Up, and several people to speak with me, and then comes Mr. Caesar, and then Goodgroome, and, what with one and the other, nothing but musique with me this morning, to my great content; and the more, to see that God Almighty hath put me into condition to bear the charge of all this. So out to the ‘Change, and did a little business, and then home, where they two musicians and Mr. Cooke come to see me, and Mercer to go along with my wife this afternoon to a play. To dinner, and then our company all broke up, and to my chamber to do several things. Among other things, to write a letter to my Lord Sandwich, it being one of the burdens upon my mind that I have not writ to him since he went into Spain, but now I do intend to give him a brief account of our whole year’s actions since he went, which will make amends. My wife well home in the evening from the play; which I was glad of, it being cold and dark, and she having her necklace of pearl on, and none but Mercer with her. Spent the evening in fitting my books, to have the number set upon each, in order to my having an alphabet of my whole, which will be of great ease to me. This day Captain Batters come from sea in his fireship and come to see me, poor man, as his patron, and a poor painful wretch he is as can be. After supper to bed.
Caesar and God the two musicians
write one burden
that we now account our whole book
set in an alphabet of pain
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 17 December 1666.