SOURCE: Mount, Ferdinand. “From the Scaffold to Mr. Pooter.” Spectator 290, no. 9086 (28 September 2002): 58-9.

In the following review, Mount commends Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self as a “delightfully readable” and well organized biography.

It is a famous passage, but it needs to be quoted in full, for reasons I shall come back to:

To my Lord's in the morning, where I met with Captain Cuttance. But my Lord not being up, I went out to Charing-cross to see Major-Generall Harrison hanged, drawn, and quartered—which was done there—he looking as cheerfully as any man could do in that condition. He was presently cut down and his head and his heart shown to the people, at which there was great shouts of joy. It is said that he said that he was sure to come shortly at the right hand of Christ to judge them that now have judged...