Early to Mr. Moore, and with him to Sir Peter Ball, who proffers my uncle Robert much civility in letting him continue in the grounds which he had hired of Hetley who is now dead.
Thence home, where all things in a hurry for dinner, a strange cook being come in the room of Slater, who could not come.
There dined here my uncle Wight and my aunt, my father and mother, and my brother Tom, Dr. Fairbrother and Mr. Mills, the parson, and his wife, who is a neighbour’s daughter of my uncle Robert’s, and knows my Aunt Wight and all her and my friends there; and so we had excellent company to-day.
After dinner I was sent for to Sir G. Carteret’s, where he was, and I found the Comptroller, who are upon writing a letter to the Commissioners of Parliament in some things a rougher stile than our last, because they seem to speak high to us.
So the Comptroller and I thence to a tavern hard by, and there did agree upon drawing up some letters to be sent to all the pursers and Clerks of the Cheques to make up their accounts. Then home; where I found the parson and his wife gone. And by and by the rest of the company, very well pleased, and I too; it being the last dinner I intend to make a great while, it having now cost me almost 15l. in three dinners within this fortnight. In the evening comes Sir W. Pen, pretty merry, to sit with me and talk, which we did for an hour or two, and so good night, and I to bed.
Let him continue
in the ground, he
who is now dead,
where all things hurry—
a strange company
who seem to speak.
Let the pursers and clerks
make up their accounts,
the parson rest, and
the great night come
to sit with night.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 2 February 1660/61.