The diary of Samuel Pepys is up in electronic form here. Samuel Pepys a 17th century civil servant known chiefly for the aforementioned diary. Which documents such cheery incidents as the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London. Interesting reading if you need to kill hours upon hours at work (not that I have that luxury).

I of course found this through the metaweb project associated with Neal Stephenson’s book Quicksilver.

If you are attempting to get through Quicksilver, it gets better after page one hundred and twenty or so.