(Lord’s day). Up and put on my new Scallop, and is very fine. To church, and there saw the first time Mr. Mills in a surplice; but it seemed absurd for him to pull it over his ears in the reading-pew, after he had done, before all the church, to go up to the pulpitt, to preach without it.
Home and dined, and Mr. Sympson, my joyner that do my diningroom, and my brother Tom with me to a delicate fat pig. Tom takes his disappointment of his mistress to heart; but all will be well again in a little time. Then to church again, and heard a simple Scot preach most tediously. So home, and to see Sir W. Batten, who is pretty well again, and then to my uncle Wight’s to show my fine band and to see Mrs. Margaret Wight, but she was not there. All this day soldiers going up and down the town, there being an alarm and many Quakers and others clapped up; but I believe without any reason: only they say in Dorsetshire there hath been some rising discovered. So after supper home, and then to my study, and making up my monthly account to myself. I find myself, by my expense in bands and clothes this month, abated a little of my last, and that I am worth 679l. still; for which God be praised. So home and to bed with quiett mind, blessed be God, but afeard of my candle’s going out, which makes me write thus slubberingly.
a scallop is absurd for ears
and delicate of heart
it heard an alarm and clapped
only to go
so I bless God but fear
my candle going out
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 26 October 1662.