Diary of Samuel Pepys, Preface and Life | Page 5

ancestors are described as Aldermen of Norwich. His death has been ascertained to have occurred about 1672; and in the Diary for the preceding year he complains that on account of his declining health, his entries will be but few. Nothing has been traced of his personal circumstances beyond the fact of his having lived for fourteen years in Covent Garden, then a fashionable locality."
Another work I have found of the greatest value is the late Mr. J. E. Doyle's "Official Baronage of England" (1886), which contains a mass of valuable information not easily to be obtained elsewhere. By reference to its pages I have been enabled to correct several erroneous dates in previous notes caused by a very natural confusion of years in the case of the months of January, February, and March, before it was finally fixed that the year should commence in January instead of March. More confusion has probably been introduced into history from this than from any other cause of a like nature. The reference to two years, as in the case of, say, Jan. 5, 1661-62, may appear clumsy, but it is the only safe plan of notation. If one year only is mentioned, the reader is never sure whether or not the correction has been made. It is a matter for sincere regret that the popular support was withheld from Mr. Doyle's important undertaking, so that the author's intention of publishing further volumes, containing the Baronies not dealt with in those already published, was frustrated.
My labours have been much lightened by the kind help which I have received from those interested in the subject. Lovers of Pepys are numerous, and I have found those I have applied to ever willing to give me such information as they possess. It is a singular pleasure, therefore, to have an opportunity of expressing publicly my thanks to these gentlemen, and among them I would especially mention Messrs. Fennell, Danby P. Fry, J. Eliot Hodgkin, Henry Jackson, J. K. Laughton, Julian Marshall, John Biddulph Martin, J. E. Matthew, Philip Norman, Richard B. Prosser, and Hugh Callendar, Fellow of Trinity College, who verified some of the passages in the manuscript. To the Master and Fellows of Magdalene College, also, I am especially indebted for allowing me to consult the treasures of the Pepysian Library, and more particularly my thanks are due to Mr. Arthur G. Peskett, the Librarian.
H. B. W. BRAMPTON, OPPIDANS ROAD, LONDON, N.W. February, 1893.

PREVIOUS EDITIONS OF THE DIARY.
I. Memoirs of Samuel Pepys, Esq., F.R.S., Secretary to the Admiralty in the reigns of Charles II. and James II., comprising his Diary from 1659 to 1669, deciphered by the Rev. John Smith, A.B., of St. John's College, Cambridge, from the original Shorthand MS. in the Pepysian Library, and a Selection from his Private Correspondence. Edited by Richard, Lord Braybrooke. In two volumes. London, Henry Colburn . . . 1825. 4vo.
2. Memoirs of Samuel Pepys, Esq., F.R.S. . . . Second edition. In five volumes. London, Henry Colburn . . . . 1828. 8vo.
3. Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, F.R.S., Secretary to the Admiralty in the reigns of Charles II. and James II.; with a Life and Notes by Richard, Lord Braybrooke; the third edition, considerably enlarged. London, Henry Colburn . . . . 1848-49. 5 vols. sm. 8vo.
4. Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, F.R.S. . . . The fourth edition, revised and corrected. In four volumes. London, published for Henry Colburn by his successors, Hurst and Blackett . . . 1854. 8vo.
The copyright of Lord Braybrooke's edition was purchased by the late Mr. Henry G. Bohn, who added the book to his Historical Library.
5. Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, Esq., F.R.S., from his MS. Cypber in the Pepysian Library, with a Life and Notes by Richard, Lord Braybrooke. Deciphered, with additional notes, by the Rev. Mynors Bright, M.A. . . . London, Bickers and Son, 1875-79. 6 vols. 8vo.
Nos. 1, 2 and 3 being out of copyright have been reprinted by various publishers.
No. 5 is out of print.

PARTICULARS OF THE LIFE OF SAMUEL PEPYS.
The family of Pepys is one of considerable antiquity in the east of England, and the Hon. Walter Courtenay Pepys
[Mr. W. C. Pepys has paid great attention to the history of his family, and in 1887 he published an interesting work entitled "Genealogy of the Pepys Family, 1273-1887," London, George Bell and Sons, which contains the fullest pedigrees of the family yet issued.]
says that the first mention of the name that he has been able to find is in the Hundred Rolls (Edw. I, 1273), where Richard Pepis and John Pepes are registered as holding lands in the county of Cambridge. In the next century the name of William Pepis is found in deeds relating to lands in the parish of