Up and to Westminster, and there to the Swan, and by chance met Mr. Spicer and another ’Chequer clerk, and there made them drink, and there talked of the credit the ’Chequer is now come to and will in a little time, and so away homeward, and called at my bookseller’s, and there bought Mr. Harrington’s works, “Oceana,” &c., and two other books, which cost me 4l., and so home, and there eat a bit, and then with my wife to the King’s playhouse, and there saw “The Surprizall;” which did not please me to-day, the actors not pleasing me; and especially Nell’s acting of a serious part, which she spoils. Here met with Sir W. Pen, and sat by him, and home by coach with him, and there to my office a while, and then home to supper and to bed. I hear this day that Mrs. Stewart do at this day keep a great court at Somerset House, with her husband the Duke of Richmond, she being visited for her beauty’s sake by people, as the Queen is, at nights; and they say also that she is likely to go to Court again, and there put my Lady Castlemayne’s nose out of joynt. God knows that would make a great turn. This day I was invited to have gone to my cozen Mary Pepys’ burial, my uncle Thomas’ daughter, but could not.
in the drink called ocean
all the spoils of our joy make
a great turn
into one burial
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 26 December 1667.