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

having it spoiled, as it hath been oftentimes, and yet they will continue to plant it.3645 The place, she says, is a miserable poor place. They gone, I to the office, where all the afternoon very busy, and at night, when my eyes were weary of the light, I and my wife to walk in the garden, and then home to supper and pipe, and then to bed.

20th. At the office doing business all the morning. At noon expected Creed to have come to dine with me and brought Mr. Sheres (the gentleman lately come from my Lord Sandwich) with him; but they come not, so there was a good dinner lost. After dinner my wife and Jane about some business of hers abroad, and then I to the office, where, having done my business, I out to pay some debts: among others to the tavern at the end of Billiter Lane, where my design was to see the pretty mistress of the house, which I did, and indeed is, as I always thought, one of the modestest, prettiest, plain women that ever I saw. Thence was met in the street by Sir W. Penn, and he and I by coach to the King’s playhouse, and there saw The Mad Couple,3646 which I do not remember that I have seen; it is a pretty pleasant play. Thence home, and my wife and I to walk in the garden, she having been at the same play with Jane, in the 18d. seat, to show Jane the play, and so home to supper and to bed.

21st. All the morning at the office, dined at home, and expected Sheres again, but he did not come, so another dinner lost by the folly of Creed. After having done some business at the office, I out with my wife to Sheres’s lodging and left an invitation for him to dine with me tomorrow, and so back and took up my wife at the Exchange, and then kissed Mrs. Smith’s pretty hand, and so with my wife by coach to take some ayre (but the way very dirty) as far as Bow, and so drinking (as usual) at Mile End of Byde’s ale, we home and there busy at my letters till late, and so to walk by moonshine with my wife, and so to bed. The King, Duke of York, and the men of the Court, have been these four or five days a-hunting at Bagshot.

22nd (Lord’s day). At my chamber all the morning making up some accounts, to my great content. At noon comes Mr. Sheres, whom I find a good, ingenious man, but do talk a little too much of his travels. He left my Lord Sandwich well, but in pain to be at home for want of money, which comes very hardly. Most of the afternoon talking of Spain, and informing him against his return how things are here, and so spent most of the afternoon, and then he parted, and then to my chamber busy till my eyes were almost blind with writing and reading, and I was fain to get the boy to come and write for me, and then to supper, and Pelling come to me at supper, and then to sing a Psalm with him, and so parted and to bed, after my wife had read some thing to me (to save my eyes) in a good book. This night I did even my accounts of the house, which I have to my great shame omitted now above two months or more, and therefore am content to take my wife’s and maid’s accounts as they give them, being not able to correct them, which vexes me; but the fault being my own, contrary to my wife’s frequent desires, I cannot find fault, but am resolved never to let them come to that pass again. The truth is, I have indulged myself more in pleasure for these last two months than ever I did in my life before, since I come to be a person concerned in business; and I doubt, when I come to make up my accounts, I shall find it so by the expense.

23rd. Up, and walked to the Exchange, there to get a coach but failed, and so was forced to walk a most dirty walk to the Old Swan, and there took boat, and so to the Exchange, and there took coach to St. James’s and did our usual business with the Duke of York. Thence I walked over the Park to Whitehall and took water to Westminster, and there, among other things, bought the examinations of the business about the Fire of London, which is a book that Mrs. Pierce tells me hath been commanded to be burnt.3647 The examinations indeed are very plain. Thence to the Excise office, and so to the Exchange, and did a little business, and so home and took up my wife, and so carried her to the other end, where I ’light at my Lord Ashly’s, by invitation,3648 to dine there, which I did, and Sir H. Cholmly, Creed, and Yeabsly, upon occasion of the business of Yeabsly, who, God knows, do bribe him very well for it; and it is pretty to see how this great man do condescend to these things, and do all he can in his examining of his business to favour him, and yet with great cunning not to be discovered but by me that am privy to it. At table it is worth remembering that my Lord tells us that the House of Lords is the last appeal that a man can make, upon a poynt of interpretation of the law, and that therein they are above the judges; and that he did assert this in the Lords’ House upon the late occasion of the quarrel between my Lord