Up, and through pain, to my great grief forced to wear my gowne to keep my legs warm. At the office all the morning, and there a high dispute against Sir W. Batten and Sir W. Pen about the breadth of canvas again, they being for the making of it narrower, I and Mr. Coventry and Sir J. Minnes for the keeping it broader. So home to dinner, and by and by comes Mr. Creed, lately come from the Downes, and dined with me. I show him a good countenance, but love him not for his base ingratitude to me. However, abroad, carried my wife to buy things at the New Exchange, and so to my Lady Sandwich’s, and there merry, talking with her a great while, and so home, whither comes Cocker with my rule, which he hath engraved to admiration, for goodness and smallness of work: it cost me 14s. the doing, and mightily pleased I am with it. By and by, he gone, comes Mr. Moore and staid talking with me a great while about my Lord’s businesses, which I fear will be in a bad condition for his family if my Lord should miscarry at sea. He gone, I late to my office, and cannot forbear admiring and consulting my new rule, and so home to supper and to bed.
This day, for a wager before the King, my Lords of Castlehaven and Arran (a son of my Lord of Ormond’s), they two alone did run down and kill a stoute bucke in St. James’s parke.
through great grief is a narrow road
to gratitude for goodness
work and family
I miscarry a sea and cannot bear
my new day alone
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 11 August 1664.