Samuel Pepys FRS .23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English diarist and naval administrator. He served as administrator of the Royal Navy and Member of Parliament and is most famous for the diary he kept for a decade. Pepys had no maritime experience, but he rose to be the Chief Secretary to the Admiralty under both King Charles II and King James II through patronage, diligence, and his talent for administration. His influence and reforms at the Admiralty were important in the early professionalisation of the Royal Navy.[2]

The detailed private diary that Pepys kept from 1660 until 1669 was first published in the 19th century and is one of the most important primary sources for the English Restoration period. It provides a combination of personal revelation and eyewitness accounts of great events, such as the Great Plague of London, the Second Dutch War, and the Great Fire of London. ( )

Frankly speaking, this volume for 1667 was heavy to digest. (I spent 2 months with it.) I found the first months particularly difficult to read, because Pepys describes all his problems at the office, and it can become tedious when it stretches on very dense pages. Of course, if one is perseverant and careful enough, one can discover informative speeches and stories. This is a selection of what I found interesting.

The price of a watch
9 FEBRUARY. (…) This noon came my wife’s Wachmaker and received 12l of me for her watch; (…)

At last, a hint of what Pepys calls his morning draught
8 APRIL. (…) I in there to drink my morning draught of a half pint of Rhenish wine, (…)

Sir John Mennes’s occupations in town
15 MAY. (…) Up, and with Sir W. Batten and J. Mennes to St. James’s, and stopped at Temple Barr for Sir J. Mennes to go into the Devil tavern to shit, he having drunk whey and his belly wrought. (…)

A hot passage; I love ‘sed never the minus’
23 MAY. (…) After dinner, I to my chamber and my wife and father to talk; and by and by they tell Mrs. Daniel would speak with me, so I down to the parlour to her and sat down together and talked about getting her husband a place; and here I did adventure etsi the porta etait operta para put my mano abajo su jupes two or three temps et touch her cosa con great pleasure, ella resisting pretty much, sed never the minus submitted. I do promise, and mean to do what kindness I can to her husband; and after having been there hasta yo was ashamed, de peur that my people pensaient to pragma de it, or lest they might espy nous through some trees, we parted, and I to the office and presently back home again, and there was asked by my wife, I know not whether simply or with design, how I came to look as I did, car yo was in much calor et de body and of animi; which I put off with the heat of the season, and so to other business, but I had some fear hung upon me lest algo had sido decouvert. (…)

A strange phrase used by Sir William Batten. I translate it into French as jean-foutre, because of the correspondence between fuck and foutre, and also because of the assonance of vent (wind) with jean.
17 JUNE. (…) This Hollis, Sir W. Batten and W. Penn say, proves a very wind-fucker, as Sir W. Batten terms him; (…)

Pepys is sometimes confused and confusing...
27 JUNE. (…) But he tells me how Matt Wren should say that he was told that I should say that W. Coventry was guilty of the miscarriage at Chatham; (…)

Pepys can use very modern phrases
17 JULY. (…) There to the Hall and talked with Mrs. Michell, who begins to tire me about doing something for her elder son; (…)

Another strange phrase of Sir William Batten’s
19 JULY. (…) But it was pretty news came the other day so fast, of the Duch fleets being in so many places, that Sir W. Batten at table cried, “By God!” says he, “I think the Devil shits Dutchmen.”

Quakers’ strange habits
29 JULY. (…) One thing extraordinary was this day, a man, a Quaker, came naked through the Hall, only very civilly tied about the privities to avoid scandal, and with a chafing-dish of fire and brimstone burning upon his head did pass through the Hall, crying, “Repent! Repent!” (…)

How Pepys reacts to cold
16 AUGUST. (…) But I find myself to be full of wind, and my anus to be knit together, as it is always with cold. (…)

Inconvenience of modernities
23 SEPTEMBER. (…) Another pretty thing was my Lady Ashly’s speaking of the bad qualities of glass-coaches; among others, the flying open of the doors upon any great shake: but another was that my Lady Petersborough, being in her glass-coach with the glass up and seeing a lady pass by in a coach whom she would salute, the glass was so clear that she thought it had been open, and so run her head through the glass and cut all her forehead. (…)

How expensive it was to be a godmother
26 NOVEMBER. (…) And then back to the Old Exchange and there at my goldsmith’s bought a basin for my wife to give the parson’s child to which the other day she was godmother: it costs me 10l-14s besides graving, which I do with the Cypher of the name, Daniel Mills. (…)

Sir John Mennes has always pretty stories to tell
6 DECEMBER. (…) This day, in coming home, Sir J. Mennes told me a pretty story of Sir Lewes Dives, whom I saw this morning speaking with him; that having escaped once out of prison through a house of office, and another time in woman’s apparel and leaping over a broad canal, a soldier in roguery put his hand towards her belly, and swore, says he, “This is a strong Jade, but I never felt a cunt with a handle to it before.” (…)

Horrible Pepys!
19 DECEMBER. (…) Up, and to the office, where Comissioner Middleton first took place at the Board as Surveyor of the Navy; and endeed I think will be an excellent officer I am sure, much beyond what his predecessor was. At noon, to avoid being forced to invite him to dinner, it being his first day and nobody inviting him, I did go to the Change with Sir W. Penn in his coach, who first went to Guildhall, whither I went with him — he to speak with Sheriffe Gawden, I only for company; (…)

His wife is out of order. I thought it happened only with cars or toasters...
19 DECEMBER. (…) and so away home to dinner and there find my wife mightily out of order with her teeth. (…) ( )