e royal court.

Pepys began life in a small way as a clerk in a government office, but soon
rose by his diligence and industry to be Secretary of the Admiralty. Here
he was brought into contact with every grade of society, from the king's
ministers to the poor sailors of the fleet. Being inquisitive as a blue
jay, he investigated the rumors and gossip of the court, as well as the
small affairs of his neighbors, and wrote them all down in his diary with
evident interest. But because he chattered most freely, and told his little
book a great many secrets which it were not well for the world to know, he
concealed everything in shorthand,--and here again he was like the blue
jay, which carries off and hides every bright trinket it discovers. The
_Diary_ covers the years from 1660 to 1669, and gossips about everything,
from his own position and duties at the office, his dress and kitchen and
cook and children, to the great political intrigues of office and the
scandals of high society. No other such minute-picture of the daily life of
an age has been written. Yet for a century and a half it remained entirely
unknown, and not until 1825 was Pepys's shorthand deciphered and published.
Since then it has been widely read, and is still one of the most
interesting examples of diary writing that we possess. Following are a few
extracts,[181] covering only a few days in April, 1663, from which one may
infer the minute and interesting character of the work that this clerk,
politician, president of the Royal Society, and general busybody wrote to
please himself:

April 1st. I went to the Temple to my Cozen Roger Pepys, to see and talk
with him a little: who tells me that, with much ado, the Parliament do
agree to throw down Popery; but he says it is with so much spite and
passion, and an endeavor of bringing all Nonconformists into the same
condition, that he is afeard matters will not go so well as he could
wish.... To my office all the afternoon; Lord! how Sir J. Minnes, like a
mad coxcomb, did swear and stamp, swearing that Commissioner Pett hath
still the old heart against the King that ever he had, ... and all the
damnable reproaches in the world, at which I was ashamed, but said little;
but, upon the whole, I find him still a foole, led by the nose with stories
told by Sir W. Batten, whether with or without reason. So, vexed in my mind
to see things ordered so unlike gentlemen, or men of reason, I went home
and to bed.

3d. To