Pepys diary entries January 1666

 

 

now I don't want to give the plot away; you can read ahead online, but there is a strange duality to this time. Plague numbers are no where near the amounts mentioned six months ago and overall numbers are far greater than those of the plague. That gives hope to the everyday business of living, but not without reservation. The entries are smaller but are intense.

(3/1)

"Then comes my wife, and I set her to get supper ready against I go to the Duke of Albemarle and back again; and at the Duke’s with great joy I received the good news of the decrease of the plague this week to 70, and but 253 in all; which is the least Bill (Bill of Mortality) hath been known these twenty years in the City. Through the want of people in London is it, that must make it so low below the ordinary number for Bills."

notice there is no mention of international borders being restricted, but providing a duty of care in the form of lodgings for an associate, even if it was not offered previously in turn due to the circumstances of the time. 

(6/1)

"At night home to my lodging, where I find my wife returned with my things, and there also Captain Ferrers is come upon business of my Lord’s to this town about getting some goods of his put on board in order to his going to Spain, and Ferrers presumes upon my finding a bed for him, which I did not like to have done without my invitation because I had done [it] several times before, during the plague, that he could not provide himself safely elsewhere."

a general hope for secure business lodgings

(9/1)

"Up, and then to the office, where we met first since the plague, which God preserve us in!" 

but then there is a focus pertaining to the Bills of Mortality and the erratic nature of the plague

(10/1)

"Thence to the ’Change (the Royal Exchange) , and there hear to our grief how the plague is encreased this week from seventy to eighty-nine."

and yet the plague continues to increase, which generates a fear of what could happen in the long term

(13/1)

"Home with his Lordship to Mrs. Williams’s, in Covent-Garden, to dinner (the first time I ever was there), and there met Captain Cocke; and pretty merry, though not perfectly so, because of the fear that there is of a great encrease again of the plague this week." 

"if the plague continues among us another yeare, the Lord knows what will become of us."

still the numbers are nowhere near the numbers of old and are smaller than the general numbers, but still the fear of the duration of the sickness. The idea of having fear with reason, when really, no reason is apparent. 

(16/1)

"So home late at my letters, and so to bed, being mightily troubled at the newes of the plague’s being encreased, and was much the saddest news that the plague hath brought me from the beginning of it; because of the lateness of the year, and the fear, we may with reason have, of its continuing with us the next summer. The total being now 375, and the plague 158."

discussion about the general exodus from the city as a mechanism for survival but news of a new technology - the respirator. One interesting entry was the mention of Gresham College - An unusual institution of higher learning off Holborn in central London. It enrolls no students and grants no degrees. Gresham College has provided lectures free and open to the public since its foundation under the Will of Sir Thomas Gresham in 1597, long before there was any university in London.

(22/1)

"I back presently to the Crowne taverne behind the Exchange by appointment, and there met the first meeting of Gresham College since the plague. Dr. Goddard did fill us with talke, in defence of his and his fellow physicians going out of towne in the plague-time; saying that their particular patients were most gone out of towne, and they left at liberty; and a great deal more, &c. But what, among other fine discourse pleased me most, was Sir G. Ent about Respiration; that it is not to this day known, or concluded on among physicians, nor to be done either, how the action is managed by nature, or for what use it is. Here late till poor Dr. Merriot was drunk, and so all home, and I to bed."

the number of deaths were lower than previous times and in comparison to general fatalities, but still persistent.

(23/1)

"Up and to the office and then to dinner. After dinner to the office again all the afternoon, and much business with me. Good newes beyond all expectation of the decrease of the plague, being now but 79, and the whole but 272. So home with comfort to bed. A most furious storme all night and morning."

so Pepys has separated the members of his family home as a method of prevention and was happy as such, but still took a great deal of pause as to what had happened by the evidence of those who had perished overall 

 

(30/1)

"This is the first time I have been in this church since I left London for the plague, and it frighted me indeed to go through the church more than I thought it could have done, to see so [many] graves lie so high upon the churchyards where people have been buried of the plague. I was much troubled at it, and do not think to go through it again a good while."

one final and optimistic footnote for the end of the month.

(31/1)

"blessed be God! to do so, the plague being decreased this week to 56, and the total to 227."

I really don't feel I am repeating myself in relation to these posts, due to the every changing nature of the plague itself. There is the very nature and approach as to what the author thinks about what he is currently going through - parts of fear and trepidation; what he has experienced so far and what he thinks about the future.