Books: The Diary of Samuel Pepys

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29th. To Guild Hall; and meeting with Mr. Proby, (Sir R. Ford's
son,) and Lieutenant-Colonel Baron, a City commander, we went up
and down to see the tables; where under every salt there was a
bill of fare, and at the end of the table the persons proper for
the table. Many were the tables, but none in the Hall but the
Mayor's and the Lords of the Privy Council that had napkins or
knives, which was very strange. We went into the Buttry, and
there stayed and talked, and then into the Hall again: and there
wine was offered and they drunk, I only drinking some hypocras,
which do not break my vowe, it being to the best of my present
judgement, only a mixed compound drink, and not any wine. If I
am mistaken, God forgive me! but I hope and do think I am not.
By and by met with Creed; and we, with the others, went within
the several Courts, and there saw the tables prepared for the
Ladies and Judges and Bishops: all great sign of a great dinner
to come. By and by about one o'clock, before the Lord Mayor
come, come into the Hall, from the room where they were first led
into, the Lord Chancellor (Archbishop before him,) with the Lords
of the Council, and other Bishopps, and they to dinner. Anon
comes the Lord Mayor, who went up to the lords, and then to the
other tables to bid wellcome; and so all to dinner. I set near
Proby, Baron, and Creed at the Merchant Strangers' table; where
ten good dishes to a messe, with plenty of wine of all sorts, of
which I drunk none; but it was very unpleasing that we had no
napkins nor change of trenchers, and drunk out of earthen
pitchers and wooden dishes. It happened that after the lords had
half dined, come the French Embassador up to the lords' table,
where he was to have sat; he would not sit down nor dine with the
Lord Mayor, who was not yet come, nor have a table to himself,
which was offered; but in a discontent went away again. After I
had dined, I and Creed rose and went up and down the house, and
up to the ladys' room, and there stayed gazing upon them. But
though there were many and fine, both young and old, yet I could
not discern one handsome face there; which was very strange. I
expected musique, but there was none but only trumpets and drums,
which displeased me. The dinner, it seems, is made by the Mayor
and two Sheriffs for the time being, the Lord Mayor paying one
half, and they the other. And the whole, Proby says, is reckoned
to come to about 7 or 800l. at most. The Queene mends apace,
they say; but yet talks idle still.

30th. To my great sorrow find myself 43l. worse than I was the
last month, which was then 760l. and now it is but 717l. But it
hath chiefly arisen from my layings-out in clothes for myself and
wife; viz. for her about 12l. and for myself 55l., or
thereabouts: having made myself a velvet cloak, two new cloth
skirts, black, plain both; a new shag gown, trimmed with gold
buttons and twist, with a new hat, and silk tops for my legs, and
many other things, being resolved, henceforward to go like
myself. And also two perriwiggs, one whereof costs me 3l. and
the other 40s. I have worn neither yet, but will begin next
week, God willing. The Queene continues light-headed, but in
hopes to recover. The plague is much in Amsterdam, and we in
fear of it here, which God defend. The Turke goes on mighty in
the Emperor's dominions, and the Princes cannot agree among
themselves how to go against him.

NOVEMBER 2, 1663. Up, and by coach to White Hall, and there in
the long matted Gallery I find Sir G. Carteret, Sir J. Minnes,
and Sir W. Batten; and by and by comes the King to walk there
with three or four with him; and soon as he saw us, says he,
"Here is the Navy Office," and there walked twenty turns the
length of the gallery, talking, methought, but ordinary talk. By
and by come the Duke, and he walked, and at last they went into
the Duke's lodgings. The King staid so long that we could not;
discourse with the Duke, and so we parted. I heard the Duke say
that he was going to wear a perriwigg; and they say the King also
will. I never till this day observed that the King is mighty
gray,

6th. Lord Sandwich tells me how Mr. Edward Montagu begins to
show respect to him again after his endeavouring to bespatter him
all was possible; but he is resolved never to admit him into his
friendship again. He tells me how he and Sir H. Bennet, the Duke
of Buckingham and his Duchesse, was of a committee with somebody
else for the getting of Mrs. Stewart for the King; but that she
proves a cunning slut, and is advised at Somerset House by the
Queene-Mother, and by her mother, and so all the plot is spoiled
and the whole committee broke, Mr. Montagu and the Duke of
Buckingham fallen a-pieces, the Duchesse going to a nunnery; and
so Montagu begins to enter friendship with my Lord, and to attend
the Chancellor whom he had deserted. My Lord tells me that Mr.
Montagu, among other things, did endeavour to represent him to
the Chancellor's sons as one that did desert their father in the
business of my Lord of Bristoll; which is most false, being the
only man that hath several times dined with him when no soul hath
come to him, and went with him that very day home when the Earl
impeached him in the Parliament House, and hath refused ever to
pay a visit to my Lord of Bristoll, not so much as in return to a
visit of his. So that the Chancellor and my Lord are well known
and trusted one by another. But yet my Lord blames the
Chancellor for desiring to have it put off to the next Sessions
of Parliament, contrary to my Lord Treasurer's advice, to whom he
swore he would not do it: and, perhaps, my Lord ChanceIlor, for
ought I see by my Lord's discourse, may suffer by it when the
Parliament comes to sit. My Lord tells me that he observes the
Duke of York do follow and understand business very well, and is
mightily improved thereby.

8th. To church, where I found that my coming in a perriwigg did
not prove so strange as I was afraid it would, for I thought that
all the church would presently have cast their eyes all upon me.

9th. To the Duke, where, when we come into his closet, he told
us that; Mr. Pepys was so altered with his new perriwigg that he
did not know him. So to our discourse, and among and above other
things we were taken up in talkings upon Sir J. Lawson's coming
home, he being come to Portsmouth; and Captain Berkely is come to
town with a letter from the Duana of Algier to the King, wherein
they do demand again the searching of our ships and taking out of
strangers, and their goods; and that what English ships are taken
without the Duke's pass they will detain (though it be flat
contrary to the words of the peace,) as prizes, till they do hear
from our King, which they advise him may be speedy. And this
they did the very next day after they had received with great joy
the Grand Seignor's confirmation of the Peace from Constantinople
by Captain Berkely; so that there is no command nor certainty to
be had of these people. The King is resolved to send his will by
a fleet of ships; and it is thought best and speediest to send
these very ships that are now come home, five sail of good ships,
back again after cleaning, victualling, and paying them. But it
is a pleasant thing to think how their Basha, Shavan Aga, did
tear his hair to see the soldiers order things thus; for (just
like his late predecessors,) when they see the evil of war with
England, then for certain they complain to the Grand Seignor of
him, and cut his head off: this he is sure of, and knows as
certain. Thence to Westminster Hall, where I met with Mr.
Pierce, surgeon: and among other things he asked me seriously
whether I knew any thing of my Lord's being out of favour with
the King; and told me, that for certain the King do take mighty
notice of my Lord's living obscurely in a corner not like
himself, and becoming the honour that he is come to. I was sorry
to hear, and the truth is, from my Lord's discourse among his
people (which I am told) of the uncertainty of princes' favour,
and his melancholy keeping from Court, I am doubtful of some such
thing; but I seemed wholly strange to him in it, but will make my
use of it. We told me also how loose the Court is, nobody
looking after business, but every man his lust and gain; and how
the King is now become besotted upon Mrs Stewart, that he gets
into corners, and will be with her half an hour together kissing
her to the observation of all the world; and she now stays by
herself and expects it, as my Lady Castlemaine did used to do; to
whom the King, he says, is still kind, so as now and then he goes
to her as he believes; but with no such fondness as he used to
do. But yet it is thought that this new wench is so subtle, that
it is verily thought if the Queene had died, he would have
married her. Mr. Blackburne and I fell to talk of many things,
wherein he was very open to me: first, in that of religion, he
makes it greater matter of prudence for the King and Council to
suffer liberty of conscience; and imputes the loss of Hungary to
the Turke from the Emperor's denying them this liberty of their
religion. He says that many pious ministers of the word of God,
some thousands of them, do now beg their bread: and told me how
highly the present clergy carry themselves every where so as that
they are hated and laughed at by every body; among other things,
for their excommunications, which they send upon the least
occasions almost that can be. And I am convinced in my
judgement, not only from his discourse, but my thoughts in
general, that the present clergy will never heartily go down with
the generality of the commons of England; they have been so used
to liberty and freedom, and they are so acquainted with the pride
and debauchery of the present clergy. He did give me many
stories of the affronts which the clergy receive in all places of
England from the gentry and ordinary persons of the parish. He
do tell me what the City thinks of General Monk, as of a most
perfidious man that hath betrayed every body, and the King also;
who, as he thinks, and his party, and so I have heard other good
friends of the King say, it might have been better for the King
to have had his hands a little bound for the present, than be
forced to bring such a crew of poor people about him, and be
liable to satisfy the demands of every one of them. He told me
that to his knowledge, (being present at every meeting at the
Treaty at the Isle of Wight,) that the old King did confess
himself over-ruled and convinced in his judgement against the
Bishopps, and would have suffered and did agree to exclude the
service out of the churches, nay his own chapell; and that he did
always say, that this he did not by force, for that he would
never abate one inch by any violence; but what he did was out of
his reason and judgement. He tells me that the King by name,
with all his dignities, is prayed for by them that they call
Fanatiques, as heartily and powerfully as in any of the other
churches that are thought better: and that, let the King think
what he will, it is them that must help him in the day of warr.
For so generally they are the most substantiall sort of people,
and the soberest; and did desire me to observe it to my Lord
Sandwich, among other things, that of all the old army now you
cannot see a man begging about the streets; but what? You shall
have this captain turned a shoemaker; the lieutenant, a baker;
this a brewer; that a haberdasher; this common soldier, a porter;
and every man in his apron and frock, &c., as if they had never
done anything else: whereas the other go with their belts and
swords, swearing and cursing, and stealing; running into people's
houses, by force oftentimes, to carry away something; and this is
the difference between the temper of one and the other; and
concludes (and I think: with some reason,) that the spirits of
the old parliament soldiers are so quiet and contented with God's
providences, that the King is safer from any evil meant him by
them one thousand times more than from his own discontented
Cavalier. And then to the publick management of business: it is
done, as he observes, so loosely and so carelessly, that the
kingdom can never be happy with it, every man looking after
himself, and his own lust and luxury; and that half of what money
the Parliament gives the King is not so much as gathered. And to
the purpose he told me how the Bellamys (who had some of the
northern counties assigned them for their debt for the petty
warrant victnalling) have often complained to him that they
cannot get it collected, for that nobody minds, or if they do,
they won't pay it in. Whereas (which is a very remarkable
thing,) he hath been told by some of the Treasurers at Warr here
of late, to whom the most of the 120,000l. monthly was paid, that
for most months the payments were gathered so duly, that they
seldom had so much or more than 40s. or the like short in the
whole collection; whereas now the very Commissioners for
Assessments and other publick payments are such persons, and
those that they choose in the country so like themselves, that
from top to bottom there is not a man carefull of any thing, or
if he be, is not solvent; that what between the beggar and the
knave, the King is abused the best part of all his revenue. We
then talked of the Navy, and of Sir W. Pen's rise to be a
general. We told me he was always a conceited man, and one that
would put the best side outward, but that it was his pretence of
sanctity that brought him into play. Lawson, and Portman, and
the fifth-monarchy men, among whom he was a great brother,
importuned that he might be general; and it was pleasant to see
how Blackburne himself did act it, how when the Commissioners of
the Admiralty would enquire of the captains and admirals of such
and such men, how they would with a sigh and casting up the eyes
say, "such a man fears the Lord," or, "I hope such a man hath the
Spirit of God." But he tells me that there was a cruel articling
against Pen after one fight, for cowardice, in putting himself
within a coyle of cables, of which he had much ado to acquit
himself: and by great friends did it, not without remains of
guilt, but that his brethren had a mind to pass it by, and Sir H.
Vane did advise him to search his heart, and see whether this
fault or a greater sin was not the occasion of this so great
tryall. And he tells me, that what Pen gives out about
Cromwell's sending and entreating him to go to Jamaica, is very
false; he knows the contrary; besides, the Protector never was a
man that needed to send for any man, specially such a one as he,
twice. He tells me that the business of Jamaica did miscarry
absolutely by his pride, and that when he was in the Tower he
would cry like a child. And that just upon the turne, when Monk
was come from the North to the City, and did begin to think of
bringing in the King, Pen was then turned Quaker. That Lawson
was never counted any thing but only a seaman, and a stout man,
but a false man, and that now he appears the greatest hypocrite
in the world. And Pen the same. He tells me that it is much
talked of, that the King intends to legitimate the Duke of
Monmouth; and that neither he, nor his friends of his persuasion,
have any hopes of getting their consciences at Liberty but by God
Almighty's turning of the King's heart, which they expect, and
are resolved to live and die in quiet hopes of it; but never to
repine, or act any thing more than by prayers towards it. And
that not only himself but; all of them have, and are willing at
any time to take the oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy. Mr.
Blackburne observed further to me, some certain notice that he
had of the present plot; so much talked of; that he was told by
Mr. Rushworth, [John Rushworth, Clerk assistant to the House of
Commons, and author of the Historical Collections. Ob. 1690.]
how one Captain Oates, a great discoverer, did employ several to
bring and seduce others into a plot, and that one of his agents
met with one that would not listen to him, nor conceal what he
had offered him, but so detected the trapan. He also did much
insist upon the cowardice and corruption of the King's guards and
militia.

11th. At noon to the Coffee-house, were with Dr. Allen some good
discourse about physick and chymistry. And among other things, I
telling him what Dribble the German Doctor do offer of an
instrument to sink ships; he tells me that which is more strange,
that something made of gold, which they call in chymistry AURUM
FULMINANS, a grain, I think he said, of it put into a silver
spoon and fired, will give a blow like a musquett, and strike a
hole through the silver spoon downward, without the least force
upward; and this he can make a cheaper experiment of, he says,
with iron prepared.

15th. This day being our Queene's birthday, the guns of the
Tower went all off; and in the evening the Lord Mayor sent from
church to church to order the constables to cause bonfires to be
made in every street, which methinks is a poor thing to be forced
to be commanded.

19th. With Sir G. Carteret to my Lord Treasurer, to discourse
with him about Mr. Gauden's having of money, and to offer to him
whether it would not be necessary, Mr. Gauden's credit being so
low as it is, to take security of him if he demands any great
sum, such as 20,000l. which now ought to be paid him upon his
next year's declaration. Which is a sad thing, that being
reduced to this by us, we should be the first to doubt his
credit; but so it is. However, it will be managed with great
tenderness to him. My Lord Treasurer we found in his bed-
chamber, being laid up of the goute. I find him a very ready
man, and certainly a brave servant to the King: he spoke so
quick and sensible of the King's charge. Nothing displeased me
in him but his long nails, which he lets grow upon a pretty thick
white short hand, that it troubled me to see them. In our way
Sir G. Carteret told me there is no such thing likely yet as a
Dutch war, neither they nor we being in condition for it, though
it will come certainly to that in some time, our interests lying
the same way, that is to say, in trade. But not yet.

20th. A great talk there is to-day of a crush between some of
the Fanatiques up in arms and the King's men in the North; but
whether true I know not yet.

22nd. At chapel I had room in the Privy Seale pew with other
gentlemen, and there heard Dr. Killigrew preach. [Henry,
youngest son of Sir Robert Killigrew, D.D., Prebendary of
Westminster, and Master of the Savoy, and author of some plays
and sermons. His daughter Anne was the celebrated poetess.] The
anthem was good after sermon, being the fifty-first psalme, made
for five voices by one of Captn. Cooke's boys, a pretty boy. And
they say there are four or five of them that can do as much. And
here I first perceived that the King is a little musicall, and
kept good time with his hand all along the anthem.

23rd. With Alderman Backewell talking of the new money, which he
says will never be counterfeited, he believes; but it is so
deadly inconvenient for telling, it is so thick, and the edges
are made to turn up.

26th. The plague, it seems, grows more and more at Amsterdam;
and we are going upon making of all ships coming from thence and
Hambrough, or any other infected places, to perform their
Quarantine (for thirty days as Sir Rd. Browne expressed it in the
order of the Council, contrary to the import of the word, though
in the general acceptation it signifies now the thing, not the
time spent in doing it) in Holehaven, a thing never done by us
before.

28th. To Paul's Church Yard, and there looked upon the second
part of Hudibras, which I buy not, but borrow to read, to see if
it be as good as the first, which the world cried so mightily up,
though it hath not a good liking in me, though I had tried but
twice or three times reading to bring myself to think it witty.
To-day for certain I am told how in Holland publickly they have
pictured our King with reproach. One way is with his pockets
turned the wrong side outward, hanging out empty; another with
two courtiers picking of his pockets; and a third, leading of two
ladies, while other abuse him; which amounts to great contempt.

29th (Lord's day). This morning I put on my best black cloth
suit, trimmed with scarlett ribbon, very neat, with my cloak
lined with velvett, and a new beaver, which altogether is very
noble, with my black silk knit canons I bought a month ago.

30th. At White Hall Sir W. Pen and I met the Duke in the matted
Gallery, and there he discoursed with us; and by and by my Lord
Sandwich come and stood by, and talked; but it being St.
Andrew's, and a collar-day, he went to the Chapel, and we parted.

DECEMBER 1, 1663. After dinner I to Guild Hall to hear a trial
at King's Bench, before Lord Chief Justice Hide, [Sir Robert
Hyde. Ob. 1665.] about the insurance of a ship; and it was
pleasant to see what mad sort of testimonys the seamen did give,
and could not be got to speak in order: and then their terms
such as the Judge could not understand; and to hear how sillily
the Counsel and Judge would speak as to the terms necessary in
the matter, would make one laugh: and above all, a Frenchman
that was forced to speak in French, and took an English oath he
did not; understand, and had an interpreter sworn to tell us what
he said, which was the best testimony of all.

3rd. This day Sir G. Carteret did tell us at the table, that the
Navy (excepting what is due to the Yards upon the quarter now
going on, and what few bills he hath not heard of,) is quite out
of debt; which is extraordinary good news, and upon the 'Change
to hear how our credit goes as good as any merchant's upon the
'Change is a joyfull thing to consider, which God continue! I am
sure the King will have the benefit of it, as well as we some
peace and creditt.

7th. I hear there was the last night the greatest tide that ever
was remembered in England to have been in this river: all White
Hall having been drowned. At White Hall; and anon the King and
Duke and Duchesse come to dinner in the vane-roome, where I never
saw them before; but it seems since the tables are done, he dines
there all-together. The Queene is pretty well, and goes out of
her chamber to her little chapel in the house. The King of
France, they say is hiring of sixty sail of ships of the Dutch,
but it is not said for what design.

8th. To White Hall, where a great while walked with my Lord
Teviott, whom I find a most carefull, thoughtfull, and cunning
man, as I also ever took him to be. He is this day bringing in
an account where he makes the King debtor to him 10,000l. already
on the garrison of Tangier account; but yet demands not ready
money to pay it, but offers such ways of paying it out of the
sale of old decayed provisions as will enrich him finely.

10th. To St. Paul's Church Yard, to my bookseller's, and could
not tell whether to lay out my money for books of pleasure, as
plays, which my nature was most earnest in; but at last, after
seeing Chaucer, Dugdale's History of Paul's, Stow's London,
Gesner, History of Trent, besides Shakespeare, Jonson, and
Beaumont's plays, I at last chose Dr. Fuller's Worthys, the
Cabbala or Collections of Letters of State, and a little book,
Delices de Hollande, with another little book or two, all of good
use or serious pleasure; and Hudibras, both parts, the book now
in greatest fashion for drollery, though I cannot, I confess, see
enough where the wit lies. My mind being thus settled, I went by
link home, and so to my office, and to read in Rushworth; and so
home to supper and to-bed. Calling at Wotton's, my shoemaker's,
to-day, he tells me that Sir H. Wright is dying and that Harris
is come to the Duke's house again; and of a rare play to be acted
this week of Sir William Davenant's. The story of Henry the
Eighth with all his wives.

11th. At the Coffee-house I went and sat by Mr. Harrington, and
some East country merchants, and talking of the country above
Quinsborough, [Perhaps Mr. Harrington invented the name of this
place, and the account of the country.] and thereabouts, he told
us himself that for fish, none there the poorest body will buy a
dead fish, but must be alive, unless it be in the winter; and
then they told us the manner of putting their nets into the
water. Through holes made in the thick ice, they will spread a
net of half a mile long; and he hath known a hundred and thirty
and a hundred and seventy barrels of fish taken at one draught.
And then the people come with sledges upon the ice, with snow at
the bottome, and lay the fish in and cover them with snow, and so
carry them to market. And he hath seen when the said fish have
been frozen in the sledge, so as he hath taken a fish and broke
a-pieces, so hard it hath been; and yet the same fishes taken out
of the snow, and brought into a hot room, still be alive and leap
up and down. Swallows are often brought up in their nets out of
the mudd from under water, hanging together to some twigg or
other, dead in ropes, and brought to the fire will come to life.
Fowl killed in December (Alderman Barker said) he did buy, and
putting into the box under his sledge, did forget to take them
out to eate till Aprill next, and they then were found there, and
were through the frost as sweet and fresh and eat as well as at
first killed. Young beares appear there; their flesh sold in
market as ordinarily as beef here, and is excellent sweet meat.
They tell us that beares there do never hurt any body, but fly
away from you, unless you pursue and set upon them; but wolves do
much mischief. Mr. Harrington told us how they do to get so much
honey as they send abroad. They make hollow a great fir-tree,
leaving only a small slitt down straight in one place, and this
they close up again, only leave a little hole, and there the bees
go in and fill the bodys of those trees as full of wax and honey
as they can hold; and the inhabitants at times go and open the
slit, and take what they please without killing the bees, and so
let them live there still and make more. Fir trees are always
planted close together, because of keeping one another from the
violence of the windes, and when a fellit is made, they leave
here and there a grown tree to preserve the young ones coming up.
The great entertainment and sport of the Duke of Corland, and the
princes thereabouts, is hunting; which is not with dogs as we,
but he appoints such a day, and summonses all the country people
as to a campagnia; and by several companies gives every one their
circuit, and they agree upon a place where the toyle is to be
set; and so making fires every company as they go, they drive all
the wild beasts, whether bears, wolves, foxes, swine, and stags,
and roes, into the toyle; and there the great men have their
stands in such and such places, and shoot at what they have a
mind to, and that is their hunting. They are not very populous
there, by reason that people marry women seldom till they are
towards or above thirty; and men thirty or forty, or more
oftentimes, years old. Against a public hunting the Duke sends
that no wolves be killed by the people; and whatever harm they
do, the Duke makes it good to the person that suffers it: as Mr.
Harrington instanced in a house were he lodged, where a wolfe
broke into a hog-stye, and bit three or four great pieces off of
the back of the hog, before the house could come to help it; and
the man of the house told him that there were three or four
wolves thereabouts that did them great hurt; but it was no
matter, for the Duke was to make it good to him, otherwise he
would kill them.