We feel about journals and diaries in much the same way as we do about letters. Such writings admit us to the intimate companionship of those whose words we read. Journals and diaries, indeed, are more intimate than letters. There are a number of remarkable English diarists:--John Evelyn, Fanny Burney, Charles Greville, Benjamin Haydon, Lord Shaftesbury and Thomas Moore, but the most famous of all is Samuel Pepys. Pepys was an official at the Admiralty. He was born in 1632 and died in 1703. During his lifetime, he was a much respected man, a good official, interested to a certain extent in art, music and writing. But he scarcely would be remembered to-day if he had not kept a diary in which {219} he wrote every day for a number of years. He wrote his diary in shorthand, a kind of cipher, and what he wrote filled six volumes. These books are now kept in Magdalene College, Oxford, in the Pepysian Library. They lay unnoticed at Magdalene for more than a hundred years. Then part of the diary was deciphered, written out in longhand, and published in 1825. The complete edition of Pepys, by H. B Wheatley, was not published until 1899. And so the world has come to know Samuel Pepys from his diaries as well as it is possible to know anyone. When Pepys sat down to write in his diary at night he told all the little things he did, what he thought and how he felt. It does not seem likely that he expected what he had written ever to be read by anyone, but wrote only for the pleasure of going over the day's events. We come so close to Samuel Pepys when we read his diary that he seems almost to be living in the pages that we touch with our fingers. Pepys was fond of fine foods and wine, and enjoyed giving dinners and entertaining. But sometimes the entry in the diary contains no more than an account of an expedition like the following: ... "took coach, it being about seven at night, and passed and saw the people walking with their wives and children to take the ayre, and we set out for home, the sun by and by going down, and we in the cool of the evening all the way with much pleasure home, talking and pleasing ourselves with the pleasure of this day's work.... Anon it grew dark, and as it grew dark we had the pleasure to see several glow-worms which was {220} mighty pretty." This was on the way home from Epsom Downs, Sunday, July 14, 1667. One of the most lovable diaries is Sir Walter Scott's _Journal_. He wrote it, like Pepys, for his own pleasure. In the Journal we may enjoy the companionship of Sir Walter, who is so simple, unaffected and good that old and young will find themselves all equally welcome.