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

office all the morning, and at noon home to dinner, where I sang and piped with my wife with great pleasure, and did hire a coach to carry us to Barnett tomorrow. After dinner I to the office, and there wrote as long as my eyes would give me leave, and then abroad and to the New Exchange, to the bookseller’s3566 there, where I hear of several new books coming out⁠—Mr. Spratt’s History of the Royal Society,3567 and Mrs. Phillips’s3568 poems. Sir John Denham’s poems are going to be all printed together; and, among others, some new things; and among them he showed me a copy of verses of his upon Sir John Minnes’s going heretofore to Bullogne to eat a pig.3569 Cowley, he tells me, is dead; who, it seems, was a mighty civil, serious man; which I did not know before.3570 Several good plays are likely to be abroad soon, as Mustapha and Henry the 5th. Here having stayed and divertised myself a good while, I home again and to finish my letters by the post, and so home, and betimes to bed with my wife because of rising betimes tomorrow.

11th (Lord’s day). Up by four o’clock, and ready with Mrs. Turner to take coach before five; which we did, and set on our journey, and got to the Wells at Barnett by seven o’clock, and there found many people a-drinking; but the morning is a very cold morning, so as we were very cold all the way in the coach. Here we met Joseph Batelier, and I talked with him, and here was W. Hewer also, and his uncle Steventon: so, after drinking three glasses and the women nothing, we back by coach to Barnett, where to the Red Lion, where we ’light, and went up into the great Room, and there drank, and eat some of the best cheesecakes that ever I eat in my life, and so took coach again, and W. Hewer on horseback with us, and so to Hatfield, to the inn, next my Lord Salisbury’s house, and there rested ourselves, and drank, and bespoke dinner; and so to church, it being just church-time, and there we find my Lord and my Lady Sands3571 and several fine ladies of the family, and a great many handsome faces and genteel persons more in the church, and did hear a most excellent good sermon, which pleased me mightily, and very devout; it being upon, the signs of saving grace, where it is in a man, and one sign, which held him all this day, was, that where that grace was, there is also the grace of prayer, which he did handle very finely. In this church lies the former Lord of Salisbury, Cecil,3572 buried in a noble tomb. So the church being done, we to our inn, and there dined very well, and mighty merry; and as soon as we had dined we walked out into the Park through the fine walk of trees, and to the Vineyard, and there showed them that, which is in good order, and indeed a place of great delight; which, together with our fine walk through the Park, was of as much pleasure as could be desired in the world for country pleasure and good ayre. Being come back, and weary with the walk, for as I made it, it was pretty long, being come back to our inne, there the women had pleasure in putting on some straw hats, which are much worn in this country, and did become them mightily, but especially my wife. So, after resting awhile, we took coach again, and back to Barnett, where W. Hewer took us into his lodging, which is very handsome, and there did treat us very highly with cheesecakes, cream, tarts, and other good things; and then walked into the garden, which was pretty, and there filled my pockets full of filberts, and so with much pleasure. Among other things, I met in this house with a printed book of the Life of O. Cromwell,3573 to his honour as a soldier and politician, though as a rebel, the first of that kind that ever I saw, and it is well done. Took coach again, and got home with great content, just at day shutting in, and so as soon as home eat a little and then to bed, with exceeding great content at our day’s work.

12th. My wife waked betimes to call up her maids to washing, and so to bed again, whom I then hugged, it being cold now in the mornings.⁠ ⁠… Up by and by, and with Mr. Gawden by coach to St. James’s, where we find the Duke gone a-hunting with the King, but found Sir W. Coventry within, with whom we discoursed, and he did largely discourse with us about our speedy falling upon considering of retrenchments in the expense of the Navy, which I will put forward as much as I can. So having done there I to Westminster Hall to Burges, and then walked to the New Exchange, and there to my bookseller’s, and did buy Scott’s Discourse of Witches;3574 and do hear Mr. Cowley mightily lamented his death, by Dr. Ward, the Bishop of Winchester,3575 and Dr. Bates,3576 who were standing there, as the best poet of our nation, and as good a man. Thence I to the printseller’s, over against the Exchange towards Covent Garden, and there bought a few more prints of cittys, and so home with them, and my wife and maids being gone over the water to the whitster’s3577 with their clothes, this being the first time of her trying this way of washing her linen, I dined at Sir W. Batten’s, and