Genius Fan

If you’ve newly discovered this little site then you may not know that I’m an Eighteenth century nut. I believe it’s the greatest century. Better than the Twentieth, better than the Sixteenth, better than the Ninth. It’s very satisfying to me to discover that a high profile person or event or discovery belongs to the Eighteenth. I remember discovering that while Isaac Newton was born in the Seventeenth, he lived long into the Eighteenth (Newton, 1643-1727). Likewise with Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) and now I discover Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) scraped into the Eighteenth century. I dare say he held on deliberately because he knew what a stotter of a century it would be.

It’s a curious thing…how I feel like I ‘just found out’ Pepys managed to reach the year 1703, when he was so very much a man of the Seventeenth century. I found myself in Londinium again last week, in the City, and did a double take when I glimpsed a bust (…ahem) out the corner of my eye whilst making my way along Seething Lane to my Novotel in Pepys Street. I strolled through a little garden and there was the great diarist himself, Samuel Pepys. A bust on a plinth, with the inscription, Samuel Pepys 1633-1703, and underneath that music notation was engraved on five lines his own song “Beauty Retire”.

Notes
Symbols and Secrets website has a nice item on the bust and plinth and more.