Samuel Pepys

“ Hunt, my father, and W. Stankes; but, Lord! what a stir Stankes makes with his being crowded in the streets and wearied in walking in London, and would not be wooed by my wife and Ashwell to go to a play, nor to White Hall, or to see the lyons,
[The Tower menagerie, with its famous lions, which was one of the chief sights of London, and gave rise to a new English word, was not abolished until the early part of the present century.]
though he was carried in a coach. I never could have thought there had been upon earth a man so little curious in the world as he is. ”

“ Up by five o'clock as I have long done and to my office all the morning, at noon home to dinner with my father with us. Our dinner, it being Good Friday, was only sugarsopps and fish; the only time that we have had a Lenten dinner all this Lent. This morning Mr. Hunt, the instrument maker, brought me home a Basse Viall to see whether I like it, which I do not very well, besides I am under a doubt whether I had best buy one yet or no, because of spoiling my present mind and love to business. ”

“ So home with my mind at very great ease, over the water to the Tower, and thence, there being nobody at the office, we being absent, and so no office could be kept. Sir W. Batten and I to my Lord Mayor's, where we found my Lord with Colonel Strangways and Sir Richard Floyd, Parliament-men, in the cellar drinking, where we sat with them, and then up; and by and by comes in Sir Richard Ford. In our drinking, which was always going, we had many discourses, but from all of them I do find Sir R. Ford a very able man of his brains and tongue, and a scholler. ”

“ When I am confident there is no man almost in the City cares a turd for him, nor hath he brains to outwit any ordinary tradesman. So home and wrote a letter to Commissioner Pett to Chatham by all means to compose the business between Major Holmes and Cooper his master, and so to bed.
18th. Wake betimes and talk a while with my wife about a wench that she has hired yesterday, which I would have enquired of before she comes, she having lived in great families, and so up and to my office, where all the morning, and at noon home to dinner. ”

“ Up betimes and to my office, before noon my wife and I eat something, thinking to have gone abroad together, but in comes Mr. Hunt, who we were forced to stay to dinner, and so while that was got ready he and I abroad about 2 or 3 small businesses of mine, and so back to dinner, and after dinner he went away, and my wife and I and Ashwell by coach, set my wife down at her mother's and Ashwell at my Lord's, she going to see her father and mother, and I to Whitehall, being fearful almost, so poor a spirit I have, of meeting Major Holmes. ”

“ So to bed. This day the little Duke of Monmouth was marryed at White Hall, in the King's chamber; and tonight is a great supper and dancing at his lodgings, near Charing-Cross. I observed his coat at the tail of his coach he gives the arms of England, Scotland, and France, quartered upon some other fields, but what it is that speaks his being a bastard I know not. ”

“ From that we had discourse of Sir G. Carteret, who he finds kind to him, but it may be a little envious, and most other men are, and of many others; and upon the whole do find that it is a troublesome thing for a man of any condition at Court to carry himself even, and without contracting enemys or envyers; and that much discretion and dissimulation is necessary to do it. My father staid a good while at the window and then sat down by himself while my Lord and I were thus an hour together or two after dinner discoursing, and by and by he took his leave, and told me he would stay below for me. ”

“ Thence after dinner back to Deptford, where we did as before, and so home, good discourse in our way, Sir J. Minnes being good company, though a simple man enough as to the business of his office, but we did discourse at large again about Sir W. Pen's patent to be his assistant, and I perceive he is resolved never to let it pass. ”

“ We immediately returned, I taking another boat and with my father went to Woolwich, while they went back to find the dog. I took my father on board the King's pleasure boat and down to Woolwich, and walked to Greenwich thence and turning into the park to show my father the steps up the hill, we found my wife, her woman, and dog attending us, which made us all merry again, and so took boats, they to Deptford and so by land to Half-way house, I into the King's yard and overlook them there, and eat and drank with them, and saw a company of seamen play drolly at our pence, and so home by water. ”

“ So home to dinner with my father and wife, and after dinner up to my tryangle, where I found that above my expectation Ashwell has very good principles of musique and can take out a lesson herself with very little pains, at which I am very glad. Thence away back again by water to Whitehall, and there to the Tangier Committee, where we find ourselves at a great stand; the establishment being but L70,000 per annum, and the forces to be kept in the town at the least estimate that my Lord Rutherford can be got to bring it is L53,000. ”

“ She dined with me; and after dinner I took coach, and carried her home; in our way, in Cheapside, lighting and giving her a dozen pair of white gloves as my Valentine. Thence to my Lord Sandwich, who is gone to Sir W. Wheeler's for his more quiet being, where he slept well last night, and I took him very merry, playing at cards, and much company with him. So I left him, and Creed and I to Westminster Hall, and there walked a good while. ”

“ This day being washing day and my maid Susan ill, or would be thought so, put my house so out of order that we had no pleasure almost in anything, my wife being troubled thereat for want of a good cook-maid, and moreover I cannot have my dinner as I ought in memory of my being cut for the stone, but I must have it a day or two hence.
26th. Up betimes and to my office, leaving my wife in bed to take her physique, myself also not being out of some pain to-day by some cold that I have got by the sudden change of the weather from hot to cold. ”

“ Matters, I hear, are all naught in Ireland, and that the Parliament has voted, and the people, that is, the Papists, do cry out against the Commissioners sent by the King; so that they say the English interest will be lost there. Thence I went to see my Lord Sandwich, who I found very ill, and by his cold being several nights hindered from sleep, he is hardly able to open his eyes, and is very weak and sad upon it, which troubled me much. ”

“ So to dinner, my wife being lazily in bed all this morning. Ashwell and I dined below together, and a pretty girl she is, and I hope will give my wife and myself good content, being very humble and active, my cook maid do also dress my meat very well and neatly. So to my office all the afternoon till night, and then home, calling at Sir W. Batten's, where was Sir J. Minnes and Sir W. Pen, I telling them how by my letter this day from Commissioner Pett I hear that his Stempeese
[Stemples, cross pieces which are put into a frame of woodwork to cure and strengthen a shaft.] ”

“ He desires my keeping him a little longer till he can provide for him, which I am willing for a while to do. This day it seems the House of Commons have been very high against the Papists, being incensed by the stir which they make for their having an Indulgence; which, without doubt, is a great folly in them to be so hot upon at this time, when they see how averse already the House have showed themselves from it. ”

“ His matter was the Devil tempting our Saviour, being carried into the Wilderness by the spirit. And he hath as much of natural eloquence as most men that ever I heard in my life, mixed with so much learning. After sermon I went up and saw the ceremony of the Bishop of Peterborough's paying homage upon the knee to the King, while Sir H. Bennet, Secretary, read the King's grant of the Bishopric of Lincoln, to which he is translated. His name is Dr. Lany. Here I also saw the Duke of Monmouth, with his Order of the Garter, the first time I ever saw it. ”

“ After dinner to Hide Park; my aunt, Mrs. Wight and I in one coach, and all the rest of the women in Mrs. Turner's; Roger being gone in haste to the Parliament about the carrying this business of the Papists, in which it seems there is great contest on both sides, and my uncle and father staying together behind. At the Park was the King, and in another coach my Lady Castlemaine, they greeting one another at every tour. ”

“ So home and all to dinner, and then would have gone by coach to have seen my Lord Sandwich at Chelsey if the man would have taken us, but he denying it we staid at home, and I all the afternoon upon my accounts, and find myself worth full L700, for which I bless God, it being the most I was ever yet worth in money. ”

“ Among other things he tells me how unquiett my mother is grown, that he is not able to live almost with her, if it were not for Pall. All other matters are as well as upon so hard conditions with my uncle Thomas we can expect them. I left him in bed, being very weary, to come to my house to-night or tomorrow, when he pleases, and so I home, calling on the virginall maker, buying a rest for myself to tune my tryangle, and taking one of his people along with me to put it in tune once more, by which I learned how to go about it myself for the time to come. ”

“ Paul's Churchyard, we were forced to stay, the jogging and pain making my father vomit, which it never had done before. At last we got home, and all helping him we got him to bed presently, and after half an hour's lying in his naked bed (it being a rupture [with] which he is troubled, and has been this 20 years, but never in half the pain and with so great swelling as now, and how this came but by drinking of cold small beer and sitting long upon a low stool and then standing long after it he cannot tell) . . . . ”

“ So that Fitz-Gerald being so great with the Duke of York, and being already made deputy-governor, independent of my Lord Tiviott, and he being also left here behind him for a while, my Lord Sandwich do think that, putting all these things together, the few friends he hath left, and the ill posture of his affairs, my Lord Tiviott is not a man of the conduct and management that either people take him to be, or is fit for the command of the place. ”

“ The Queen, my Lord tells me, he thinks he hath incurred some displeasure with, for his kindness to his neighbour, my Lady Castlemaine. My Lord tells me he hath no reason to fall for her sake, whose wit, management, nor interest, is not likely to hold up any man, and therefore he thinks it not his obligation to stand for her against his own interest. ”

“ The Duke and Mr. Coventry my Lord says he is very well with, and fears not but they will show themselves his very good friends, specially at this time, he being able to serve them, and they needing him, which he did not tell me wherein. Talking of the business of Tangier, he tells me that my Lord Tiviott is gone away without the least respect paid to him, nor indeed to any man, but without his commission ”

“ In a pretty high place, which lies very open, they have surrounded a circumference of two or three hundred paces diameter with a sorry kind of balustrade, or rather with postes placed upon stakes but three feet from the ground; and the coaches drive round this. When they have turned for some time round one way they face about and turn t'other: so rowls the world!"—Wilson's Memoirs, 1719, p. ”

“ So to my office, where all the afternoon giving maisters their warrants for this voyage, for which I hope hereafter to get something at their coming home. In the evening my wife and I and Ashwell walked in the garden, and I find she is a pretty ingenuous
[For ingenious. The distinction of the two words ingenious and ingenuous by which the former indicates mental, and the second moral qualities, was not made in Pepys's day.]
girl at all sorts of fine work, which pleases me very well, and I hope will be very good entertainment for my wife without much cost. ”

“ Up and to church, home to dinner. After dinner in comes Mr. Moore, and sat and talked with us a good while; among other things telling me, that [neither] my Lord nor he are under apprehensions of the late discourse in the House of Commons, concerning resumption of Crowne lands, which I am very glad of. ”

“ Up betimes as I use to do, and in my chamber begun to look over my father's accounts, which he brought out of the country with him by my desire, whereby I may see what he has received and spent, and I find that he is not anything extravagant, and yet it do so far outdo his estate that he must either think of lessening his charge, or I must be forced to spare money out of my purse to help him through, which I would willing do as far as L20 goes. So to my office the remaining part of the morning till towards noon, and then to Mr. ”