Note 71 — Front matter (continued 5)

This was the Great Fire which destroyed nearly every building of importance in the City, including one hundred and seven churches and the Royal Exchange. The second Royal Exchange was opened on September 28, 1669. The recorded visits of Pepys to the New Exchange ended in April, 1669. Pepys was then busy with state affairs, and his eyesight was failing. On the latter account he brought the Diary to a close on May 31 of that year. Of course, he may have visited the New Exchange after the last entry recorded in his Diary. Indeed, it is probable that he did so. When we consider what enjoyment he derived from his various meetings here, from his purchases of play-books and silk stockings, and from his drinking of whey, the last words in his Diary become doubly pathetic: "And thus ends all that I doubt I shall ever be able to do with my own eyes in the keeping of my Journall, I being not able to do it any longer, having done now so long as to undo my eyes almost every time that I take a pen in my hand; and therefore, whatever comes of it, I must forbear: and therefore resolve, from this time forward, to have it kept by my people in long-hand, and must be contented to set down no more than is fit for them and all the world to know; or if there be anything, I must endeavour to keep a margin in my book open, to add here and there a note in short-hand with my own hand, and so I betake myself to that course, which is almost as much as to see myself go into my grave: for which, and all the discomforts that will accompany my being blind, the good God prepare me!"