Concept
Samuel Pepys
Overview
Samuel Pepys ( PEEPS; 23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English writer and Tory politician. He served as an official in the Navy Board and Member of Parliament, but is now most renowned for the diary he kept for almost a decade, first published in the 19th century and one of the most important primary sources of the Stuart Restoration.
Son of a tailor, Pepys was educated at St Paul's School and attended Magdalene College, Cambridge. After receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree, he entered the service of his cousin Sir Edward Montagu, and later found work as a teller in the Exchequer under George Downing. Pepys began to keep a detailed private diary in 1660. The diary provides a combination of personal revelation and eyewitness accounts of major events, such as the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the Great Plague of London, and the Great Fire of London. He recorded his daily life until 1669 when concerns over fading eyesight forced him to abandon the routine.
In 1660, courtesy of Montagu, Pepys secured the position of the Clerk of the Acts to the Navy Board. Despite his lack of maritime experience, he eventually rose to become the Chief Secretary to the Admiralty under both Charles II and James II through patronage, diligence, and his talent for administration. His influence and reforms at the English Admiralty were important in the early professionalisation of the Royal Navy. He was later elected MP for Castle Rising in 1673 and Harwich in 1679 and 1685. From 1684 to 1686, he served as President of the Royal Society.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
A minister of state stands as a public object to the eyes of all Europe. His credit and influence depend wholly upon his character, and he is always sufficiently rich to be above the temptation of becoming a traitor.
Voltaire, The History of Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia
Close in meaning to Samuel Pepys; the term itself is not named.
This competence in the Colony Assemblies is certain. It is proved by the whole tenor of their Acts of Supply in all the Assemblies, in which the constant style of granting is, "an aid to his Majesty", and Acts granting to the Crown have regularly for near a century passed the public offices without dispute. Those who have been pleased paradoxically to deny this right, holding that none but the British Parliament can…
Edmund Burke, Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America
Close in meaning to Samuel Pepys; the term itself is not named.
This Theylls, in a print of his, openly claims it as a merit with his nation to have been the devoted and rewarded agent of Russian intrigue. [21] In the year 1657, when the Courts of Denmark and Brandenburg intended engaging the Muscovites to fall upon Sweden, they instructed their Minister so to manage the affair that the Czar might by no means get any footing in the Baltic, because "they did not know what to do…
Karl Marx, Secret Diplomatic History of The Eighteenth Century
Close in meaning to Samuel Pepys; the term itself is not named.
Philosophers who discussed Samuel Pepys
Related ideas
- French language
- Isaac Newton
- Latin
- London
- The Guardian
- Netherlands
- Oliver Cromwell
- Probability
- University of California Press
- University of Cambridge
- Spanish language
- Arithmetic
- Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica
- Royal Society
- Low Countries
- West Africa
- City of London
- BBC Radio 4
- Huguenots
- Evolution
- Perineum
- Old St Paul's Cathedral
- Blog
Place in the tradition
Part of Philosophy and literature.