Art Nouveau Ho

Alas: after nine years, the Pepysdiary blog has come to its abrupt end. On 31 May 1669, Pepys did some business, kissed a former mistress and lamented the lack of time to do more, and went for a walk in the park with his wife and some friends. Then he writes:

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 almost 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 therefore be contented to set down no more than is fit for them and all the world to know; or, if there be any thing, which cannot be much, now my amours to Deb. are past, and my eyes hindering me in almost all other pleasures, 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!

With that, his history passes into the hands of others.
( Dickery and PEPYSPERANTO below )
It only remains to convey heartfelt thanks to Phil Gyford for creating and maintaining the Pepysdiary site for so many years. Thank you, Phil, for letting so many people lay their manos upon tu cosa, which you did suffer with tant de freedom. Gracias!

After, in our last instalment, resolving to end his dickery and signing the NO-DICK TREATY OF 1668 with his wife, Pepys has quickly moved on to judging other people:

We sat in an upper box, and the jade Nell come and sat in the next box; a bold merry slut, who lay laughing there upon people; and with a comrade of hers of the Duke’s house, that come in to see the play.

Gwyn, if she'd read it, might have riposted with "I know you are, but what am I?" Seriously. Nell is an established royal mistress at this point, but the great thing about her is that she didn't leave the stage; she continued acting until she had her second child by the King in 1671. She was at the play not with royalty, but with one of her theatrical colleagues from the Duke's Playhouse.

And for this she gets "jade" and "slut" from Pepys, who has damaged far more people with his promiscuity than she has with hers. A far cry from his reaction when he first met her two years ago:

[...] and Knipp took us all in, and brought to us Nelly; a most pretty woman, who acted the great part of Coelia to-day very fine, and did it pretty well: I kissed her, and so did my wife; and a mighty pretty soul she is. [...] Knipp made us stay in a box and see the dancing preparatory to to-morrow for “The Goblins,” a play of Suckling’s, not acted these twenty-five years; which was pretty; and so away thence, pleased with this sight also, and specially kissing of Nell.

FANBOY. If further evidence were needed, Pepys had this engraving of Gwyn as Cupid hanging over his desk in his office at the Admiralty:



Nell Gwyn: prettier, wittier, more talented and more successful than Samuel Pepys, who will never get over it, because he is a dick.

Everyone's posting madly about their Leipzig outfits. I am woefully behind on mine. Samuel Pepys is not making me feel any better:

"Up, and put on a new summer black bombazin suit, and so to the office; and being come now to an agreement with my barber, to keep my perriwig in good order at 20s. a-year, I am like to go very spruce, more than I used to do."

Black bombazine might be just the thing for Leipzig. Since the Bachfest is the same weekend, I predict that the 17th-century outfits will be many.

Anyway, lately Pepys has begun recording his advances toward Elizabeth Knepp, a married actress in the King's Company. As usual, he makes pathetic attempts to hide any sexual references by speaking of them in a poorly-cobbled-together mixture of foreign languages.
( The Knepp Affair thus far )
Anyway, in his new suit and well-maintained wig, Pepys will surely get someone to lay their mano upon his cosa. Or will he????

Wednesday 15 January 1667/68

[...] and so walked by moonlight to Deptford, where I have not been a great while, and my business I did there was only to walk up and down above la casa of Bagwell, but could not see her, it being my intent to have spent a little time con her, she being newly come from her husband; but I did lose my labour, and so walked back again, but with pleasure by the walk, and I had the sport to see two boys swear, and stamp, and fret, for not being able to get their horse over a stile and ditch, one of them swearing and cursing most bitterly; and I would fain, in revenge, have persuaded him to have drove his horse through the ditch, by which I believe he would have stuck there. But the horse would not be drove, and so they were forced to go back again, and so I walked away homeward, and there reading all the evening, and so to bed.

So just because Pepys gets cockblocked, he does his pathetic best to ruin everyone else's evening. Oh, and deprive two kids of their horse. Luckily the horse had better sense.
( Some historical erotica (not involving horses) below )
Looking up links for this entry took me to the Wikipedia entry for whore dialogues: well worth reading.

I've had the pepysdiary feed on my Friends page for about a year now, and I have to say that Pepys is being a real dick lately.
( Evidence below )