Up betimes, and after my father’s eating something, I walked out with him as far as Milk Streete, he turning down to Cripplegate to take coach; and at the end of the streete I took leave, being much afeard I shall not see him here any more, he do decay so much every day, and so I walked on, there being never a coach to be had till I came to Charing Cross, and there Col. Froud took me up and carried me to St. James’s, where with Mr. Coventry and Povy, &c., about my Lord Peterborough’s accounts, but, Lord! to see still what a puppy that Povy is with all his show is very strange. Thence to Whitehall and W. C. and I and Sir W. Rider resolved upon a day to meet and make an end of all the business.
Thence walked with Creed to the Coffee-house in Covent Garden, where no company, but he told me many fine experiments at Gresham College; and some demonstration that the heat and cold of the weather do rarify and condense the very body of glasse, as in a bolt head with cold water in it put into hot water, shall first by rarifying the glasse make the water sink, and then when the heat comes to the water makes that rise again, and then put into cold water makes the water by condensing the glass to rise, and then when the cold comes to the water makes it sink, which is very pretty and true, he saw it tried.
Thence by coach home, and dined above with my wife by her bedside, she keeping her bed, those being upon her. So to the office, where a great conflict with Wood and Castle about their New England masts?
So in the evening my mind a little vexed, but yet without reason, for I shall prevail, I hope, for the King’s profit, and so home to supper and to bed.
some far ripple shall decay
so much every day
and make an end of us
rarefy the very body of glass
bolt head cold
as an old castle
a land without reason
shall prevail
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 14 April 1664.