So soon as word was brought me that Mr. Coventry was come with the barge to the Tower, I went to him, and found him reading of the Psalms in short hand (which he is now busy about), and had good sport about the long marks that are made there for sentences in divinity, which he is never like to make use of. Here he and I sat till the Comptroller came and then we put off for Deptford, where we went on board the King’s pleasure boat that Commissioner Pett is making, and indeed it will be a most pretty thing.
From thence to Commr. Pett’s lodging, and there had a good breakfast, and in came the two Sir Wms. from Walthamstow, and so we sat down and did a great deal of public business about the fitting of the fleet that is now going out.
That done we went to the Globe and there had a good dinner, and by and by took barge again and so home. By the way they would have me sing, which I did to Mr. Coventry, who went up to Sir William Batten’s, and there we staid and talked a good while, and then broke up and I home, and then to my father’s and there lay with my wife.
I read in shorthand
the long sentences
like a troll on board
the King’s boat,
making a pretty deal
of public sin—
fitting in.
I gain a home.
They have me sing.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 16 April 1661.