I burst immediately, in a discourse 
          With a Dutch merchant, ’bout ragion del stato. 
          From him I went and paid a moccinigo 
          For piecing my silk stockings; by the way 
          I cheapen’d sprats; and at St. Mark’s I urined .
          ’Faith these are politic notes!
     Sir P . Sir, I do slip
          No action of my life, but thus I quote it.
     Per.  Believe me, it is wise!
     Sir P . Nay, sir, read forth.

     There can be, then, no mystery about why Sam Pepys 
kept just this kind of diary half a century later. It was a 
discipline of observation and precision for the would-be 
Machiavellian merchant. To the Elizabethan audience Iago’s 
apologia in the first scene of Othello  would have labelled him an