Took me a while to absorb this volume. Much longer than the previous ones. The first quarter rather uninteresting. Much better towards the end. Sometimes hilarious with his bowel problems (October).

I cannot understand how Pepys, who knew French, could commit such a blunder with the spelling of "Haut-Brion"...
10 APRIL. (…) And here drank a French wine called Ho Bryan, that has a good and most particular taste that I never met with. (…)

The King has strange interests
11 MAY. (…) And that the other day Dr. Clerke and he did dissect two bodies, a man and a woman, before the King, with which the King was highly pleased. (…)

An example where Pepys himself bowdlerized his text!
15 MAY. (…) But it is wonderful that Sir Ch. Barkely should be so great still, not [only] with the King, but Duke also; who did so stiffly swear that he had lain with her; and another, one Armorer, that he rid before her on horseback, in Holland I think, and she rid with her hand upon his ——. (…)

Cheap pleasures of everyday's life
25 MAY. (…) She gone, I up and there hear that my wife and her maid Ashwell had between them spilt the pot of piss and turd upon the floor and stool and God knows what, and were mighty merry washing of it clean. (…)
The King really has strange interests
(…) Mr. Alsop tells me of a horse of his that lately, after four days’ pain, voided at his fundament four stones, bigger then that I was cut of, very heavy and in the middle of each of them either a piece of Iron or wood. The King hath two of them in his closet, and a third, the College of Physicians to keep for rarities; and by the King’s command he causes the turd of the horse to be every day searched to find more. (…)

One rare example where Pepys reports having seen his father-in-law
4 JUNE. (…) And by and by, seeing my wife’s father in the hall and being loath that my wife should put me to another trouble and charge by missing him today, I did imploy a porter to go, from a person unknown, to tell him that his daughter was come to his lodgings. And I at distance did observe him; but Lord, what a company of Questions he did aske him; what kind of man I was and God knows what. (…)

Please, Mr Pepys, could you be more explicit?
1 JULY. (…) Thence by water with Sir W. Batten to T[r]inity-house, there to dine with him, which we did; and after dinner we fell in talking, Sir J. Mennes and Mr. Batten and I — Mr. Batten telling us of a late trial of Sir Charles Sydly the other day, before my Lord Chief Justice Foster and the whole Bench — for his debauchery a little while since at Oxford Kates; coming in open day into the Balcone and showed his nakedness — acting all the postures of lust and buggery that could be imagined, and abusing of scripture and, as it were, from thence preaching a Mountebank sermon from that pulpit, saying that there he hath to sell such a pouder as should make all the cunts in town run after him — a thousand people standing underneath to see and hear him. (…)

For which God be praised
13 OCTOBER. And so rose in the morning in perfect good ease, but only strain I put myself to to shit, more then I needed. But continued all the morning well; and in the afternoon had a natural easily and dry Stoole, the first I have had these five days or six, for which God be praised; (…)

Interesting to note that 'yard' and the French word 'verge' have the same meaning of 'wooden stick', but also mean something different.
15 OCTOBER. Up; I bless God, being now in pretty good condition, but cannot come to make natural stools yet; and going to enjoy my wife this morning, I had a very great pain in the end of my yard when my yard was stiff, as if I strained some nerve or vein, which was great pain to me. (…)

Because Pepys, in October, reports a lot on bowel and wind problems, I wondered, at first reading, if he meant that he made a wind when waking up...
19 OCTOBER. Waked with a very high winde, and said to my wife, “I pray God I hear not the death of any great person, this wind is so high;” fearing that the Queene might be dead. (…)

Pepys is full of courage
20 OCTOBER. (…) and while I was in Kirtons shop, a fellow came to offer kindness or force to my wife in the coach. But she refusing, he went away, after the coachman had struck him and he the coachman. So I being called, went thither; and the fellow coming out again of a shop, I did give him a good cuff or two on the chops; and seeing him not oppose me, I did give him another; at last, found him drunk, of which I was glad and so left him and home; (…)

Pepys dislikes long nails
19 NOVEMBER. (…) My Lord Treasurer we found in his bed-chamber, being laid up of the goute; I find him a very ready man and certainly a brave servant of the King, he spoke so quick and sensibly of the King’s charge. Nothing displeased me in him but his long nails, which he lets grow upon a pretty thick white short hand, that it troubled me to see them. (…)

Pepys dislikes cheap presents
21 NOVEMBER. At the office all the morning; and at noon I receive a letter from Mr. Creed with a token, viz., a very noble parti-coloured Indian gowne for my wife. The letter is oddly writ, over-prizing his present and little owning any past service of mine, but that this was his genuine respects and I know not what. I confess I had expectations of a better account from him of my service about his accounts, and so gave his boy 12d and sent it back again. (…)

Pepys clothes too quickly
26 NOVEMBER. (…) and there at it late, and so home to supper to my poor wife and to bed — myself being in a little pain in one of my testicles, by a stroke I did give it in pulling up my breeches yesterday over-eagerly; (…)

Whenever I read this kind of sentence—and it happens almost every Monday in the Diary—I cannot help but think that a closet is a privy and their business is some kind of occupation you can have in a privy...
14 DECEMBER. (…) Then my Lord Sandwich being there, we all went into the Duke’s closet and did our business. (…)

Pepys doesn't like to be disturbed by his in-law family
21 DECEMBER. (…) Her brother’s wife proves very unquiet, and so her mother is gone back to be with her husband and leaves the young couple to themselves; and great trouble, and I fear great want, will be among them; I pray keep me from being troubled with them. (…)

Pepys really doesn't like to be disturbed by his in-law family
31 DECEMBER. (…) My wife’s brother come to great unhappiness by the ill-disposition, my wife says, of his wife, and her poverty; which she now professes, after all her husband’s pretence of a great portion. But I see none of them; at least, they come not to trouble me. (…) ( )