I really do love Samuel Pepys. Today’s entry in his journal suggests one of the reasons why.
Here he gets involved with a poor schnook named Banes who, while drunk, yells a politically ambivalent/indiscreet remark out of a boat at a time when the British government (such as it was in that weird transitional time between the fall of the Commonwealth and the return of the King) was at least as twitchy as, well, as the US is today about threats to the local body politic and “national security”. The man’s been arrested as a result of the remark. Pepys plainly feels kindly toward him: so, it appears, does his boss, Lord Montagu. Separately the two of them come to the conclusion that the comment-yeller is no threat (besides seeming “much of a gentleman” who “speaks French and Latin very well”), and Montagu comes to the conclusion that the man can be released. I can’t help but think that Pepys influenced his mind somewhat in this regard, though. And at the end of it all, “…I went up and sat and talked with him in Latin and French, and drank a bottle or two with him; and about eleven at night he took boat again, and so God bless him.”
A few years ago, when the unedited Diaries came on the market in paperback, I bought them for Peter — he having always felt strongly that he would prefer to decide for himself which parts of the work were interesting and which weren’t. …Probably his favorite quote:
“…thence to the Theatre, where I saw again ‘The Lost Lady’, which doth now please me better than before. And here, I sitting behind in a dark place, a lady spat backward upon me by a mistake, not seeing me. But after seeing her to be a very pretty lady, I was not troubled at it at all.”
And a couple of my favorites:
“July 1 [1660]. This morning came home my fine Camlett cloak, with gold buttons, and a silk suit, which cost me much money, and I pray God to make me able to pay for it.”
“25th (Christmas-Day) [1665] To church in the morning, and there saw a wedding in the church, which I have not seen many a day; and the young people so merry one with another, and strange to see what delight we married people have to see these poor fools decoyed into our condition, every man and woman gazing and smiling at them.”
