High on the hog

With Mr. Pierce, purser, to Westminster Hall, and there met with Captain Cuttance, Lieut. Lambert, and Pierce, surgeon, thinking to have met with the Commissioners of Parliament, but they not sitting, we went to the Swan, where I did give them a barrel of oysters; and so I to my Lady’s and there dined, and had very much talk and pleasant discourse with my Lady, my esteem growing every day higher and higher in her and my Lord.
So to my father Bowyer’s where my wife was, and to the Commissioners of Parliament, and there did take some course about having my Lord’s salary paid tomorrow when the Charles is paid off, but I was troubled to see how high they carry themselves, when in good truth nobody cares for them. So home by coach and my wife. I then to the office, where Sir Williams both and I set about making an estimate of all the officers’ salaries in ordinary in the Navy till 10 o’clock at night.
So home, and I with my head full of thoughts how to get a little present money, I eat a bit of bread and cheese, and so to bed.

Here I sit, high
and fat as a parliament
nobody cares for.

An ordinary night.
My head full of money, I eat
bread and cheese.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 5 March 1660/61.

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