Burroughs

Up betimes and among my workmen, and among them all the morning till noon, and then to my Lord Crew’s, and there dined alone with him, and among other things he do advise me by all means to keep my Lord Sandwich from proceeding too far in the business of Tangier. First, for that he is confident the King will not be able to find money for the building the Mole; and next, for that it is to be done as we propose it by the reducing of the garrison; and then either my Lord must oppose the Duke of York, who will have the Irish regiment under the command of Fitzgerald continued, or else my Lord Peterborough, who is concerned to have the English continued, and he, it seems, is gone back again merely upon my Lord Sandwich’s encouragement.
Thence to Mr. Wotton, the shoemaker’s, and there bought a pair of boots, cost me 30s., and he told me how Bird hath lately broke his leg, while he was fencing in “Aglaura,” upon the stage, and that the new theatre of all will be ready against term.
So to my brother’s, and there discoursed with him and Mr. Cooke about their journey to Tom’s mistress again, and I did speak with Mr. Croxton about measuring of silk flags.
So by water home and to my workmen, and so at night till late at my office, inditing a letter from Tom to his mistress upon his sending her a watch for a token, and so home and to supper, and to my lodgings and to bed.
It is my content that by several hands to-day I hear that I have the name of good-natured man among the poor people that come to the office.

alone in far Tangier
who will have me
a bird in a theater of flags

at night I send a token hand
among the poor


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 24 September 1662.

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