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

our power of recommending them once approved of by the Hall. He gone I late to send by the post, etc., and so to supper and to bed. My itching and tickling continuing still, the weather continuing cold, and Mr. Holliard tells me that sweating will cure me at any time.

4th (Lord’s day). Lay long in bed, then up and took physique, Mr. Holliard’s, but it being cold weather and myself negligent of myself, I fear I took cold and stopped the working of it, but I feel myself pretty well. All the morning looking over my old wardrobe and laying by things for my brother John and my father, by which I shall leave myself very bare in clothes, but yet as much as I need, and the rest would but spoile in the keeping. Dined, my wife and I very well. All the afternoon my wife and I above, and then the boy and I to singing of psalms, and then came in Mr. Hill, and he sung with us a while; and, he being gone, the boy and I again to the singing of Mr. Porter’s2265 mottets, and it is a great joy to me that I am come to this condition to maintain a person in the house able to give me such pleasure as this boy do by his thorough knowledge of musique, as he sings anything at first sight. Mr. Hill came to tell me that he had got a gentlewoman for my wife, one Mrs. Ferrabosco,2266 that sings most admirably. I seemed glad of it; but I hear she is too gallant for me, and I am not sorry that I misse her. Thence to the office, setting some papers right, and so home to supper and to bed, after prayers.

5th. Up and to St. James’s, and there did our business with the Duke; where all our discourse of war in the highest measure. Prince Rupert was with us; who is fitting himself to go to sea in the Heneretta.2267 And afterwards in Whitehall I met him and Mr. Gray, and he spoke to me, and in other discourse, says he, “God damn me, I can answer but for one ship, and in that I will do my part; for it is not in that as in an army, where a man can command everything.” By and by to a Committee for the Fishery, the Duke of York there, where, after Duke was made Secretary, we fell to name a Committee, whereof I was willing to be one, because I would have my hand in the business, to understand it and be known in doing something in it; and so, after cutting out work for the Committee, we rose, and I to my wife to Unthanke’s, and with her from shop to shop, laying out near £10 this morning in clothes for her. And so I to the ’Change, where a while, and so home and to dinner, and thither came W. Bowyer and dined with us; but strange to see how he could not endure onyons in sauce to lamb, but was overcome with the sight of it, and so was forced to make his dinner of an egg or two. He tells us how Mrs. Lane is undone, by her marrying so bad, and desires to speak with me, which I know is wholly to get me to do something for her to get her husband a place, which he is in no wise fit for. After dinner down to Woolwich with a gally, and then to Deptford, and so home, all the way reading Sir J. Suck[l]ing’s Aglaura,2268 which, methinks, is but a mean play; nothing of design in it. Coming home it is strange to see how I was troubled to find my wife, but in a necessary compliment, expecting Mr. Penn to see her, who had been there and was by her people denied, which, he having been three times, she thought not fit he should be any more. But yet even this did raise my jealousy presently and much vex me. However, he did not come, which pleased me, and I to supper, and to the office till 9 o’clock or thereabouts, and so home to bed. My aunt James had been here today with Kate Joyce twice to see us. The second time my wife was at home, and they it seems are going down to Brampton, which I am sorry for, for the charge that my father will be put to. But it must be borne with, and my mother has a mind to see them, but I do condemn myself mightily for my pride and contempt of my aunt and kindred that are not so high as myself, that I have not seen her all this while, nor invited her all this while.

6th. Up and to the office, where we sat all the morning. At noon home to dinner, then to my office and there waited, thinking to have had Bagwell’s wife come to me about business, that I might have talked with her, but she came not. So I to Whitehall by coach with Mr. Andrews, and there I got his contract for the victualling of Tangier signed and sealed by us there, so that all the business is well over, and I hope to have made a good business of it and to receive £100 by it the next weeke, for which God be praised! Thence to W. Joyce’s and Anthony’s, to invite them to dinner to meet my aunt James at my house, and the rather because they are all to go down to my father the next weeke, and so I would be a little kind to them before they go. So home, having called upon Doll, our pretty ’Change woman, for a pair of gloves trimmed with yellow ribbon, to [match the] petticoate my