shall see a sudden change 
there. God fit them and us for it! 
-March 20, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 224 
Samuel Pepys 
I HAVE cause to be joyful this day, for my being 
cut of the stone this day nine years. The con- 
dition I am in, in reference to my mother, makes 
it unfit for me to keep my usual feast. 
-March 26, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THIS day I saw Prince Rupert abroad in the 
Vane-Room, pretty well as he used to be, and 
looks as well, only something appears to be under 
his periwigg on the crown of his head. 
-April 3, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
ONE at the tabic told an odd passage in this 
late plague: that at Petersfield, I think, he 
said, one side of the street had every house almost 
infected through the town, and the other, not one 
shut up. 
-April 4, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
225 
TO the King's little chapel; and afterwards to 
see the King heal the King's Evil, wherein no 
pleasure, I having seen it before. 
-April 10, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
1HEAR that the Duke of Cambridge, the Duke of 
York's son, is very sick; and my Lord Treas- 
urer very bad of the stone, and hath been so some 
days. 
-April 29, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
SIR John Winter to discourse with me about the 
forest of Deane, and then about my Lord 
Treasurer, and asking me whether, as he had 
heard, I had not been cut for the stone, I took him 
to my closet, and there showed it to him, of which 
he took the dimensions, and I believe will show 
my Lord Treasurer it. I met with Mr. Pierce and 
he tells me the Duke of Cambridge is very ill and 
full of spots about his body, that Dr. Frazier knows 
not what to think of it. 
-April 30, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 226 
Samuel Pepys 
AMONG other things, we had a proposition of 
Mr. Pierce's, for being continued in pay, or 
something done for him, in reward of his pains 
as Chyrurgeon-Generall; forasmuch as Trout- 
bepke, that was never a doctor before, hath got 
£200 a year settled on him for nothing but that one 
voyage with the Duke of Albemarle. 
-May 3, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
GREAT talk of the good end that my Lord 
Treasurer made; closing his own eyes, and 
wetting his mouth, and bidding adieu with the 
greatest content and freedom in the world: and 
is said to die with the cleanest hands that ever 
any Lord Treasurer did. 
-May 19, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
lt/|Y wife away down with Jane and W. Hewer 
to Woolwich, in order to a little ayre and to 
lie there to-night, and so to gather May-dew to- 
morrow morning, which Mrs. Turner hath taught 
her is the only thing in the world to wash her face 
with; and I am contented with it. 
-May 28, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
227 
HTHE Duchess hath been a good, comely woman; 
* but her dress so antick, and her deportment 
so ordinary, that I do not like her at all, nor do I 
hear her say anything that was worth hearing, 
but that she was full of admiration, all admiration. 
Several fine experiments were shown her of col- 
ours, loadstones, microscopes, and of liquors: 
among others, of one that did, while she was there, 
turn a piece of roasted mutton into pure blood, 
which was very rare. 
-May 30, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
LORD'S Day.-Being weary and almost blind 
with writing and reading so much to-day, I 
took boat, and up the river all alone as high as 
Putney almost, and then back again, all the way 
reading, and finishing Mr. Boyle's book of Colours, 
which is so chymical, that I can understand but lit- 
tle of it, but enough to see that he is a most excel- 
lent man. 
-June 2, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 228 
Samuel Pepys 
AND Pelling, the Potticary, tells me the world 
says all over, that less charge than what the 
kingdom is put to, of one kind or other, by this 
business, would have set out all our great ships. 
-June lb, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
HOME, and there find my wife making of tea; a 
drink which Mr. Pelling, the Potticary, tells 
her is good for her cold and defluxions. 
-June 28, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO Charing Cross, there to see the great boy and 
girle that are lately come out of Ireland, the 
latter eight, the former but four years old, of most 
prodigious bigness for their age. I tried to weigh 
them in my arms, and find them twice as heavy 
as people almost twice their age; and yet I am apt 
to believe they are very young. Their father a lit- 
tle sorry fellow, and their mother an old Irish 
woman. They have had four children of this big- 
ness, and four of ordinary growth, whereof two 
of each are dead. If, as my Lord Ormond certi- 
fies, it be true that they are no older, it is very 
monstrous. 
-July 8, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
229 
THE country very fine, only the way very dusty. 
To Epsom by eight o'clock, to the well; where 
much company, and I drank the water: they did 
not, but I did drink four pints. 
-July Ik, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
T last got out of the wood again; and I, by 
leaping down the little bank, coming out of 
the wood, did sprain my right foot, which brought 
me great present pain, but presently, with walking, 
it went away for the present, and so the women 
and W. Hewer and I walked upon the Downes, 
where a flock of sheep was; and the most pleasant 
and innocent sight that ever I saw in my life. 
-July Ik, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
ANON it grew dark, and we had the pleasure to 
see several glow-wormes, which was mighty 
pretty, but my foot begins more and more to pain 
me, which Mrs. Turner, by keeping her warm hand 
upon it, did much ease; but so that when we come 
home, which was just at eleven at night, I was 
not able to walk from the lane's end to my house 230 
Samuel Pepys 
without being helped. So to bed, and there had a 
cere-cloth laid to my foot, but in great pain all 
night long. 
-July lb, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
1 WAS not able to go to-day to wait on the Duke 
* of York with my fellows, but was forced in bed 
to write out particulars for their discourse there. 
Anon comes Mrs. Turner, and new-dressed my 
foot, and did it so, that I was at much ease 
presently. 
-July 15, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TOWARDS the 'Change, at noon, in my way ob- 
serving my mistake yesterday in Mark Lane, 
that the woman I saw was not the pretty woman I 
meant, the line-maker's wife, but a new-married 
woman, very pretty, a strong-water seller. 
-July 20, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
231 
ABOUT five o'clock down to Gravesend, all the 
way with extraordinary content reading of 
Boyle's Hydrostatickes, which the more I read 
and understand, the more I admire, as a most ex- 
cellent piece of philosophy. 
-July 2k, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
I ORD'S Day.-Up by four o'clock, and ready, 
" with Mrs. Turner, to take coach before five; 
and set on our journey, and got to the Wells at 
Barnett by seven o'clock, and there found many 
people a-drinking; but the morning is a very cold 
morning, so as we were very cold all the way in 
the coach. Here we met Joseph Batelier and W. 
Hewer also, and his uncle Steventon: so, after 
drinking three glasses and the women nothing, we 
back by coach to Barnett. 
-Aug. 11, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TOOK coach and home, and there took up my 
wife, and to Islington. Between that and 
Kingsland, there happened an odd adventure: one 
of our coach-horses fell sick of the staggers, so as 232 
Samuel Pepys 
he was ready to fall down. The coachman was 
fain to 'light, and hold him up, and cut his tongue 
to make him bleed, and his tail: then he blew some 
tobacco in his nose, upon which the horse sneezed, 
and, by and by, grew well, and drew us all the rest 
of our way, as well as ever he did. 
-Aug. 18, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
LORD'S Day.-Up, and betimes by water from 
the Tower, and called at the Old Swan for a 
glass of strong water. 
-Sept. 1, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
FROM him I went to see a great match at tennis, 
between Prince Rupert and one Captain Cooke 
against Bab. May and the elder Chichly; where the 
King was, and Court; and it seems they are the 
best players at tennis in the nation. But this puts 
me in mind of what I observed in the morning, 
that the King, playing at tennis, had a steele-yard 
carried to him; and I was told it was to weigh 
him after he had done playing; and at noon Mr. 
Ashburnham told me that it is only the King's Samuel Pepys 
233 
curiosity, which he usually hath of weighing him- 
self before and after his play, to see how much he 
loses in weight by playing: and this day he lost 
four and one-half pounds. 
-Sept. 2, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
AND so to a private house, and sent for a side 
of pig, and eat it at an acquaintance of W. 
Hewer's, where there was some learned physic 
and chymical books, and, among others, a natural 
"Herball" very fine. 
-Sept. 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
I TO the King's playhouse, my eyes being so bad 
* since last night's straining of them, that I am 
hardly able to see, besides the pain which I have 
in them. 
-Sept. 25, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 234 
Samuel Pepys 
AT home we find that Sir W. Batten's body was 
to-day carried from hence, with a hundred 
or two of coaches, to Walthamstow, and there 
buried. 
-Oct. 12, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
IT was an odd, strange thing to observe of Mr. 
Andrews what a fancy he hath to raw meat, 
that he eats it with no pleasure unless the blood 
run about his chops, which it did now by a leg of 
mutton that was not above half boiled; but, it 
seems, at home all his meat is dressed so, and beef 
and all, and [he] eats it so at nights also. 
-Oct. 17, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
T^O several places to buy a hat, and books, and 
* neckcloths, and several errands I did before I 
got home, and, among others, bought me two new 
pair of spectacles of Turlington, who, it seems, is 
famous for them; and his daughter, he being out 
of the way, do advise me two very young sights, 
and that that will help me most, and promises me 
great ease from them, and I will try them. 
-Oct. 18, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
235 
k | *0 the King's playhouse, and there saw "Henry 
* the Fourth:" and contrary to expectation, was 
pleased in nothing more than in Cartwright's 
speaking of Falstaffe's speech about "What is 
Honour?" The house full of Parliament-men, it 
being holyday with them: and it was observable 
how a gentleman of good habit, sitting just before 
us, eating of some fruit in the midst of the play, 
did drop down as dead, being choked; but with 
much ado Orange Moll did thrust her finger down 
his throat, and brought him to life again. 
-Nov. 2, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO church, and thither comes Roger Pepys to 
our pew, and thence home to dinner, whither 
comes by invitation, Mr. Turner, the Minister, and 
my cozen Roger brought with him Jeffrys, the 
apothecary at Westminster, who is our kinsman, 
and we had much discourse of Cottinhamshire. 
-Nou. 3, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 236 
Samuel Pepys 
TO Turlington, the great spectacle-maker, for 
advice, who dissuades me from using old spec- 
tacles, but rather young ones, and do tell me that 
nothing can wrong my eyes more than for me to 
use reading-glasses, which do magnify much. 
-Nov. b, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
LORD'S Day.-To Church. Here was my Lady 
Batten in her mourning. To White Hall, to 
speak with Sir W. Coventry; and there, beyond 
all we looked for, do hear that the Duke of York 
hath got, and is full of, the small-pox; and so we 
to his lodgings; and there find most of the family 
going to St. James's, and the gallery-doors locked 
up, that nobody might pass to nor fro: and so a 
sad house, I am sorry to see. I am sad to consider 
the effects of his death, if he should miscarry; but 
Dr. Frazier tells me that he is in as good condi- 
tion as a man can be in his case. The eruption ap- 
peared last night: it seems he was let blood on 
Friday. 
-Nov. 10, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
237 
UP, and to the Office, where sat all the morning; 
and there hear that the Duke of York do yet 
do very well with his smallpox; pray God he may 
continue to do so! 
-Nov. 12, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
BY and by I met with Mr. Wren, who tells me 
that the Duke of York is in as good condition 
as is possible for a man, in his condition of the 
smallpox. 
-Nov. 13, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THENCE home, and to the Office, where about 
my letters, and so home to supper, and to bed, 
my eyes being bad again; and by this means, the 
nights, now-a-days, do become very long to me, 
longer than I can sleep out. 
-Nov. Ik, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 238 
Samuel Pepys 
WITH Creed to a tavern, where Dean Wilkins 
and others: and good discourse; among the 
rest, of a man that is a little frantic, that hath been 
a kind of minister, Dr. Wilkins saying that he hath 
read for him in his church, that is poor and a de- 
bauched man, that the College have hired for 20s. 
to have some of the blood of a sheep let into his 
body; and it is to be done on Saturday next. They 
purpose to let in about twelve ounces; which, they 
compute, is what will be let in in a minute's time 
by a watch. 
-Nov. 21, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
IWAS pleased to see the person who had his 
blood taken out. He speaks well, and did this 
day give the Society a relation thereof in Latin, 
saying that he finds himself much better since, 
and as a new man, but he is cracked a little in his 
head, though he speaks very reasonably, and very 
well. He had but 20s. for his suffering it, and is to 
have the same again tried upon him: the first 
sound man that ever had it tried on him in Eng- 
land, and but one that we hear of in France. 
-Nov. 30, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
239 
WITH Sir J. Minnes to the Duke of York, the 
first time that I have seen him, or we waited 
on him, since his sickness; and, blessed be God! 
he is not at all the worse for the smallpox, but is 
only a little weak yet. 
-Dec. 6, 1667, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
COMES news from Kate Joyce that, if I would 
see her husband alive, I must come presently. 
So I to him, and find his breath rattled in the 
throat; and they did lay pigeons to his feet, and 
all despair of him. It seems, on Thursday last, he 
went, sober and quiet, to Islington, and behind one 
of the inns, the White Lion, did fling himself into 
a pond: was spied by a poor woman, and got out 
by some people, and set on his head and got to 
life: and so his wife and friends sent for. 
-Jan. 21, 1667-68, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
AND so thence home; and, after being at the 
Office, I home to supper, and to bed, my eyes 
being very bad again with overworking with them. 
-Jan. 24, 1667-68, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 240 
Samuel Pepys 
I ORD'S Day.-Pegg Pen was brought to bed 
yesterday of a girl; and, among other things, 
if I have not already set it down, it hardly ever 
was remembered for such a season for the small- 
pox as these last two months have been, people 
being seen all up and down the streets, newly come 
out after the smallpox. 
-Feb. 9, 1667-68, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
WITH my wife to the King's House, to see "The 
Virgin Martyr," the first time it hath been 
acted a great while: and it is mighty pleasant; not 
that the play is worth much, but it is finely acted 
by Beck Marshall. But that which did please me 
beyond any thing in the whole world was the 
wind-musick when the angel comes down, which 
is so sweet that it ravished me, and indeed, in a 
word, did wrap up my soul so that it made me 
really sick, just as I have formerly been when in 
love with my wife; that neither then, nor all the 
evening going home, and at home, I was able to 
think of any thing, but remained all night trans- 
ported, so as I could not believe that ever any 
musick hath that real command over the soul of a 
man as this did upon me: and makes me resolve Samuel Pepys 
241 
to practice wind-musick, and to make my wife do 
the like. 
-Feb. 27, 1667-68, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
OUT I full of thoughts and trouble touching the 
issue of this day; and, to comfort myself, did 
go to the Dog and drink half-a-pint of mulled sack, 
and in the Hall (Westminster) did drink a dram 
of brandy at Mrs. Hewlett's; and with the warmth 
of this did find myself in better order as to cour- 
age, truly. 
-March 5, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THENCE home, and there, in favour to my eyes, 
staid at home, reading the ridiculous History 
of my Lord Newcastle, wrote by his wife, which 
shows her to be a mad, conceited, ridiculous 
woman, and he an asse to suffer her to write what 
she wrrites to him, and of him. So to bed, my eyes 
being very bad; and I know not how in the world 
to abstain from reading. 
-March 18, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 242 
Samael Pepys 
TPHIS noon, from Mrs. Williams's, my Lord 
* Brouncker sent to Somerset House to hear 
how the Duchess of Richmond do; and word was 
brought him that she is pretty well, but mighty 
full of the smallpox, by which all do conclude she 
will be wholly spoiled, which is the greatest in- 
stance of the uncertainty of beauty that could be in 
this age. 
-March 26, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
T^HIS day, at noon, comes Mr. Pelting to me, and 
* shows me the stone cut lately out of Sir 
Thomas Adams, the old comely Aiderman's hody, 
which is very large indeed, bigger I think than my 
fist, and weighs about twenty-five ounces: and, 
which is very miraculous, he never in all his life 
had any fit of it, but lived to a great age without 
pain, and died at last of something else, without 
any sense of this in all his life. 
-March 27, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
243 
TIERE I did see Mrs. Stewart's picture as when 
* a young maid, and now just done before her 
having the smallpox: and it would make a man 
weep to see what she was then, and what she is 
like to be, by people's discourse, now. 
-March 30, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
T^HENCE called at my bookseller's, and took Mr. 
* Boyle's Book of Formes, newly reprinted, and 
sent my brother my old one. 
-April 1, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
HERE, to my great content, I did try the use of 
Otacoustion, which was only a great glass 
bottle broke at the bottom, putting the neck to my 
eare, and there I did plainly hear the dancing of 
the oares of the boats in the Thames to Arundel 
gallery window, which, without it, I could not in 
the least do, and may, I believe, be improved to a 
great height, which I am mighty glad of. 
-April 2, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 244 
Samuel Pepys 
I DID attend the Duke of York, and he did carry 
us to the King's lodgings: but he was asleep in 
his closet; so we stayed in the Green-Roome, where 
the Duke of York did tells us what rules he had, of 
knowing the weather, and did now tell us we 
should have rain before to-morrow, it having been 
a dry season for some time, and so it did rain all 
night almost; and pretty rules he hath, and told 
Brouncker and me some of them, which were such 
as no reason can readily be given for them. 
-April 4, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
AND so home to the Office, ended my letters, 
and, to spare my eyes, home, and played on 
my pipes, and so to bed. 
-May 2, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THIS morning, I hear that last night Sir Thomas 
Teddiman, poor man! did die by a thrush in 
his mouth: a good man, and stout and able, and 
much lamented; though people do make a little 
mirth, and say, as I believe it did in good part, that Samuel Pepys 
245 
the business of the Parliament did break his heart, 
or, at least, put hmi into this fever and disorder, 
that caused his death. 
-May 13, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO see Sir W. Pen, whom I find still very ill of 
the gout, sitting in his great chair, made on 
purpose for persons sick of that disease, for their 
ease; and this very chair, he tells me, was made 
for my Lady Lambert. I to drink some whey at 
the whey-house. 
-May 27, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THENCE to Mr. Pierce's, and there saw Knipp 
also, and were merry; and here saw my little 
Lady Katherine Montagu come to town, about her 
eyes, which are sore, and they think the King's 
evil, poor, pretty lady. 
-May 30, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 246 
Samuel Pepys 
FTER coming home from the schools, I out 
** with the landlord to Brazen-nose College to 
the butteries, and in the cellar find the hand of 
the Child of Hales, . . . long. Butler, 2s. Thence 
with coach and people to Physic-garden, Is. So 
to Friar Bacon's study: I up and saw it, and gave 
the man Is. Bottle of sack for landlord, 2s. 
-June 9, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
SATURDAY.-Up at four o'clock, being by ap- 
pointment called up to the Cross Bath, where 
we were carried one after another, myself, and 
wife, and Betty Turner, Willet, and W. Hewer. 
And by and by, though we designed to have done, 
before company come, much company come; very 
fine ladies; and the manner pretty enough, only 
methinks it cannot be clean to go so many bodies 
together in the same water. Good conversation 
among them that are acquainted here, and stay 
together. Strange to see how hot the water is; 
and in some places, though this is the most tem- 
perate bath, the springs so hot as the feet not able 
to endure. But strange to see, when women and 
men here, that live all the season in these waters, 
cannot but be parboiled, and look like the crea- Samuel Pepys 
247 
tures of the bath! Carried away, wrapped in a 
sheet, and in a chair, home; and there one after 
another thus carried, I staying above two hours in 
the water, home to bed, sweating for an hour; and 
by and by, comes musick to play to me, extraordi- 
nary good as ever I heard at London almost, or 
anywhere: 5s. 
-June 13, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
HOME, and there with my people to supper, all 
in pretty good humour, though I find my 
wife hath something in her gizzard, that only waits 
an opportunity of being provoked to bring up; but 
I will not, for my content-sake, give it. 
-June 17, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
V^ESTERDAY I hear how my Lord Ashly is like 
* to die, having some imposthume in his breast, 
that he hath been fain to be cut into the body. 
-June 19, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 248 
Samuel Pepys 
business was to meet Mr. Boyle, which I did, 
and discoursed about my eyes; and he did 
give me the best advice he could, but refers me to 
one Turberville, of Salisbury, lately come to town, 
who I will go to. 
-June 22, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO Dr. Turberville about my eyes, whom I met 
with: and he did discourse, I thought, learn- 
edly about them; and takes time before he did 
prescribe me any thing, to think of it. 
-June 23, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TO Dr. Turberville's, and there did receive a di- 
rection for some physic, and also a glass of 
something to drop into my eyes: he gives me hopes 
that I may do well. 
-June 29, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
249 
A ND so, after supper, parted, and to bed, my 
eyes bad, but not worse, only weary with 
working. But, however, very melancholy under the 
fear of my eyes being spoiled, and not to be re- 
covered; for I am come that I am not able to read 
out a small letter, and yet my sight good for the 
little while I can read, as ever it was, I think. 
-June 30, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
npO an alehouse: met Mr. Pierce, the surgeon, 
* and Dr. Clerke, Waldron, Turberville, my 
physician for the eyes, and Lowre, to dissect sev- 
eral eyes of sheep and oxen, with great pleasure, 
and to my great information. But strange that this 
Turberville should be so great a man, and yet, to 
this day, had seen no eyes dissected, or but once, 
but desired this Dr. Lowre to give him the oppor- 
tunity to see him dissect some. 
-July 3, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
T ORD'S Day.-About four in the morning took 
'■-4 four pills of Dr. Turberville's prescribing, for 
my eyes, and I did get my wife to spend the morn- 
ing reading of Wilkin's Reall Character. 
-July 5, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 250 
Samuel Pepys 
T^O Sir W. Coventry, . . . Thence, he being to go 
* out of town to-morrow, to drink Banbury 
waters, I to the Duke of York to attend him about 
business of the Office. 
-July 8, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
T^HENCE to Reeve's . . . and bespoke a lit- 
* tie perspective, and was mightily pleased with 
seeing objects in a dark room. 
-July 13, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
'T'HIS morning I was let blood, and did bleed 
about fourteen ounces, towards curing my 
eyes. 
-July 13, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
1 BY water with my Lord Brouncker to Arundell 
1 House, to the Boyal Society, and there saw the 
experiment of a dog's being tied through the back, 
about the spinal artery, and thereby made void of 
all motion; and the artery being loosened again, 
the dog recovers. 
-July 16, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
251 
yO visit my Lord Crewe, who is very sick, to 
* great danger, by an erisypelas; the first day I 
heard of it. 
-July 20, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
T^O see my Lord Crewe, whom I find up; and did 
* wait on him; but his face sore, but in hopes 
to do now very well again. 
-July 27, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
WITH Mr. Ashburnham; and I made him ad- 
mire my drawing a thing presently in short- 
hand: but, God knows! I have paid dear for it, in 
my eyes. 
-July 31, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THE month ends mighty sadly with me, my eyes 
being now past all use almost; and I am 
mighty hot upon trying the late printed experi- 
ment of paper tubes. 
-July 31, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 252 
Samuel Pepys 
T the office all the afternoon till night, being 
mightily pleased with a trial I have made of 
the use of a tube-spectacall of paper, tried with 
my right eye. 
-Aug. 11, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
A ND then home, where the women went to the 
** the making of my tubes. 
-Aug. 12, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
A FTER dinner to the Office, Mr. Gibson and I, 
to examine my letter to the Duke of York, 
which, to my great joy, I did very well by my 
paper tube, without pain to my eyes. 
-Aug. 23, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
\ ND at noon comes, by appointment, Harris to 
dine with me: and after dinner he and I to 
Chyurgeons'-hall, where they are building it new, 
very fine; and there to see their theatre, which 
stood all the fire, and, which was our business, Samuel Pepys 
253 
their great picture of Holben's, thinking to have 
bought it, by help of Mr. Pierce, for a little money: 
I did think to give £200 for it, it being said to be 
worth £1,000; but it is so spoiled that I have no 
mind to it, and is not a pleasant, though a good 
picture. 
-Aug. 29, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
AND so to see Mr. Spong, and found him out by 
Southampton Market, and there carried my 
wife, and up to his chamber, a bye place, but with 
a good prospect of the fields; and there I had most 
infinite pleasure, not only with his ingenuity in 
general, but in particular with his shewing me the 
use of the Parallelogram, by which he drew in a 
quarter of an hour before me, in little, from a 
great, a most neat map of England-that is, all 
the outlines, which gives me infinite pleasure, and 
foresight of pleasure, I shall have with it; and 
therefore desire to have that which I have bespoke, 
made. Many other pretty things he shewed us, 
and did give me a glass bubble, to try the strength 
of liquors with. 
-Dec. 9, 1668, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 254 
Samuel Pepys 
W. HEWER and I went and saw the great tall 
woman that is to be seen, who is but twenty- 
one years old, and I do easily stand under her 
arms. 
-Jan. b, 1668-69, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THEN down with Lord Brouncker to Sir R. 
Murray, into the King's little elaboratory, un- 
der his closet, a pretty place; and there saw a great 
many chymical glasses and things, but understood 
none of them. 
-Jan. 15, 1668-69, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
WE HOME, and there hired my wife to make an 
end of Boyle's Book of Formes, to-night 
and to-morrow; and so fell to read and sup, and 
then to bed. 
-Jan. 29, 1668-69, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
255 
AND so home, and W. Batelier and Baity dined 
with us, and I spent all the afternoon with 
my wife and W. Batelier talking, and then making 
them read, and particularly made an end of Mr. 
Boyle's Book of Formes, which I am glad to have 
over. 
-Jan. 30, 1668-69, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
LORD'S Day.-To church, and there did hear 
the Doctor that is lately turned Divine, Dr. 
Waterhouse. He preaches in a devout manner, 
not elegant nor very persuasive, but seems to mean 
well, and that he would preach holily; and was 
mighty passionate against people that make a 
scoff of religion. And, the truth is, I did observe 
Mrs. Hollworthy smile often, and many others of 
the parish, who, I perceive, have known him, and 
were in mighty expectation of hearing him preach, 
but could not forbear smiling, and she particularly 
on me, and I on her. 
-Jan. 31, 1668-69, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 256 
Samuel Pepys 
'T'O my wife, and in our way home did show her 
* the tall woman, in Holborne, which I have 
seen before; and I measured her, and she is, with- 
out shoes, just six feet five inches high, and they 
say not above twenty-one years old. 
-Feb. 8, 1668-69, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THIS morning, also going to visit Roger Pepys, 
at the potticary's, in King's Street, he tells me 
that Roger is gone to his wife's, so that they have 
been married, as he tells me, ever since the middle 
of last week. 
-Feb. 8, 1668-69, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
AND so to the Office, where busy all the after- 
noon, though my eyes mighty bad with the 
light of the candles last night, which was so great 
as to make my eyes sore all this day, and do teach 
me, by a manifest experiment, that it is only too 
much light that do make my eyes sore. Neverthe- 
less, with the help of my tube, and being desirous 
of easing my mind of five or six days journall, I Samuel Pepys 
257 
did venture to write it down from ever since this 
day se'nnight, and I think without hurting my eyes 
any more than they were before, which was very 
much, and so home to supper and to bed. 
-Feb. 16, 1668-69, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
BUT I like no play here so well as at the com- 
mon playhouse; besides that, my eyes being 
very ill since last Sunday and this day se'nnight, 
I was in mighty pain to defend myself now from 
the light of the candles. 
-Feb. 22, 1668-69, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
1\/|Y wife and I out by hackney-coach, and spent 
the afternoon in several places, doing sev- 
eral things at the 'Change and elsewhere against 
to-morrow; and, among others, I did bring home 
a piece of my face cast in plaister, for to make a 
vizard upon, for my eyes. 
-March 1, 1669, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 258 
Samuel Pepys 
THERE my wife to read to me, my eyes being 
sensibly hurt by the two great lights of the 
playhouse. 
-March 8, 1669, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TpHE. was let blood to-day. 
* -March 9, 1669, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
T TERE met my cozen Roger and his wife, and 
* * my cozen Turner, and here, which I never 
did before, I drank a glass, of a pint, I believe, at 
one draught, of the juice of oranges, of whose peel 
they make comfits; and here they drink the juice 
as wine, with sugar, and it is very fine drink; but, 
it being new, I was doubtful whether it might not 
do me hurt. 
-March 9, 1669, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
1\/IY wife and Jane gone abroad, and Tom, in 
order to their buying of things for their 
wedding, which, upon my discourse last night, is Samuel Pepys 
259 
now resolved to be done, upon the 26th of this 
month, the day of my solemnity for my cutting of 
the stone, when my cozen Turner must be with us. 
-March 16, 1669, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
PELLING comes to see and sup with us, and I 
find that he is assisting to my wife in getting a 
licence to our young people to be married this 
Lent, which is resolved shall be done upon Friday 
next, my great day, or feast, for my being cut of 
the stone. 
-March 21, 1669, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
TOM and Jane being to have been married this 
day, it being also my feast for my being 
cut of the stone, but how many years I do not re- 
member, but I think it to be about ten or eleven. 
-March 26, 1669, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 260 
Samuel Pepys 
AND so, that being done, and my Journal writ, 
my eyes being very bad, and every day worse 
and worse, I fear: but I find it most certain that 
stronge drinks do make my eyes sore, as they have 
done heretofore always; for, when I was in the 
country, when my eyes were at the best, their 
stronge beere would make my eyes sore; so home 
to supper, and by and by to bed. 
-March 28, 1669, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THIS night I did bring home from the King's 
pottecary's, in White Hall, by Mr. Cooling's 
direction, a water that he says is mighty good for 
his eyes. I pray God it may do me good; but, by 
his description, his disease was the same as mine, 
and this do encourage me to use it. 
-April 2, 1669, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
SO home, and so set down my Journal, with the 
help of my left eye through my tube, for four- 
teen days past; which is so much as, I hope, I shall 
not run in arrear again, but the badness of my 
eyes do force me to it. 
-April 11, 1669, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
261 
OUR family being mightily disordered by our 
little boy's falling sick the last night; and we 
fear it will prove the smallpox. At noon comes 
my guest, Mr. Hugh May, and with him Sir Henry 
Capell, my old Lord Capell's son, and Mr. Parker; 
and I had a pretty dinner for them. 
-April 20, 1669, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
WELL pleased to-night to have Lead, the 
vizard-maker, bring me home my vizard, 
with a tube fastened in it, which, I think, will do 
my business, at least in a great measure, for the 
easing of my eyes. 
-April 2k, 1669, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
W. HOWE came and dined with us; and then I 
to my Office, he being gone, to write down 
my Journal for the last twelve days: and did it 
with the help of my vizard and tube fixed to it, 
and do find it mighty manageable, but how helpful 
to my eyes this trial will show me. 
-April 25, 1669, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 262 
Samuel Pepys 
AND here, understanding that the mistress of 
the house, an oldish woman in a hat, hath 
some water good for the eyes, she did dress me, 
making my eyes smart most horribly, and did give 
me a little glass of it, which I will use, and hope it 
will do me good. 
-April 30, 1669, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
UP, and thought to have gone with Lord Broun- 
cker to Mr. Hooke this morning betimes; but 
my Lord is taken ill of the gout, and says his new 
lodgings have infected him, he never having any 
symptom of it till now. 
-May 5, 1669, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
UP, and to the Office, and there conies Lead to 
me, and at last my vizards are done, and 
glasses got to put in and out, as I will; and I think 
I have brought it to the utmost, both for easiness 
of using and benefit, that I can; and so I paid him 
15s. for what he hath done now last, in the finish- 
ing them, and they, I hope, will do me a great deal 
of ease. At the Office all the morning, and this Samuel Pepys 
263 
day, the first time, did alter my side of the table, 
after above eight years sitting on that next the fire. 
But now I am not able to bear the light of the win- 
dows in my eyes, I do begin there, and I did sit 
with much more content than I had done on the 
other side for a great while, and in winter the fire 
will not trouble my back. 
-May 8, 1669, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
OUT I have, I fear, all the content that must be 
received by my eyes, which are almost lost. 
-May 8, 1669, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
THIS day I first left off both my waistcoats by 
day, and my waistcoat by night, it being very 
hot weather, so hot as to make me break out, here 
and there, in my hands, which vexes me to see, but 
is good for me. 
-May 9, 1669, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 264 
Samuel Pepys 
TWINED in my wife's chamber, she being much 
troubled with the tooth-ake, and I staid till 
a surgeon of hers come, one Leeson, who had for- 
merly drawn her mouth, and he advised her to 
draw it: so I to the Office, and by and by word is 
come that she hath drawn it, which pleased me, it 
being well done. So I home, to comfort her. 
-May 18, 1669, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
BY and by the Duke of York comes, and readily 
took me to his closet, and received my peti- 
tion, and discoursed about my eyes, and pitied me, 
and with much kindness did give me his consent 
to be absent, and approved of my proposition to go 
into Holland to observe things there, of the Navy; 
but would first ask the King's leave, which He 
anon did, and did tell me that the King would be a 
good master to me, these were his words, about 
my eyes, and do like of my going into Holland, but 
do advise that nobody should know of my going 
thither, and that I should pretend to go into the 
country somewhere, which I liked well. 
-May 19, 1669, Diary of Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys 
265 
TO White Hall, where I attended the Duke of 
York, and was by him led to the King, who ex- 
pressed great sense of my misfortune in my eyes, 
and concernment for their recovery; and accord- 
ingly signified, not only his assent to my desire 
therein, but commanded me to give them rest this 
summer, according to my late petition to the Duke 
of York. 
-May 2k, 1669, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 
UP very betimes, and continued all the morning 
with W. Hewer, upon examining and stating 
my accounts, in order to the fitting myself to go 
abroad beyond sea, which the ill condition of my 
eyes, and my neglect for a year or two hath kept 
me behind-hand in, and so as to render it very 
difficult now, and troublesome to my mind to do it; 
but I this day made a satisfactory entrance therein. 
-May 31, 1669, Diary of Samuel Pepys. 266 
Samuel Pepys 
AND thus ends all that I doubt I shall ever be 
able to do with my own eyes in the keeping 
of my Journal, I being not able to do it any longer, 
having done now so long as to undo my eyes al- 
most every time that I take a pen in my hand; and, 
therefore, whatever comes of it, I must forbear: 
and, therefore, resolve, from this time forward, to 
have it kept by my people in long-hand, and must 
be contented to set down no more than is fit for 
them and all the world to know; or, if there be 
anything, I must endeavour to keep a margin in 
my book open, to add, here and there, a note in 
short-hand with my own hand. And so I betake 
myself to that course, which is almost as much as 
to see myself go into my grave: for which, and all 
the discomforts that will accompany my being 
blind, the good God prepare me! 
-May 31, 1669, Diary of Samuel Pepys. JONATHAN SWIFT 
1667-1745 
JONATHAN SWIFT was of English descent 
but was born at Dublin and was educated at 
Trinity College, Dublin. 
Swift became secretary to Sir William Temple 
in whose household was Esther Johnson (Swift's 
"Stella"). It is not known definitely whether or 
not Swift married his "Stella." 
He went to England and was politically influ- 
ential. In 1713 he became Dean of St. Patrick's, 
Dublin. 
Gulliver's Travels is Swift's great satire. 268 
Jonathan Swift 
O00KS, like men their authors, have no more 
than one way of coming into the world, but 
there are ten thousand to go out of it, and return 
no more. 
-The Epistle Dedicatory of A Tale of A Tub, 
To His Royal Highness, Prince Posterity. 
'T'HERE is a problem in an ancient author why 
dedications and other bundles of flattery run 
all upon stale, musty topics without the smallest 
tincture of anything new; not only to the torment 
and nauseating of the Christian reader, but (if 
not suddenly prevented) to the universal spread- 
ing of that pestilent disease, the lethargy, in this 
island, whereas, there is very little satire which 
has not something in it untouched before. 
-Preface to A Tale of A Tub. 
FOR the materials of panegyric being very few 
in number, have been long since exhausted, 
for as health is but one thing, and has been al- 
ways the same, whereas diseases are by thousands, 
besides new and daily additions, so all the virtues JONATHAN SWIFT 
1667-1745 Jonathan Swift 
269 
that have been ever in mankind are to be counted 
upon a few fingers, but his follies and vices are in- 
numerable, and time adds hourly to the heap. 
-Preface to A Tale of A Tub. 
POR these reasons, I suppose it is, why some 
* have conceived it would be very expedient for 
the public good of learning, that every true critic, 
as soon as he had finished his task assigned, should 
immediately deliver himself up to ratsbane, or 
hemp, or from some convenient altitude, and that 
no man's pretensions to so illustrious a character 
should by any means be received before that op- 
eration was performed. 
-A Tale of A Tub. 
BUT, besides these omissions in Homer already 
mentioned, the curious reader will also ob- 
serve several defects in that author's writings for 
which he is not altogether so accountable. For, 
whereas every branch of knowledge has received 
such wonderful acquirements since his age, espe- 
cially within these last three years, or thereabouts, 
it is almost impossible he could be so very perfect 270 
Jonathan Swift 
in modern discoveries as his advocates pretend. 
We freely acknowledge him to be the inventor of 
the compass, of gun-powder, and the circulation 
of the blood; but I challenge any of his admirers 
to show me in all his writings a complete Account 
of the Spleen. 
-A Tale of A Tub. 
J'T'IS true, there is a sort of morose, detracting, 
ill-bred people, who pretend utterly to dis- 
relish these polite innovations: and as to the simili- 
tude from diet, they allow the parallel, but are so 
bold to pronounce the example itself a corruption 
and degeneracy of taste. They tell us that the 
fashion of jumbling fifty things together in a dish, 
was at first introduced in compliance to a de- 
praved and debauched appetite, as well as to a 
crazy constitution; and to see a man hunting 
through an olio, after the head and brains of a 
goose, a widgeon, or a woodcock, is a sign he wants 
a stomach and digestion for more substantial 
victuals. 
-A Tale of A Tub. Jonathan Swift 
271 
THUS far, I suppose, will easily be granted me; 
and then it will follow that as the face of 
nature never produces rain, but when it is over- 
cast and disturbed, so human understanding, seat- 
ed in the brain, must be troubled and overspread 
by vapours, ascending from the lower faculties, to 
water the invention, and render it fruitful. 
-A Tale of A Tub. 
IN the midst of all these projects and prepara- 
* jtions, a certain state-surgeon, gathering the 
nature of the disease by these symptoms, attempt- 
ed the cure, at one blow performed the operation, 
broke the bag, and out flew the vapour; nor did 
anything want to render it a complete remedy, 
only that the prince unfortunately happened to 
die in the performance. 
-A Tale of A Tub. 
OF this kind were Epicurus, Diogenes, Apol- 
lonius, Lucretius, Paracelsus, Descartes, and 
others; who, if they were now in the world, tied 
fast, and separate from their followers, would in 272 
Jonathan Swift 
this, our undistinguishing age, incur manifest dan- 
ger of phlebotomy and whips, and chains, and 
dark chambers and straw. 
-A Tale of A Tub. 
POR, the brain, in its natural position and state 
* of serenity, disposeth its owner to pass his 
life in the common forms, without any thought of 
subduing multitudes to his own power, his reasons 
or his visions; and the more he shapes his under- 
standing by the pattern of human learning, the 
less he is inclined to form parties after his particu- 
lar notions, because that instructs him in his 
private infirmities as well as in the stubborn ig- 
norance of the people. But when a man's fancy 
gets astride on his reason, when imagination is at 
cuffs with the senses, and common understanding, 
as well as common sense, is kicked out of doors, 
the first proselyte he makes is himself, and when 
that is once compassed, the difficulty is not so 
great in bringing over others; a strong delusion 
always operating from without, as vigorously as 
from within. For, cant and vision are to the ear 
and the eye, the same that tickling is to the touch. Jonathan Swift 
273 
Those entertainments and pleasures we most value 
in life, are such as dupe and play the wag with the 
senses. 
-A Tale of A Tub. 
THUS one man choosing a proper juncture leaps 
into a gulf, from thence proceeds a hero, and 
is called the Saver of his country; another achieves 
the same enterprise, but unluckily timing it, has 
left the brand of madness fixed as a reproach upon 
his memory. 
-A Tale of A Tub. 
KJOW, it is not well enough considered to what 
accidents and occasions the world is indebted 
for the greatest part of those noble writings, which 
hourly start up to entertain it. If it were not for 
a rainy day, a drunken vigil, a fit of the spleen, a 
course of physic, a sleepy Sunday, an ill run at 
dice, a ]ong tailor's bill, a beggar's purse, a fac- 
tious head, a hot sun, costive diet, want of books, 
and a just contempt of learning; but for these 
events, I say, and some others too long to recite 
(especially a prudent neglect of taking brimstone 274 
Jonathan Swift 
inwardly), I doubt the number of authors and of 
writings would dwindle away to a degree most 
woful to behold. 
-A Tale of A Tub. 
IN the mean time I do here give this public notice, 
that my resolutions are to circumscribe within 
this discourse the whole stock of matter I have 
been so many years providing. Since my vein is 
once opened I am content to exhaust it all at a 
running, for the peculiar advantage of my dear 
country, and for the universal benefit of mankind. 
-A Tale of A Tub 
DEADERS may be divided into three classes,"the 
*superficial, the ignorant, and the learned; and I 
have with much felicity fitted my pen to the genius 
and advantage of each. The superficial reader 
will be strangely provoked to laughter, which 
clears the breast and the lungs, is sovereign against 
the spleen, and the most innocent of all diuretics. 
The ignorant reader (between whom and the for- 
mer the distinction is extremely nice) will find 
himself disposed to stare, which is an admirable 
remedy for ill eyes, serves to raise and enliven Jonathan Swift 
275 
the spirits, and wonderfully helps perspiration. 
But the reader truly learned, chiefly for whose 
benefit I wake when others sleep, and sleep when 
others wake, will here find sufficient matter to em- 
ploy his speculations for the rest of his life. 
-A Tale of A Tub. 
< ENTLEMEN," said he, "I will prove this 
very skin of parchment to be meat, drink, 
and cloth, to be the philosopher's stone, and the 
universal medicine." In consequence of which 
raptures, he resolved to make use of it in the most 
necessary, as well as the most paltry occasions of 
life. He had a way of working it into any shape 
he pleased; so that it served him for a nightcap 
when he went to bed, and for an umbrella in rainy 
weather. He would lap a piece of it about a sore 
toe, or when he had fits, burn two inches under his 
nose; or if anything lay heavy on his stomach, 
scrape off, and swallow as much of the powder as 
would lie on a silver penny, they were all infal- 
lible remedies. 
-A Tale of A Tub. 276 
Jonathan Swift 
BESIDES, the eyes of the understanding see best 
when those of the senses are out of the way, 
and therefore, blind men are observed to tread 
their steps with much more caution, and conduct, 
and judgment, than those who rely with too much 
confidence upon the virtue of the visual nerve, 
which every little accident shakes out of order, 
and a drop or a film can wholly disconcert, like a 
lantern among a pack of roaring bullies when they 
scour the streets, exposing its owner and itself to 
outward kicks and buffets, which both might have 
escaped if the vanity of appearing would have suf- 
fered them to walk in the dark. 
-A Tale of A Tub. 
HE was the first that ever found out the secret 
of contriving a soporiferous medicine to be 
conveyed in at the ears; it was a compound of 
sulphur and balm of Gilead, with a little pilgrim's 
salve. 
He wore a large plaister of artificial caustics 
on his stomach, with the fervour of which he could 
set himself a-groaning, like the famous board upon 
application of a red-hot iron. 
-A Tale of A Tub. Jonathan Swift 
277 
DVT now, since by the liberty and encourage- 
ment of the press, I am grown absolute mas- 
ter of the occasions and opportunities to expose 
the talents I have acquired, I already discover that 
the issues of my observanda begin to grow too 
large for the receipts. Therefore, I shall here 
pause awhile, till I find, by feeling the world's 
pulse, and my own, that it will be of absolute 
necessity for us both, to resume my pen. 
-A Tale of A Tub. 
THERE came a vast body of dragoons of differ- 
ent nations under the leading of Harvey, their 
great Aga, part armed with scythes, the weapons 
of death; part with lances and long knives, all 
steeped in poison; part, shot bullets of a most 
malignant nature, and used white powder which 
infallibly killed without report. 
-The Battle of the Books. 
THE army of the ancients was much fewer in 
number. Homer led the horse, and Pindar the 
light horse; Euclid was chief engineer; Plato and 
Aristotle commanded the bowmen; Herodotus and 278 
Jonathan Swift 
Livy, the foot; Hippocrates, the dragoons. The 
allies, led by Vossius and Temple, brought up the 
rear. 
-The Battle of the Books. 
AMAN may be allowed to keep poisons in his 
closet, but not to vend them about for 
cordials. 
-Gulliver's Travels. 
THIS doctor therefore proposed, that, upon the 
meeting of a senate, certain physicians should 
attend at the three first days of their sitting, and, 
at the close of each day's debate, feel the pulses 
of every senator; after which, having maturely 
considered, and consulted upon the nature of the 
several maladies, and the methods of cure, they 
should on the fourth day return to the senate- 
house, attended by their apothecaries stored with 
proper medicines; and, before the members sat, 
administer to each of them lenitives, aperitives, 
abstersives, corrosives, restringents, palliatives, 
laxatives, cephalalgics, icterics, apophlegmatics, 
acoustics, as their several cases required; and, ac- Jonathan Swift 
279 
cording as these medicines should operate, repeat, 
alter, or admit them at the next meeting. 
-Gulliver's Travels. 
THAT wine was not imported among us from 
foreign countries, to supply the want of water, 
or other drinks, but because it was a sort of liquid 
which made us merry, by putting us out of our 
senses; diverted all melancholy thoughts, begat 
wild extravagant imaginations in the brain, raised 
our hopes, and banished our fears; suspended 
every office of reason for a time, and deprived us 
of the use of our limbs till we fell into a profound 
sleep; although it must be confessed, that we al- 
ways awaked sick and dispirited; and that the use 
of this liquor filled us with diseases, which made 
our lives uncomfortable and short. 
-Gulliver's Travels. 
BUT, besides real diseases, we are subject to 
many that are only imaginary, for which the 
physicians have invented imaginary cures. 
-Gulliver's Travels. GEORGE BERKELEY 
1685-1783 
GEORGE BERKELEY was born in County Kil- 
kenny, Ireland. In 1700 he entered Trinity 
College, Dublin, and was made a Fellow of that 
institution in 1707. 
Berkeley became interested in a scheme for es- 
tablishing a great missionary college in Bermuda 
with the idea of evangelizing all America. In 1728 
he sailed for America going first to Rhode Island 
with the purpose of getting New England inter- 
ested in his plan. The support which he had an- 
ticipated from home was not forthcoming and he 
returned home disappointed. 
In 1634 he was made Bishop of Cloyne. 
Berkeley wrote much of a philosophical nature. 
He has been referred to as a connecting link be- 
tween Locke and Kant. His theory of philosophy 
was that the existence and nature of things was 
involved in or was synonymous with the percep- 
tion of the things by the mind. 
Of interest to physicians is the fact that his last 
work, Siris, while being of a philosophical char- 
acter, deals with the use of tar-water as a specific 
in smallpox and other diseases. 
Berkeley's New Theory of Vision contains 
passages of medical interest and illustrates his 
philosophy. 282 
George Berkeley 
liy|Y design is to show the manner wherein we 
perceive by sight, the distance, magnitude, 
and situation of objects. Also to consider the dif- 
ference there is betwixt the ideas of sight and 
touch, and whether there be any idea common to 
both senses. In treating of all which, it seems to 
me, the writers of optics have proceeded on wrong 
principles. 
-An Essay Towards A New Theory of Vision. 
IT is, I think, agreed by all, that distance of itself, 
and immediately, cannot be seen. For distance 
being a line directed endwise to the eye, it projects 
only one point in the fund of the eye. Which 
point remains invariably the same, whether the 
distance be longer or shorter. 
-New Theory of Vision. 
NY radiating point is then distinctly seen, 
when the rays proceeding from it are, by the 
refractive power of the crystalline, accurately re- 
united in the retina, or fund of the eye. But if 
they are reunited, either before they are at retina, 1685-1783 George Berkeley 
283 
or after they have passed it, then there is confused 
vision. 
-New Theory of Vision. 
T^ROM what hath been premised, it is a manifest 
* consequence that a man born blind, being 
made to see, would, at first, have no idea of dis- 
tance by sight; the sun and stars, the remotest ob- 
jects as well as the nearer, would all seem to be 
in his eye, or rather in his mind. The objects 
intromitted by sight, would seem to him (as in 
truth they are) no other than a new set of thoughts 
or sensations, each whereof is as near to him, as 
the perceptions of pain or pleasure, or the most 
inward passions of his soul. For our judging ob- 
jects perceived by sight to be at any distance, or 
without the mind, is entirely the effect of experi- 
ence, which one in those circumstances could not 
yet have attained to. 
-New Theory of Vision. 284 
George Berkeley 
IT is indeed otherwise upon the common suppo- 
sition, that men judge of distance by the angle 
of the optic axes, just as one in the dark, or a 
blind man by the angle comprehended by two 
sticks, one whereof he held in each hand. For if 
this were true, it would follow that one blind from 
his birth being made to see, should stand in need 
of no new experience, in order to perceive distance 
by sight. But that this is false, has, I think been 
sufficiently demonstrated. 
-New Theory of Vision. 
PROM what we have shown it is a manifest con- 
* sequence, that the ideas of space, outness, and 
things placed at a distance, are not, strictly speak- 
ing, the object of sight; they are not otherwise per- 
ceived by the eye than by the ear. Sitting in my 
study I hear a coach drive along the street; I look 
through the casement and see it; I walk out and 
enter into it; thus, common speech would incline 
one to think, I heard, saw, and touched the same 
thing, to wit, the coach. It is nevertheless certain, 
the ideas intromitted by each sense are widely dif- 
ferent, and distinct from each other; but having 
been observed constantly to go together, they are George Berkeley 
285 
spoken of as one and the same thing. By the vari- 
ation of the noise I perceive the different distances 
of the coach, and know that it approaches before I 
look out. Thus by the ear I perceive distance, just 
after the same manner as I do by the eye. 
I DO not nevertheless say, I hear distance in like 
* manner as I say that I see it, the ideas perceived 
by hearing not being so apt to be confounded with 
the ideas of touch, as those of sight are; so like- 
wise a man is easily convinced that bodies and ex- 
ternal things are not properly the object of hear- 
ing, but only sounds, by the mediation whereof 
the idea of this or that body or distance is sug- 
gested to his thoughts. But then one is with more 
difficulty brought to discern the difference there 
is betwixt the ideas of sight and touch: though it 
be certain, a man no more sees or feels the same 
thing, than he hears and feels the same thing. 
-New Theory of Vision. 286 
George Berkeley 
OUT if we take a close and accurate view of 
things, it must be acknowledged that we never 
see and feel one and the same object. 
-New Theory of Vision. 
TTHE magnitude of the object which exists with- 
* out the mind, and is at a distance, continues 
always invariably the same: but the visible object 
still changing as you approach to, or recede from 
the tangible object, it hath no fixed and determi- 
nate greatness. Whenever therefore we speak of 
the magnitude of any thing, for instance a tree or 
a house, we must mean the tangible magnitude; 
otherwise there can be nothing steady and free 
from ambiguity spoken of it. But though the 
tangible and visible magnitude in truth belong to 
two distinct objects, I shall nevertheless (espe- 
cially since those objects are called by the same 
name and are observed to coexist) to avoid tedi- 
ousness and singularity of speech, sometimes 
speak of them as belonging to one and the same 
thing. 
-New Theory of Vision. George Berkeley 
287 
THAT the matter of fact is true, will be evident 
to any one, who considers that a man placed 
at ten foot distance, is thought as great, as if he 
were placed at the distance of only five foot: which 
is true, not with relation to the visible, but tangible 
greatness of the object. The visible magnitude be- 
ing far greater at one station than it is at the 
other. 
-New Theory of Vision. 
A S we see distance, so we see magnitude. And 
we see both, in the same way that we see 
shame or anger in the looks of a man. Those pas- 
sions are themselves invisible: they are neverthe- 
less let in by the eye along with colours and altera- 
tions of countenance, which are the immediate 
object of vision, and which signify them for no 
other reason, than barely because they have been 
observed to accompany them: without which ex- 
perience, we should no more have taken blushing 
for a sign of shame, than of gladness. 
-New Theory of Vision. 288 
George Berkeley 
IT hath been already shown, that in any act of 
vision, the visible object absolutely, or in itself, 
is little taken notice of, the mind still carrying its 
view from that to some tangible ideas, which have 
been observed to be connected with it, and by that 
means come to be suggested by it. So that when 
a thing is said to appear great or small, or what- 
ever estimate be made of the magnitude of any 
thing, this is meant not of the visible, but of the 
tangible object. 
-New Theory of Vision. 
UPON the whole, it seems that if we consider 
the use and end of sight, together with the 
present state and circumstances of our being, we 
shall not find any great cause to complain of any 
defect or imperfection in it, or easily conceive how 
it could be mended. With such admirable wis- 
dom is that faculty contrived, both for the pleasure 
and convenience of life. 
-New Theory of Vision. George Berkeley 
289 
HAVING finished what I intended to say, con- 
cerning the distance and magnitude of ob- 
jects, I come now to treat of the manner wherein 
the mind perceives by sight their situation. 
Among the discoveries of the last age, it is reputed 
none of the least, that the manner of vision hath 
been more clearly explained than ever it had been 
before. -New Theory of Vision. 
nTHERE is, at this day, no one ignorant, that the 
* pictures of external objects are painted on 
the retina, or fund of the eye. That we can see 
nothing which is not so painted: and that, accord- 
ing as the picture is more distinct or confused, so 
also is the perception we have of the object: but 
then in this explication of vision, there occurs one 
mighty difficulty. The objects are painted in an 
inverted order on the bottom of the eye: the upper 
part of any object being painted on the lower part 
of the eye, and the lower part of the object on the 
upper part of the eye: and so also as to right and 
left. Since therefore the pictures are thus inverted, 
it is demanded how it comes to pass, that we see 
the objects erect and in their natural posture? 
-New Theory of Vision. 290 
George Berkeley 
IN order to disentangle our minds from whatever 
prejudices we may entertain with relation to 
the subject in hand, nothing seems more apposite, 
than the taking into our thoughts the case of one 
born blind, and afterwards, when grown up, made 
to see. And though perhaps it may not be an easy 
task to divest ourselves entirely of the experience 
received from sight, so as to be able to put our 
thoughts exactly in the posture of such a one's: 
we must nevertheless, as far as possible, en- 
deavour to frame conceptions of what might rea- 
sonably be supposed to pass in his mind. 
-New Theory of Vision. 
IT is certain that a man actually blind, and who 
had continued so from his birth, would by the 
sense of feeling attain to have ideas of upper and 
lower. By the motion of his hand he might dis- 
cern the situation of any tangible object placed 
within his reach. That part on which he felt him- 
self supported, or towards which he perceived his 
body to gravitate, he would term lower, and the 
contrary to this upper; and accordingly denomi- 
nate whatsoever objects he touched. 
-New Theory of Vision. George Berkeley 
291 
PURTHER, when he has by experience learned 
* the connexion there is between the several 
ideas of sight and touch, he will be able, by the 
perception he has of the situation of visible things 
in respect of one another, to make a sudden and 
true estimation of the situation of outward, tangi- 
ble things corresponding to them. And thus it is, 
he shall perceive by sight the situation of external 
objects, which do not properly fall under that 
sense. 
-New Theory of Vision. 
THAT which I see is only variety of light and 
colours. That which I feel is hard or soft, 
hot or cold, rough or smooth. What similitude, 
what connexion have those ideas with these? Or 
how is it possible, that any one should see reason 
to give one and the same name to combinations of 
ideas so very different before he had experienced 
their co-existence? We do not find there is any 
necessary connexion betwixt this or that tangible 
quality, and any colour whatsoever. And we may 
sometimes perceive colours, where there is nothing 
to be felt. All which doth make it manifest that 
no man, at first receiving of his sight, would know 292 
George Berkeley 
there was any agreement between this or that par- 
ticular object of his sight, and any object of touch 
he had been already acquainted with: the colours 
therefore of the head, would to him no more sug- 
gest the idea of head, than they would the idea of 
foot. 
-New Theory of Vision. 
PROM all which laid together and duly consid- 
* ered, we may clearly deduce this inference. 
In the first act of vision, no idea entering by the 
eye would have a perceivable connexion with the 
ideas to which the names earth, man, head, foot, 
&c., were annexed in the understanding of a per- 
son blind from his birth; so as in any sort to in- 
troduce them into his mind, or make themselves 
be called by the same names, and reputed the same 
things with them, as afterwards they come to be. 
-New Theory of Vision. 
THHE truth is, the things I see are so very differ- 
ent and heterogeneous from the things I feel, 
that the perception of the one would never have George Berkeley 
293 
suggested the other to my thoughts, or enabled me 
to pass the least judgment thereon, until I had ex- 
perienced their connexion. 
-New Theory of Vision. 
FROM what hath been premised, it is plain the 
objects of sight and touch make, if I may so 
say, two sets of ideas which are widely different 
from each other . . . 
The two distinct provinces of sight and touch 
should be considered apart, and as if their ob- 
jects had no intercourse, no manner of relation to 
one another, in point of distance or position. 
-New Theory of Vision. 
IT having been shown, that there are no abstract 
ideas of figure, and that it is impossible for us, 
by any precision of thought, to frame an idea of 
extension separate from all other visible and 
tangible qualities, which shall be common both to 
sight and touch: the question now remaining is, 
whether the particular extensions, figures, and 
motions, perceived by sight be of the same kind, 294 
George Berkeley 
with the particular extensions, figures, and mo- 
tions, perceived by touch. In answer to which, I 
shall venture to lay down the following proposi- 
tion: The extension, figures, and motions per- 
ceived by sight are specifically distinct from the 
ideas of touch, called by the same names, nor is 
there any such thing as one idea or kind of idea 
common to both senses. 
-New Theory of Vision. 
ALL that is properly perceived by the visive 
faculty amounts to no more than colours 
with their variations, and different proportions of 
light and shade. 
-New Theory of Vision. LAURENCE STERNE 
1713-1768 
T AURENCE STERNE was born in Ireland. He 
took holy orders and was appointed perpetual 
curate of Coxwold. 
Sterne wrote A Political Romance and Tristram 
Shandy. 
A Sentimental Journey Through France and 
Italy was published in February, 1768. 296 
Laurence Sterne 
WHEN man is at peace with man, how much 
lighter than a feather is the heaviest of 
metals in his hand! he pulls out his purse, and 
holding it airily and uncompress'd, looks round 
him, as if he sought an object to share it with.-In 
doing this, I felt every vessel in my frame dilate- 
the arteries beat all chearily together, and every 
power which sustained life, performed it with so 
little friction, that 'twould have confounded the 
most physical precieuse in France: with all her 
materialism, she could scarce have called me a 
machine. 
-Sentimental Journey. 
THE dose was made up exactly after my own 
prescription; so I could not help taking it. 
-Sentimental Journey. 
AND as for the Bastile; . . . Mercy on the 
gouty! for they are in it twice a year. 
-Sentimental Journey. 1713-1768 Laurence Sterne 
297 
THE learned SMELFUNGUS travelled from 
Boulogne to Paris-from Paris to Rome-and 
so on-but he set out with the spleen and jaundice, 
and every object he pass'd by was discoloured or 
distorted-He wrote an account of them, but 'twas 
nothing but the account of his miserable feelings. 
-Sentimental Journey. 
KJO pharmacopolist could sell one grain of hele- 
bore-not a single armourer had a heart to 
forge one instrument of death-Friendship and 
Virtue met together, and kiss'd each other in the 
street-the golden age returned, and hung over 
the town of Abdera. 
-Sentimental Journey. 
A HEART at ease, Yorick, flies into no ex- 
tremes-'tis ever on its center. 
-Sentimental Journey. 298 
Laurence Sterne 
(STEPPED hastily after him: it was the very 
man whose success in asking charity of the 
women before the door of the hotel had so puzzled 
me-and I found at once his secret, or at least the 
basis of it-'twas flattery. 
Delicious essence! how refreshing art thou to 
nature! how strongly are all its powers and all its 
weaknesses on thy side! how sweetly dost thou mix 
with the blood, and help it through the most diffi- 
cult and tortuous passages to the heart! 
-Sentimental Journey. 
DEAR Sensibility! . . . Touch'd with thee 
Eugenius draws my curtain when I lan- 
guish-hears my tale of symptoms, and blames 
the weather for the disorder of his nerves. 
-Sentimental Journey.