Shore leave

Going forth this morning I met Mr. Davenport and a friend of his, one Mr. Furbisher, to drink their morning draft with me, and I did give it them in good wine, and anchovies, and pickled oysters, and took them to the Sun in Fish Street, there did give them a barrel of good ones, and a great deal of wine, and sent for Mr. W. Bernard (Sir Robert’s son), a grocer thereabouts, and were very merry, and cost me a good deal of money, and at noon left them, and with my head full of wine, and being invited by a note from Luellin, that came to my hands this morning in bed, I went to Nick Osborne’s at the Victualling Office, and there saw his wife, who he has lately married, a good sober woman, and new come to their home. We had a good dish or two of marrowbones and another of neats’ tongues to dinner, and that being done I bade them adieu and hastened to Whitehall (calling Mr. Moore by the way) to my Lord Privy Seal, who will at last force the clerks to bring in a table of their fees, which they have so long denied, but I do not join with them, and so he is very respectful to me. So he desires me to bring in one which I observe in making of fees, which I will speedily do. So back again, and endeavoured to speak with Tom Trice (who I fear is hatching some mischief), but could not, which vexed me, and so I went home and sat late with pleasure at my lute, and so to bed.

A port to drink in.
The fish left my head
and hands to
their sea of mischief.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 6 November 1661.

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