Pepys, Up-to-Date.

Now, let us compare the Samuel Pepys of the reign of the Merry Monarch with a hypothetical Pepys of to-day,

“Some maintained that it was worth it.”

saddened by dietry and maddened by dyspepsia ads. This is what he would record for posterity. “Home betide with the latest diet charte which did trouble me by the meanness of its contents. But I do fear mightily for my liver if I follow it not. So did dine right stingily upon a carrot ate uncooked and the water from barley boiled. Miserable victuals indeed; and so to bed, empty but mightily comforted that I shall live to a noble age; though I fear me most uninterestingly.”

Or, “At noon to dinner with my wife, where a heart of lettuce and a biscuit baked for dogs. I fear my wife pleases me not.”

Or, “Did meet Sir William Green-leaf, and so to the milk bar where we did discourse sombrely and did part right dismally.”

And, “The men of the Fleete did riot at the Nore, burning their diete charts on the quays, and shouting, ‘vittles, not vitamins!’ I fear me it is cannons, not calories, that our ships will need to fight the Dutch.” And, “My Lord, Sir Henry Cheesestraw, did die suddenly this week, a day or two ago, of a beef steak. I do regret his going but do envy him mightily of the beef steak.”