Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete 1667 N.S. Samuel Pepys
little daughter, my Valentine, and so to their house, where we find Knipp, who also challengeth me for her Valentine. She looks well, sang well, and very merry we were for half an hour. Tells me Harris is well again, having been very ill, and so we home, and I to the office; then, at night, to Sir W. Pen's, and sat with my Lady, and the young couple (Sir William out of town) talking merrily; but they make a very sorry couple, methinks, though rich. So late home and to bed.
28th. Up, and there comes to me Drumbleby with a flageolet, made to suit with my former and brings me one Greeting, a master, to teach my wife. I agree by the whole with him to teach her to take out any lesson of herself for £4. She was not ready to begin to-day, but do to-morrow. So I to the office, where my Lord Bruncker and I only all the morning, and did business. At noon to the Exchange and to Sir Rob. Viner's about settling my accounts there. So back home and to dinner, where Mr. Holliard dined with us, and pleasant company he is. I love his company, and he secures me against ever having the stone again. He gives it me, as his opinion, that the City will never be built again together, as is expected, while any restraint is laid upon them. He hath been a great loser, and would be a builder again, but, he says, he knows not what restrictions there will be, so as it is unsafe for him to begin. He gone, I to the office, and there busy till night doing much business, then home and to my accounts, wherein, beyond expectation, I succeeded so well as to settle them very clear and plain, though by borrowing of monies this month to pay D. Gawden, and chopping and changing with my Tangier money, they were become somewhat intricate, and, blessed be God; upon the evening my accounts, I do appear £6800 creditor: This done, I to supper about 12 at night, and so to bed. The weather for three or four days being come to be exceeding cold again as any time this year. I did within these six days see smoke still remaining of the late fire in the City; and it is strange to think how, to this very day, I cannot sleep at night without great terrors of fire, and this very night I could not sleep till almost two in the morning through thoughts of fire. Thus this month is ended with great content of mind to me, thriving in my estate, and the affairs in my offices going pretty well as to myself. This afternoon Mr. Gawden was with me and tells me more than I knew before—that he hath orders to get all the victuals he can to Plymouth, and the Western ports, and other outports, and some to Scotland, so that we do intend to keep but a flying fleete this year; which, it may be, may preserve us a year longer, but the end of it must be ruin. Sir J. Minnes this night tells me, that he hears for certain, that ballads are made of us in Holland for begging of a peace; which I expected, but am vexed at. So ends this month, with nothing of weight upon my mind, but for my father and mother, who are both very ill, and have been so for some weeks: whom God help! but I do fear my poor father will hardly be ever thoroughly well again.
MARCH 1666–1667
March 1st. Up, it being very cold weather again after a good deal of warm summer weather, and to the office, where I settled to do much business to-day. By and by sent for to Sir G. Carteret to discourse of the business of the Navy, and our wants, and the best way of bestowing the little money we have, which is about £30,000, but, God knows, we have need of ten times as much, which do make my life uncomfortable, I confess, on the King's behalf, though it is well enough as to my own particular, but the King's service is undone by it. Having done with him, back again to the office, and in the streets, in Mark Lane, I do observe, it being St. David's day, the picture of a man dressed like a Welchman, hanging by the neck upon one of the poles that stand out at the top of one of the merchants' houses, in full proportion, and very handsomely done; which is one of the oddest sights I have seen a good while, for it was so like a man that one would have thought it was indeed a man.
[From "Poor Robin's Almanack" for 1757 it appears that, in former
times in England, a Welshman was burnt in effigy on this
anniversary. Mr. W. C. Hazlitt, in his edition of Brand's "Popular
Antiquities," adds "The practice to which Pepys refers … was
very common at one time; and till very lately bakers made
gingerbread Welshmen, called taffies, on St. David's day, which were
made to represent a man skewered" (vol. i., pp. 60,61).]
Being returned home, I find Greeting, the flageolet-master, come, and teaching my wife; and I do think my wife will take pleasure in it, and it will be easy for her, and pleasant. So I, as I am well content with the charge it will occasion me. So to the office till dinner-time, and then home to dinner, and before dinner making my wife to sing. Poor wretch! her ear is so bad that it made me angry, till the poor wretch cried to see me so vexed at her, that I think I shall not discourage her so much again, but will endeavour to make her understand sounds, and do her good that way; for she hath a great mind to learn, only to please me; and, therefore, I am mighty unjust to her in discouraging her so much, but we were good friends, and to dinner, and had she not been ill with those and that it were not Friday (on which in Lent there are no plays) I had carried her to a play, but she not being fit to go abroad, I to the office, where all the afternoon close examining the collection of my papers of the accounts of the Navy since this war to my great content, and so at night home to talk and sing with my-wife, and then to supper and so to bed with great pleasure. But I cannot but remember that just before dinner one of my people come up to me, and told me a man come from Huntingdon would speak with me, how my heart come into my mouth doubting that my father, who has been long sicke, was dead. It put me into a trembling, but, blessed be [God]! it was no such thing, but a countryman come about ordinary business to me, to receive £50 paid to my father in the country for the Perkins's for their legacy, upon the death of their mother, by my uncle's will. So though I get nothing at present, at least by the estate, I am fain to pay this money rather than rob my father, and much good may it do them that I may have no more further trouble from them. I hear to-day that Tom Woodall, the known chyrurgeon, is killed at Somerset House by a Frenchman, but the occasion Sir W. Batten could not tell me.
2nd. Up, and to the office, where sitting all the morning, and among other things did agree upon a distribution of £30,000 and odd, which is the only sum we hear of like to come out of all the Poll Bill for the use of this office for buying of goods. I did herein some few courtesies for particular friends I wished well to, and for the King's service also, and was therefore well pleased with what was done. Sir W. Pen this day did bring an order from the Duke of York for our receiving from him a small vessel for a fireship, and taking away a better of the King's for it, it being expressed for his great service to the King. This I am glad of, not for his sake, but that it will give me a better ground, I believe, to ask something for myself of this kind, which I was fearful to begin. This do make Sir W. Pen the most kind to me that can be. I suppose it is this, lest it should find any opposition from me, but I will not oppose, but promote it. After dinner, with my wife, to the King's house to see "The Mayden Queene," a new play of Dryden's, mightily commended for the regularity of it, and the strain and wit; and, the truth is, there is a comical part done by Nell,
["Her skill increasing with her years, other poets sought to obtain
recommendations of her wit and beauty to the success of their
writings. I have said that Dryden was one of the principal
supporters of the King's house, and ere long in one of his new plays
a principal character was set apart for the popular comedian. The
drama was a tragi-comedy called 'Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen,'
and an additional interest was attached to its production from the
king having suggested the plot to its author, and calling it 'his
play.'"—Cunningham's Story of Nell Gwyn, ed: 1892, pp. 38,39.]
which is Florimell, that I never can hope ever to see the like done again, by man or woman. The King and Duke of York were at the play. But so great performance of a comical part was never, I believe, in the world before as Nell do this, both as a mad girle, then most and best of all when she comes in like a young gallant; and hath the