This being, by God’s great blessing, the fourth solemn day of my cutting for the stone this day four years, and am by God’s mercy in very good health, and like to do well, the Lord’s name be praised for it. To the office and Sir G. Carteret’s all the morning about business. At noon come my good guests, Madame Turner, The., and Cozen Norton, and a gentleman, one Mr. Lewin of the King’s Life-Guard; by the same token he told us of one of his fellows killed this morning in a duel. I had a pretty dinner for them, viz., a brace of stewed carps, six roasted chickens, and a jowl of salmon, hot, for the first course; a tanzy
[Tansy (tanacetum), a herb from which puddings were made. Hence any
pudding of the kind. Selden (“Table Talk”) says: “Our tansies at
Easter have reference to the bitter herbs.” See in Wordsworth’s
“University Life in the Eighteenth Century” recipes for “an apple
tansey,” “a bean tansey,” and “a gooseberry tansey.”—M. B.]
and two neats’ tongues, and cheese the second; and were very merry all the afternoon, talking and singing and piping upon the flageolette. In the evening they went with great pleasure away, and I with great content and my wife walked half an hour in the garden, and so home to supper and to bed. We had a man-cook to dress dinner to-day, and sent for Jane to help us, and my wife and she agreed at £3 a year (she would not serve under) till both could be better provided, and so she stays with us, and I hope we shall do well if poor Sarah were but rid of her ague.
27th. Early Sir G. Carteret, both Sir Williams and I by coach to Deptford, it being very windy and rainy weather, taking a codd and some prawnes in Fish Street with us. We settled to pay the Guernsey, a small ship, but come to a great deal of money, it having been unpaid ever since before the King came in, by which means not only the King pays wages while the ship has lain still, but the poor men have most of them been forced to borrow all the money due for their wages before they receive it, and that at a dear rate, God knows, so that many of them had very little to receive at the table, which grieved me to see it. To dinner, very merry. Then Sir George to London, and we again to the pay, and that done by coach home again and to the office, doing some business, and so home and to bed.
28th (Good Friday). At home all the morning, and dined with my wife, a good dinner. At my office all the afternoon. At night to my chamber to read and sing, and so to supper and to bed.
29th. At the office all the morning. Then to the Wardrobe, and there coming late dined with the people below. Then up to my Lady, and staid two hours talking with her about her family business with great content and confidence in me. So calling at several places I went home, where my people are getting the house clean against to-morrow. I to the office and wrote several letters by post, and so home and to bed.
30th (Easter day). Having my old black suit new furbished, I was pretty neat in clothes to-day, and my boy, his old suit new trimmed, very handsome. To church in the morning, and so home, leaving the two Sir Williams to take the Sacrament, which I blame myself that I have hitherto neglected all my life, but once or twice at Cambridge.
[This does not accord with the certificate which Dr. Mines wrote in
1681, where he says that Pepys was a constant communicant. See Life
of Pepys in vol. i.]
Dined with my wife, a good shoulder of veal well dressed by Jane, and handsomely served to table, which pleased us much, and made us hope that she will serve our turn well enough. My wife and I to church in the afternoon, and seated ourselves, she below me, and by that means the precedence of the pew, which my Lady Batten and her daughter takes, is confounded; and after sermon she and I did stay behind them in the pew, and went out by ourselves a good while after them, which we judge a very fine project hereafter to avoyd contention. So my wife and I to walk an hour or two on the leads, which begins to be very pleasant, the garden being in good condition. So to supper, which is also well served in. We had a lobster to supper, with a crabb Pegg Pen sent my wife this afternoon, the reason of which we cannot think; but something there is of plot or design in it, for we have a little while carried ourselves pretty strange to them. After supper to bed.
31st. This morning Mr. Coventry and all our company met at the office about some business of the victualling, which being dispatched we parted. I to my Lord Crew’s to dinner (in my way calling upon my brother Tom, with whom I staid a good while and talked, and find him a man like to do well, which contents me much), where used with much respect, and talking with him about my Lord’s debts, and whether we should make use of an offer of Sir G. Carteret’s to lend my Lady 4 or £500, he told me by no means, we must not oblige my Lord to him, and by the by he made a question whether it was not my Lord’s interest a little to appear to the King in debt, and for people to clamor against him as well as others for their money, that by that means the King and the world may see that he do lay out for the King’s honour upon his own main stock, which many he tells me do, that in fine if there be occasion he and I will be bound for it. Thence to Sir Thomas Crew’s lodgings. He hath been ill, and continues so, under fits of apoplexy. Among other things, he and I did discourse much of Mr. Montagu’s base doings, and the dishonour that he will do my Lord, as well as cheating him of 2 or £3,000, which is too true. Thence to the play, where coming late, and meeting with Sir W. Pen, who had got room for my wife and his daughter in the pit, he and I into one of the boxes, and there we sat and heard “The Little Thiefe,” a pretty play and well done. Thence home, and walked in the garden with them, and then to the house to supper and sat late talking, and so to bed.
APRIL 1662
April 1st. Within all the morning and at the office. At noon my wife and I (having paid our maid Nell her whole wages, who has been with me half a year, and now goes away for altogether) to the Wardrobe, where my Lady and company had almost dined. We sat down and dined. Here was Mr. Herbert, son to Sir Charles Herbert, that lately came with letters from my Lord Sandwich to the King. After some discourse we remembered one another to have been together at the tavern when Mr. Fanshaw took his leave of me at his going to Portugall with Sir Richard. After dinner he and I and the two young ladies and my wife to the playhouse, the Opera, and saw “The Mayde in the Mill,” a pretty good play. In the middle of the play my Lady Paulina, who had taken physique this morning, had need to go forth, and so I took the poor lady out and carried her to the Grange, and there sent the maid of the house into a room to her, and she did what she had a mind to, and so back again to the play; and that being done, in their coach I took them to Islington, and then, after a walk in the fields, I took them to the great cheese-cake house and entertained them, and so home, and after an hour’s stay with my Lady, their coach carried us home, and so weary to bed.
2nd. Mr. Moore came to me, and he and I walked to the Spittle an hour or two before my Lord Mayor and the blewcoat boys come, which at last they did, and a fine sight of charity it is indeed. We got places and staid to hear a sermon; but, it being a Presbyterian one, it was so long, that after above an hour of it we went away, and I home and dined; and then my wife and I by water to the Opera, and there saw “The Bondman” most excellently acted; and though we had seen it so often, yet I never liked it better than to-day, Ianthe acting Cleora’s part very well now Roxalana is gone. We are resolved to see no more plays till Whitsuntide, we having been three days together. Met Mr. Sanchy, Smithes; Gale, and Edlin at the play, but having no great mind to spend money, I left them there. And so home and to supper, and then dispatch business, and so to bed.
3rd. At home and at the office all day. At night to bed.
4th. By barge Sir
