Posted by Jonathan Healey
Ah, Samuel Pepys.
Our greatest diarist, Restoration man about town, zero-times winner of Husband of the Year.
He’s someone who celebrated the date of his bladder-stone removal
like clockwork, but once forgot his wedding anniversary. He’s probably
the first known Englishman to record in detail the time he bought
pornography (from a bookshop on the Strand, in case you need to know for
a friend).
But if there’s one thing you probably didn’t know about our Sammy, it’s that he was obsessed with bodily functions.
He chronicles the Plague and Great Fire of London, the Second Dutch
War, and the ins and outs of Restoration politics; but then mixes it all
with accounts of his flatulence, his piles, and some exceedingly French
activities with his ‘thing’.
So, here, for your utterly delectable disgust, is a panoply of
potties, a Pandemonium of plopping. A Seething Lane smorgasbord of
Stuart-Age shite.
Here, ladies and gentlemen, are Pepys’s Poops…
***
When a dog-turd got him feeling all democratic.
25 May 1660: I spoke with the Duke of York about business, who
called me Pepys by name, and upon my desire did promise me his future
favour. I went, and Mr Mansell and one of the King’s footmen, with a dog
that the King loved (which shit in the boat, which made us laugh and me
think that a King and all that belong to him are but just as others
are)…
When his neighbour’s toilet leaked quite horribly, but Pepys was Very British about it.
20 October 1660: This morning one came to me to advise with me
where to make me a window into my cellar… and going down my cellar to
look, I put my foot into a heap of turds, by which I find that Mr
Turner’s house of office is full and comes into my cellar, which doth
trouble me; but I will have it helped. ‘Do you think this is toilet paper?’
That time his mate was a bit racist about the Portuguese.
25 September 1662: This evening I took a while at Sir W. Batten’s
with Sir J. Mennes etc, where he told us, among many other things, how
in Portugal they scorn to make a seat for a house of office. But they do
shit all in pots and so empty them in the river.
The time he waited all day, and then….
7 October 1663: … my pain continued on me mightily, that I keeped
within all day in great pain, and could break no wind nor have any
stool after my physic had done working. So in the evening I took coach
and to Mr Hollyard’s, but he was not at home; and so home again. And
whether the coach did me good or no I know not, but having a good fire
in my chamber, I begun to break six or seven small and great farts; and
so to bed and lay in good ease all night, and pissed pretty well in the
morning.
The time he called in on a friend in the City.
29 October 1663: At noon I went forth, and by coach to Guildhall
(by the way calling to shit at Mr Rawlinson’s) and there was admitted;
and meeting with Mr Proby (Sir R. Ford’s son) and Lieutenant-Colonel
Baron, a city commander, we went up and down to see the tables.
When a lady-friend made a terrible decision about her dog….
5 November 1665: After an hour’s talk we to bed – the lady
mightily troubled about a pretty little bitch she hath, which is very
sick and will eat nothing. And the jest was, I could hear her in her
chamber bemoaning the bitch; and by and by taking her to bed with her,
the bitch pissed and shit abed, and she was fain to rise and had coals
out of my chamber to dry the bed again.
But when your neighbour ruins a night out with the wife, what else can you do but sing…
30 April 1666: In the evening with my wife and Mercer by coach to
take the air as far as Bow, and eat and drank in the coach by the way,
and with much pleasure and pleased with my company: at night home and up
to the leads; but were, contrary to expectation, driven down again with
a stink, by Sir William Penn’s emptying of a shitten pot in their house
of office close by; which doth trouble me, for fear it do hereafter
annoy me. So down to sing a little, and then to bed. A throne fit for a King.
Then, when a trip to the spa gave him just what he needed…
14 July 1667: We got to Epsom by 8 o’clock to the well, where
much company; and there we light and I drank the water; they did not,
but do go about and walk a little among the women, but I did drink four
pints and had some very good stools by it.
… and when Biblical Logistics were questioned, but thankfully they checked out just fine.
27 May 1668: Made the boy to read to me out of Dr Wilkins his Real Character,
and particularly about Noah’s Ark, wherein he doth give a very good
account thereof, showing how few the number of several species of beasts
and fowls were that were to be in the Ark, and that there was room
enough for them and their food and dung. * * * And finally, don’t you just hate it when it’s the most joyous, longed-for, happiest day of the century, but you just gotta pee.
23 April 1661. Coronation Day. But so great a noise, that I could
make but little of the music, and indeed, it was lost to everybody. But
I had so great a list to piss, that I went out a little while before
the King had done all his ceremonies and went round the Abbey to
Westminster Hall, all the way within the rails… ‘Really?’
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