Oil lamps, the smell of raw sewage, horses, carriages, long skirts and shorter trousers. Sickness is rampant, and with little medical knowledge as we know it, many lives were cut short. Charles I had been executed some years before, bringing to an abrupt end the reign of monarchy over the people of England. For the most part people went on as before. This is the time that two Englishmen chose to leave a little piece of their world, in the form of diaries. Rarely were people literate and as such these legacies are a brilliant piece of foresight on the part of these men.
But why did they write these diaries? For the most part both writers are succinct and to the point. Scattered throughout are brief glimpses of the world they knew, which, due to transportation issues, appeared a great deal smaller than we know it today.
John Evelyn (1620 - 1706) has much to say about God, His providence and what was preached in Church. He describes in detail the arrival of Charles II into London on the 29th May 1660 and found the lack of blood shed worth commenting on. Samuel Pepys on the other hand was out of the city and so we cannot get a fuller picture of the revelry at the time. .
Throughout the diaries there is some variation of events, with Evelyn mentioning some things that Pepys didn't and vice versa. Evelyn's Christian faith seems to dominate the pages, while in Pepys" diary, his social life appears to take precedence. One piece of information that looks important to the modern reader isn't found within the pages of Pepys" diary, that being the death of the Princess of Orange, Mary. In two different editions of Evelyn's diary the date of her death from smallpox differs, one putting the date of death as the 21st December 1660 , and the other the 22nd December 1660. This may be a mistake in the translation from the old English. .
Evelyn also has much more "local" gaiety than Pepys, who comes across as far more self-centred.
