Pepys doubtless adopted from the possibility of his journal
falling into unfriendly hands during his life, or being rashly
communicated to the public after his death. The original
spelling of every word in the Diary, it is believed, has been
carefully preserved by the gentleman who deciphered it; and
although Pepys's grammar has been objected to, it is thought that
the entries derive additional interest from the quaint terms in
which they are expressed.

The period of the Diary was one of the most interesting and
eventful decades in our history. We have here the joyous
pictures of the Restoration, as well as much about "the merry
monarch," his gaieties and his intrigues. The Plague of 1665,
with the appalling episodes of this national calamity, is
followed by the life-like record of the Great Fire, and the
rebuilding of London. Then, what an attractive period is that of
the history of the London theatres, dating from the Restoration,
with piquant sketches of the actors and actresses of that day.
Pepys, in his love of wit and admiration of beauty, finds room to
love and admire Nell Gwyn, whose name still carries an odd
fascination with it after so many generations. In those busy
times coffee-houses were new, and we find Pepys dropping in at
Will's, where he never was before, and where he saw Dryden and
all the wits of the town. The Diarist records sending for "a cup
of tea, a China drink he had not before tasted." Here we find
the earliest account of a Lord Mayor's dinner in the Guildhall;
and Wood's, Pepys's "old house for clubbing, in Pell Mell,"--all
pictures in little of social life, with innumerable traits of
statesmen, politicians, wits and poets, authors, artists, and
actors, and men, and women of wit and pleasure, such as the town,