Delightful, quaint old diarist,
Most ruthless self-anatomist!
⁠He guessed not how those pages
Wherein he bared his inmost soul,
So egotistic, naïve, and droll,
Would render up so rich a toll
⁠Of spoil to after ages.

Unto his artless pen we owe
What ne'er another one doth show,
⁠(Save as by farthing candle,)
A living picture of the ways,
(Vivid as 'neath electric rays,)
Of life in Charles the Second's days,
⁠That time of riant scandal.

Clearly his world before us looms,
Though covered with the heavy glooms.
⁠Two centuries cast o'er it:
We see him at his work and play,
Dancing and singing, grave and gay,
Kissing his maids—a fie-fie trait!
⁠We must, of course, deplore it.