THE ZOOLOGIST. 
THIRD SERIES. 
Vout. IT.) 
OCTOBER>; F878. 
[No. 22. 
SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH IN THE 171H CENTURY, 
AS EXEMPLIFIED IN THE DIARY OF MR. SAMUEL PEPYS, F.R.S. 
By CiaupDE WEBSTER. 
THE readers of the ‘ Diary of Mr. Samuel Pepys, F.R.S.,” must 
include pretty well all those who have essayed to make any 
acquaintance with the ordinary literature of their country; and 
great no doubt has been the amusement they have derived from 
their perusal of the confessions of the somewhat sensuous gentle- 
man, who, jotting down day by day the varied incidents of a not 
uneventful life, scarcely contemplated the ultimate revelation of 
his sayings and doings, concealed as they were in a caligraphic 
character so obscure as well nigh to preclude the expectation that 
they would ever come to light at all. 
Samuel Pepys, born in 1632 and dying in 1703, filled several 
important offices in connection with the Navy, and eventually that 
_of Secretary to the Admiralty, in the reigns of Charles II. and 
James II., being also a Member of Parliament during a portion of 
this period. The ‘ Diary,’ commenced in 1659-60, extends down to 
the year 1669, and was kept throughout in shorthand. It finishes 
thus characteristically :-— : 
« And thus ends all that I doubt I shall ever be able to do with my 
own eyes in the keeping of my journall, 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. . . . AndsoI betake myself to that course, which is almost 
as much as to see myself go into my grave; for which, and all the dis- 
comforts that will accompany my being blind, the good God prepare me!” 
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