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

brought from the Legg; and after dinner Sir W. Penn and I to the Theatre, and there saw The Country Captain, a dull play, and that being done, I left him with his Torys1259 and went to the Opera, and saw the last act of The Bondman, and there found Mr. Sanchy and Mrs. Mary Archer, sister to the fair Betty, whom I did admire at Cambridge, and thence took them to the Fleece in Covent Garden, there to bid good night to Sir W. Penn who stayed for me; but Mr. Sanchy could not by any argument get his lady to trust herself with him into the tavern, which he was much troubled at, and so we returned immediately into the city by coach, and at the Mitre in Cheapside there ’light and drank, and then set her at her uncle’s in the Old Jewry. And so he and I back again thither, and drank till past 12 at night, till I had drank something too much. He all the while telling me his intention to get a girl who is worth £1,000, and many times we had her sister Betty’s health, whose memory I love. At last parted, and I well home, only had got cold and was hoarse and so to bed.

27th. This morning our maid Dorothy and my wife parted, which though she be a wench for her tongue not to be borne with, yet I was loth to part with her, but I took my leave kindly of her and went out to Savill’s, the painter, and there sat the first time for my face with him; thence to dinner with my Lady; and so after an hour or two’s talk in divinity with my Lady, Captain Ferrers and Mr. Moore and I to the Theatre, and there saw Hamlett very well done, and so I home, and found that my wife had been with my aunt Wight and Ferrers to wait on my Lady today this afternoon, and there danced and were very merry, and my Lady very fond as she is always of my wife. So to bed.

28th. At home all the morning; at noon Will brought me from Whitehall, whither I had sent him, some letters from my Lord Sandwich, from Tangier;1260 where he continues still, and hath done some execution upon the Turks, and retaken an Englishman from them,1261 of one Mr. Parker’s, a merchant in Mark Lane. In the afternoon Mr. Pett and I met at the office; there being none more there than we two I saw there was not the reverence due to us observed, and so I took occasion to break up and took Mr. Gawdon along with me, and he and I (though it rained) were resolved to go, he to my Lord Treasurer’s and I to the Chancellor’s with a letter from my Lord today. So to a tavern at the end of Mark Lane, and there we stayed till with much ado we got a coach, and so to my Lord Treasurer’s and lost our labours, then to the Chancellor’s, and there met with Mr. Dugdale,1262 and with him and one Mr. Simons, I think that belongs to my Lord Hatton,1263 and Mr. Kipps and others, to the Fountain tavern, and there stayed till twelve at night drinking and singing, Mr. Simons and one Mr. Agar singing very well. Then Mr. Gawdon being almost drunk had the wit to be gone, and so I took leave too, and it being a fine moonshine night he and I footed it all the way home, but though he was drunk he went such a pace as I did admire how he was able to go. When I came home I found our new maid Sarah1264 come, who is a tall and a very well favoured wench, and one that I think will please us. So to bed.

29th. I lay long in bed, till Sir Williams both sent me word that we were to wait upon the Duke of York today; and that they would have me to meet them at Westminster Hall, at noon: so I rose and went thither; and there I understand that they are gone to Mr. Coventry’s lodgings, in the Old Palace Yard, to dinner (the first time I knew he had any); and there I met them two and Sir G. Carteret, and had a very fine dinner, and good welcome, and discourse; and so, by water, after dinner to Whitehall to the Duke, who met us in his closet; and there he did discourse to us the business of Holmes, and did desire of us to know what hath been the common practice about making of forrayne ships to strike sail to us, which they did all do as much as they could; but I could say nothing to it, which I was sorry for. So indeed I was forced to study a lie, and so after we were gone from the Duke, I told Mr. Coventry that I had heard Mr. Selden often say, that he could prove that in Henry the 7th’s time, he did give commission to his captains to make the King of Denmark’s ships to strike to him in the Baltique.1265 From thence Sir W. Penn and I to the Theatre, but it was so full that we could hardly get any room, so he went up to one of the boxes, and I into the 18d. places, and there saw Love at First Sight,1266 a play of Mr. Killigrew’s, and the first time that it hath been acted since before the troubles, and great expectation there was, but I found the play to be a poor thing, and so I perceive everybody else do. So home, calling at Paul’s Churchyard for a Mare Clausum,1267