Via Negativa

Up betimes and to my office, and thence with Sir J. Minnes by coach to White Hall, where met us Sir
W. Batten, and there staid by the Council Chamber till the Lords called us in, being appointed four days ago to attend them with an account of the riott among the seamen the other day, when Sir J. Minnes did as like a coxcomb as ever I saw any man speak in my life, and so we were dismissed, they making nothing almost of the matter. We staid long without, till by and by my Lord Mayor comes, who also was commanded to be there, and he having, we not being within with him, an admonition from the Lords to take better care of preserving the peace, we joyned with him, and the Lords having commanded Sir J. Minnes to prosecute the fellows for the riott, we rode along with my Lord Mayor in his coach to the Sessions House in the Old Bayley, where the Sessions are now sitting. Here I heard two or three ordinary tryalls, among others one (which, they say, is very common now-a-days, and therefore in my now taking of mayds I resolve to look to have some body to answer for them) a woman that went and was indicted by four names for entering herself a cookemayde to a gentleman that prosecuted her there, and after 3 days run away with a silver tankard, a porringer of silver, and a couple of spoons, and being now found is found guilty, and likely will be hanged.
By and by up to dinner with my Lord Mayor and the Aldermen, and a very great dinner and most excellent venison, but it almost made me sick by not daring to drink wine. After dinner into a withdrawing room; and there we talked, among other things, of the Lord Mayor’s sword. They tell me this sword, they believe, is at least a hundred or two hundred years old; and another that he hath, which is called the Black Sword, which the Lord Mayor wears when he mournes, but properly is their Lenten sword to wear upon Good Friday and other Lent days, is older than that. Thence I, leaving Sir J. Minnes to look after his indictment drawing up, I home by water, and there found my wife mightily pleased with a present of shells, fine shells given her by Captain Hickes, and so she and I up and look them over, and indeed they are very pleasant ones. By and by in comes Mr. Lewellin, lately come from Ireland, to see me, and he tells me how the English interest falls mightily there, the Irish party being too great, so that most of the old rebells are found innocent, and their lands, which were forfeited and bought or given to the English, are restored to them; which gives great discontent there among the English.
He being gone, I to my office, where late, putting things in order, and so home to supper and to bed. Going through the City, my Lord Mayor told me how the piller set up by Exeter House is only to show where the pipes of water run to the City; and observed that this City is as well watered as any city in the world, and that the bringing the water to the City hath cost it first and last above 300,000l.; but by the new building, and the building of St. James’s by my Lord St. Albans, which is now about (and which the City stomach I perceive highly, but dare not oppose it), were it now to be done, it would not be done for a million of money.

appointed like a peak
making nothing matter

we are preserving
the peace

with a spoon
not a sword

as if all the land
were one stomach

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 2 September 1663.

Up pretty betimes, and after a little at my viall to my office, where we sat all the morning, and I got my bill among others for my carved work (which I expected to have paid for myself) signed at the table, and hope to get the money back again, though if the rest had not got it paid by the King, I never intended nor did desire to have him pay for my vanity. At noon to the Exchange, where among many merchants abut provisions for the navy; and so home to dinner, where I met Mr. Hunt, his wife and child, and dined with us very merry. And after dinner I to my office with Captain Hickes, who brought my wife some shells, very pretty. He gives me great informacion against the officers and men at Deptford; I find him a talking fellow, but believe much of what he says is true.
In the evening my brother John coming to me to complain that my wife seems to be discontented at his being here, and shows him great disrespect; so I took and walked with him in the garden, and discoursed long with him about my affairs, and how imprudent it is for my father and mother and him to take exceptions without great cause at my wife, considering how much it concerns them to keep her their friend and for my peace; not that I would ever be led by her to forget or desert them in the main, but yet she deserves to be pleased and complied with a little, considering the manner of life that I keep her to, and how convenient it were for me to have Brampton for her to be sent to when I have a mind or occasion to go abroad to Portsmouth or elsewhere about pleasure or business, when it will not be safe for me to leave her alone. So directed him how to behave himself to her, and gave him other counsel; and so to my office, where late.

one inanity among many
visions of hell

is true in the evening
to an imprudent moth

considering peace a lie
considering a life elsewhere

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 1 September 1663.

Up and to my office all the morning, where Sir W. Batten and Sir J. Minnes did pay the short allowance money to the East India companies, and by the assistance of the City Marshall and his men, did lay hold of two or three of the chief of the companies that were in the mutiny the other day, and sent them to prison.
This noon came Jane Gentleman to serve my wife as her chamber mayde. I wish she may prove well.
So ends this month, with my mind pretty well in quiett, and in good disposition of health since my drinking at home of a little wine with my beer; but no where else do I drink any wine at all.
My house in a way to be clean again, the Joyners and all having done; but only we lack a Cooke-maid and Jane our chambermaid is but new come to us this day.
The King and Queene and the Court at the Bath. My Lord Sandwich in the country, newly gone, with my doubts concerning him having been debauched by a slut at his lodgings at Chelsy. My brother John with me, but not to my great content, because I do not see him mind his study or give me so good account thereof as I expected.
My Brother embarqued in building, and I fear in no good condition for it, for he sent to me to borrow more money, which I shall not lend him.
Myself in good condition in the office, and I hope in a good way of saving money at home.

money in prison is quiet
a win with no wine

a way to be clean again
having only sand lodgings

brother give me
my fear money

I shall lend myself hope
money at home

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 31 August 1663.

Lords Day. Lay long, then up; and Will being ill of the tooth-ake, I stayed at home and made up my accounts; which to my great content arise to 750l. clear Creditor, the most I have had yet. Dined alone with my wife, my brother dining abroad at my uncle Wights I think. To church, I alone, in the afternoon; and there saw Pembleton come in and look up, which put me into a sweat, and seeing not my wife there, went out again. But Lord — how I was afeared that he might, seeing me at church, go home to my wife; so much it is out of my power to preserve myself from jealousy — and so sat impatient all the sermon. Home and find all well and no sign of anybody being there, and so with great content playing and dallying with my wife; and so to my office, doing a little business there among my papers, and home to my wife to talk — supper and bed.

toothache
on a clear afternoon

I look up
and see no ether

see so much
out of my power

my patient body here
among my papers

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 30 August 1663.