Ceremony

This day some of us Commissioners went down to Deptford to pay off some ships, but I could not go, but staid at home all the morning setting papers to rights, and this morning Mr. Howell, our turner, sent me two things to file papers on, very handsome. Dined at home, and then with my wife to the Wardrobe, where my Lady’s child was christened (my Lord Crew and his Lady, and my Lady Montagu, my Lord’s mother-in-law, were the witnesses), and named Katherine (the Queen elect’s name); but to my and all our trouble, the Parson of the parish christened her, and did not sign the child with the sign of the cross. After that was done, we had a very fine banquet, the best I ever was at, and so (there being very little company) we by and by broke up, and my wife and I to my mother, who I took a liberty to advise about her getting things ready to go this week into the country to my father, and she (being become now-a-days very simple) took it very ill, and we had a great deal of noise and wrangling about it. So home by coach.

a child christened—
her simple noise
and wrangling about


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 3 September 1661.

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