Up, and a cold morning, by water through bridge without a cloak, and there to Mr. Wren at his chamber at White Hall, the first time of his coming thither this year, the Duchess coming thither tonight, and there he and I did read over my paper that I have with so much labour drawn up about the several answers of the officers of this Office to the Duke of York’s reflections, and did debate a little what advice to give the Duke of York when he comes to town upon it. Here come in Lord Anglesy, and I perceive he makes nothing of this order for his suspension, resolving to contend and to bring it to the Council on Wednesday when the King is come to town to-morrow, and Mr. Wren do join with him mightily in it, and do look upon the Duke of York as concerned more in it than he. So to visit Creed at his chamber, but his wife not come thither yet, nor do he tell me where she is, though she be in town, at Stepney, at Atkins’s. So to Mr. Povy’s to talk about a coach, but there I find my Lord Sandwich, and Peterborough, and Hinchingbroke, Charles Harbord, and Sidney Montagu; and there I was stopped, and dined mighty nobly at a good table, with one little dish at a time upon it, but mighty merry. I was glad to see it: but sorry, methought, to see my Lord have so little reason to be merry, and yet glad, for his sake, to have him cheerful. After dinner up, and looked up and down the house, and so to the cellar; and thence I slipt away, without taking leave, and so to a few places about business, and among others to my bookseller’s in Duck Lane, and so home, where the house still full of dirt by painters and others, and will not be clean a good while. So to read and talk with my wife till by and by called to the office about Sir W. Warren’s business, where we met a little, and then home to supper and to bed. This day I went, by Mr. Povy’s direction, to a coachmaker near him, for a coach just like his, but it was sold this very morning.
cold water
without relections
on a Wednesday
look
not me
nor the harbor
I dine at a good table
with one little
dish at a time
and after dinner
down to the cellar
without dirt
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 2 November 1668.