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

to Lord Middleton, we parted, and I homeward; but called at Povy’s, and there he stopped me to dinner, there being Mr. Williamson, the Lieutenant of the Tower,4513 Mr. Childe, and several others. And after dinner, Povy and I together to talk of Tangier; and he would have me move the Duke of York in it, for it concerns him particularly, more than any, as being the head of us; and I do think to do it. Thence home, and at the office busy all the afternoon, and so to supper and to bed.

4th. Up, and to the office, and then my wife being gone to see her mother at Deptford, I before the office sat went to the Excise Office, and thence being alone stepped into Duck Lane, and thence tried to have sent a porter to Deb.’s, but durst not trust him, and therefore having bought a book to satisfy the bookseller for my stay there, a 12d. book, Andronicus of Tom Fuller,4514 I took coach, and at the end of Jewen Street next Red Cross Street I sent the coachman to her lodging, and understand she is gone for Greenwich to one Marys’s, a tanner’s, at which I was glad, hoping to have opportunity to find her out; and so, in great fear of being seen, I to the office, and there all the morning, dined at home, and presently after dinner comes home my wife, who I believe is jealous of my spending the day, and I had very good fortune in being at home, for if Deb. had been to have been found it is forty to one but I had been abroad, God forgive me. So the afternoon at the office, and at night walked with my wife in the garden, and my Lord Brouncker with us, who is newly come to W. Penn’s lodgings; and by and by comes Mr. Hooke; and my Lord, and he, and I into my Lord’s lodgings, and there discoursed of many fine things in philosophy, to my great content, and so home to supper and to bed.

5th. Up, and thought to have gone with Lord Brouncker to Mr. Hooke this morning betimes; but my Lord is taken ill of the gout, and says his new lodgings have infected him, he never having had any symptoms of it till now. So walked to Gresham College, to tell Hooke that my Lord could not come; and so left word, he being abroad, and I to St. James’s, and thence, with the Duke of York, to Whitehall, where the Board waited on him all the morning: and so at noon with Sir Thomas Allen, and Sir Edward Scott,4515 and Lord Carlingford,4516 to the Spanish Embassador’s,4517 where I dined the first time. The Olio not so good as Sheres’s. There was at the table himself and a Spanish Countess, a good, comely, and witty lady⁠—three Fathers and us. Discourse good and pleasant. And here was an Oxford scholar in a Doctor of Law’s gowne, sent from the College where the Embassador lay, when the Court was there, to salute him before his return to Spain: This man, though a gentle sort of scholar, yet sat like a fool for want of French or Spanish, but [knew] only Latin, which he spoke like an Englishman to one of the Fathers. And by and by he and I to talk, and the company very merry at my defending Cambridge against Oxford: and I made much use of my French and Spanish here, to my great content. But the dinner not extraordinary at all, either for quantity or quality. Thence home, where my wife ill of those upon the maid’s bed, and troubled at my being abroad. So I to the office, and there till night, and then to her, and she read to me the Epistle of Cassandra,4518 which is very good indeed; and the better to her, because recommended by Sheres. So to supper, and to bed.

6th. Up, and by coach to Sir W. Coventry’s, but he gone out. I by water back to the Office, and there all the morning; then to dinner, and then to the Office again, and anon with my wife by coach to take the ayre, it being a noble day, as far as the Greene Man,4519 mightily pleased with our journey, and our condition of doing it in our own coach, and so home, and to walk in the garden, and so to supper and to bed, my eyes being bad with writing my journal, part of it, tonight.

7th. Up, and by coach to W. Coventry’s; and there to talk with him a great deal with great content; and so to the Duke of York, having a great mind to speak to him about Tangier; but, when I come to it, his interest for my Lord Middleton is such that I dare not. So to the Treasury chamber, and then walked home round by the Excise Office, having by private vows last night in prayer to God Almighty cleared my mind for the present of the thoughts of going to Deb. at Greenwich, which I did long after. I passed by Guildhall, which is almost finished, and saw a poor labourer carried by, I think, dead with a fall, as many there are, I hear. So home to dinner, and then to the office a little, and so to see my Lord Brouncker, who is a little ill of the gout; and there Madam Williams told me that she heard that my wife was going into France this year, which I did not deny, if I can get time, and I pray God I may. But I wondering how she come to know it, she tells me a woman that