(Friday). Called up by Balty’s coming, who gives me a good account of his voyage, and pleases me well, and I hope hath got something. This morning paid the Royall Society, 1l. 6s.
and so to the office all the morning. At noon home to dinner with my people, and there much pretty discourse of Balty’s. So by coach to White Hall: the coachman on Ludgate Hill ‘lighted, and beat a fellow with a sword, 2s. 6d.
Did little business with the Duke of York. Hear that the House is upon the business of Harman, who, they say, takes all on himself. Thence, with Brouncker, to the King’s house, and saw “The Surprizall,” where base singing, only Knepp, who come, after her song in the clouds, to me in the pit, and there, oranges, 2s.
After the play, she, and I, and Rolt, by coach, 6s. 6d.
to Kensington, and there to the Grotto, and had admirable pleasure with their singing, and fine ladies listening to us: with infinite pleasure, I enjoyed myself: so to the tavern there, and did spend 16s. 6d.
and the gardener 2s.
Mighty merry, and sang all the way to the town, a most pleasant evening, moonshine, and set them at her house in Covent Garden, and I home and to bed.
who gives me hope
some society fellow with a sword
who takes on the clouds
or the fine ladies listening
with pleasure to a gardener
all the way to the moon
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys: unfinished entry for Friday 17 April 1668