(Friday).
Up, finding our beds good, but lousy; which made us merry. We set out, the reckoning and servants coming to 9s. 6d.
my guide thither, 2s.
coachman, advanced, 10s.
So rode a very good way, led to my great content by our landlord to Philips-Norton, with great pleasure, being now come into Somersetshire; where my wife and Deb. mightily joyed thereat, I commending the country, as indeed it deserves. And the first town we came to was Brekington, where, we stopping for something for the horses, we called two or three little boys to us, and pleased ourselves with their manner of speech, and did make one of them kiss Deb., and another say the Lord’s Prayer (hallowed be thy kingdom come). At Philips-Norton I walked to the Church, and there saw a very ancient tomb of some Knight Templar, I think; and here saw the tombstone whereon there were only two heads cut, which, the story goes, and credibly, were two sisters, called the Fair Maids of Foscott, that had two bodies upward and one belly, and there lie buried. Here is also a very fine ring of six bells, and they mighty tuneable.
Having dined very well, 10s.
we come before night to the Bath; where I presently stepped out with my landlord, and saw the baths, with people in them. They are not so large as I expected, but yet pleasant; and the town most of stone, and clean, though the streets generally narrow. I home, and being weary, went to bed without supper; the rest supping.
finding a guide
to our own two heads
fair and tunable
with people in them
they are not as I expected
but pleasant to stone
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 12 June 1668 (Pepys’ rough notes for an unfinished entry)