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

of October next: at which I am glad, hoping to have time to go over to France this year. But I was most of all surprised this morning by my Lord Bellassis, who, by appointment, met me at Auditor Wood’s, at the Temple, and tells me of a duell designed between the Duke of Buckingham and my Lord Halifax, or Sir W. Coventry; the challenge being carried by Harry Saville,4407 but prevented by my Lord Arlington, and the King told of it; and this was all the discourse at Court this day. But I, meeting Sir W. Coventry in the Duke of York’s chamber, he would not own it to me, but told me that he was a man of too much peace to meddle with fighting, and so it rested: but the talk is full in the town of the business. Thence, having walked some turns with my cousin Pepys, and most people, by their discourse, believing that this Parliament will never sit more, I away to several places to look after things against tomorrow’s feast, and so home to dinner; and thence, after noon, my wife and I out by hackney-coach, and spent the afternoon in several places, doing several things at the ’Change and elsewhere against tomorrow; and, among others, I did also bring home a piece of my face cast in plaister, for to make a vizard upon, for my eyes. And so home, where W. Batelier come, and sat with us; and there, after many doubts, did resolve to go on with our feast and dancing tomorrow; and so, after supper, left the maids to make clean the house, and to lay the cloth, and other things against tomorrow, and we to bed.

2nd. Up, and at the office till noon, when home, and there I find my company come, namely, Madam Turner, Dyke, The., and Betty Turner, and Mr. Bellwood, formerly their father’s clerk, but now set up for himself⁠—a conceited, silly fellow, but one they make mightily of⁠—my cousin Roger Pepys, and his wife, and two daughters. I had a noble dinner for them, as I almost ever had, and mighty merry, and particularly myself pleased with looking on Betty Turner, who is mighty pretty. After dinner, we fell one to one talk, and another to another, and looking over my house, and closet, and things; and The. Turner to write a letter to a lady in the country, in which I did, now and then, put in half a dozen words, and sometimes five or six lines, and then she as much, and made up a long and good letter, she being mighty witty really, though troublesome-humoured with it. And thus till night, that our music come, and the Office ready and candles, and also W. Batelier and his sister Susan come, and also Will. Howe and two gentlemen more, strangers, which, at my request yesterday, he did bring to dance, called Mr. Ireton and Mr. Starkey. We fell to dancing, and continued, only with intermission for a good supper, till two in the morning, the music being Greeting, and another most excellent violin, and theorbo, the best in town. And so with mighty mirth, and pleased with their dancing of jigs afterwards several of them, and, among others, Betty Turner, who did it mighty prettily; and, lastly, W. Batelier’s “Blackmore and Blackmore Maid;” and then to a country-dance again, and so broke up with extraordinary pleasure, as being one of the days and nights of my life spent with the greatest content; and that which I can but hope to repeat again a few times in my whole life. This done, we parted, the strangers home, and I did lodge my cousin Pepys and his wife in our blue chamber. My cousin Turner, her sister, and The., in our best chamber; Bab., Betty, and Betty Turner, in our own chamber; and myself and my wife in the maid’s bed, which is very good. Our maids in the coachman’s bed; the coachman with the boy in his settlebed, and Tom where he uses to lie. And so I did, to my great content, lodge at once in my house, with the greatest ease, fifteen, and eight of them strangers of quality. My wife this day put on first her French gown, called a Sac, which becomes her very well, brought her over by W. Batelier.

3rd. Up, after a very good night’s rest, and was called upon by Sir H. Cholmly, who was with me an hour, and though acquainted did not stay to talk with my company I had in the house, but away, and then I to my guests, and got them to breakfast, and then parted by coaches; and I did, in mine, carry my she-cousin Pepys and her daughters home, and there left them, and so to Whitehall, where W. Hewer met me; and he and I took a turn in St. James’s Park, and in the Mall did meet Sir W. Coventry and Sir J. Duncomb, and did speak with them about some business before the Lords of the Treasury; but I did find them more than usually busy, though I knew not then the reason of it, though I guess it by what followed tomorrow. Thence to Dancre’s, the painter’s, and there saw my picture of Greenwich, finished to my very good content, though this manner of distemper do make the figures not so pleasing as in oil. So to Unthanke’s, and there took up my wife, and carried her to the Duke of York’s playhouse, and there saw an old play, the first time acted these forty years, called The Lady’s Trial,4408 acted only by the young people of the house; but the house very full. But it is but a sorry play, and the worse by how much my head