The Diary by Samuel Pepys (children's ebooks online TXT) 📕

thence with Mr. Shepley and Mr. Moore to the Devil Tavern,794 and there we drank. So home and wrote letters by the post. Then to my lyra viall,795 and to bed.

18th (Lord’s day). In the morning to our own church, Where Mr. Powel (a crook legged man that went formerly with me to Paul’s School), preached a good sermon. In the afternoon to our own church and my wife with me (the first time that she and my Lady Batten796 came to sit in our new pew), and after sermon my Lady took us home and there we supped with her and Sir W. Batten, and Penn, and were much made of. The first time that ever my wife was there. So home and to bed.

19th (Office day). After we had done a little at the office this morning, I went with the Treasurer in his coach to Whitehall, and in our way, in discourse, do find him a very good-natured man; and, talking of those men who now stand condemned for murdering the King, he says that he believes that, if the law would give leave, the King is a man of so great compassion that he would wholly acquit them. Going to my Lord’s I met with Mr. Shepley, and so he and I to the Sun, and I did give him a morning draft of Muscadine.797 And so to see my Lord’s picture at De Cretz, and he says it is very like him, and I say so too. After that to Westminster Hall, and there hearing that Sir W. Batten was at the Leg in the Palace,798 I went thither, and there dined with him and some of the Trinity House men who had obtained something today at the House of Lords concerning the Ballast Office. After dinner I went by water to London to the Globe in Cornhill,799 and there did choose two pictures to hang up in my house, which my wife did not like when I came home, and so I sent the picture of Paris back again. To the office, where we sat all the afternoon till night. So home, and there came Mr. Beauchamp to me with the gilt tankard, and I did pay him for it £20. So to my musique and sat up late at it, and so to bed, leaving my wife to sit up till 2 o’clock that she may call the wench up to wash.

20th. About two o’clock my wife wakes me, and comes to bed, and so both to sleep and the wench to wash. I rose and with Will to my Lord’s by land, it being a very hard frost, the first we have had this year. There I stayed with my Lord and Mr. Shepley, looking over my Lord’s accounts and to set matters straight between him and Shepley, and he did commit the viewing of these accounts to me, which was a great joy to me to see that my Lord do look upon me as one to put trust in. Hence to the organ, where Mr. Child and one Mr. Mackworth (who plays finely upon the violin) were playing, and so we played till dinner and then dined, where my Lord in a very good humour and kind to me. After dinner to the Temple, where I met Mr. Moore and discoursed with him about the business of putting out my Lord’s £3,000, and that done, Mr. Shepley and I to the new Playhouse near Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields (which was formerly Gibbon’s tennis-court),800 where the play of Beggar’s Bush801 was newly begun; and so we went in and saw it, it was well acted: and here I saw the first time one Moone,802 who is said to be the best actor in the world, lately come over with the King, and indeed it is the finest playhouse, I believe, that ever was in England. From thence, after a pot of ale with Mr. Shepley at a house hard by, I went by link home, calling a little by the way at my father’s and my uncle Fenner’s, where all pretty well, and so home, where I found the house in a washing pickle, and my wife in a very joyful condition when I told her that she is to see the Queen next Thursday, which puts me in mind to say that this morning I found my Lord in bed late, he having been with the King, Queen, and Princess, at the Cockpit803 all night, where General Monk treated them; and after supper a play, where the King did put a great affront upon Singleton’s804 musique, he bidding them stop and bade the French musique play, which, my Lord says, do much outdo all ours. But while my Lord was rising, I went to Mr. Fox’s, and there did leave the gilt tankard for Mrs. Fox, and then to the countinghouse to him, who hath invited me and my wife to dine with him on Thursday next, and so to see the Queen and Princesses.

21st. Lay long in bed. This morning my cousin Thomas Pepys, the turner, sent me a cupp of lignum vitæ805 for a token. This morning my wife and I went to Paternoster Row, and there we bought some green watered moyre for a morning waistcoat. And after that we went to Mr. Cade’s806 to choose some pictures for our house. After that my wife went home, and I to Pope’s Head,807 and bought me an aggate hafted knife, which cost me 5s. So home to dinner, and so to the office all the afternoon, and at night to my viallin (the first time that I have played on it since I came to this