Up, but very good friends with her before I rose, and so to the office, where we sat all the forenoon, and then home to dinner, where Harman dined with us, and great sport to hear him tell how Will Joyce grows rich by the custom of the City coming to his end of the towne, and how he rants over his brother and sister for their keeping an Inne, and goes thither and tears like a prince, calling him hosteller and his sister hostess. Then after dinner, my wife and brother, in another habit; go out to see a play; but I am not to take notice that I know of my brother’s going. So I to the office, where very busy till late at night, and then home. My wife not pleased with the play, but thinks that it is because she is grown more critical than she used to be, but my brother she says is mighty taken with it. So to supper and to bed.
This day, in the Gazette, is the whole story of defeating the Scotch rebells, and of the creation of the Duke of Cambridge, Knight of the Garter.
a man grows into his own rant
his rot and tears
like a brother in a habit
going to play with his bells
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 6 December 1666.