Diary, Jan/Feb 1665/66 | Page 4

meal of them. D.W.]

THE DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS M.A. F.R.S.
CLERK OF THE ACTS AND SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY
TRANSCRIBED FROM THE SHORTHAND MANUSCRIPT IN
THE PEPYSIAN LIBRARY MAGDALENE COLLEGE
CAMBRIDGE BY THE REV. MYNORS BRIGHT M.A. LATE

FELLOW AND PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE
(Unabridged)
WITH LORD BRAYBROOKE'S NOTES
EDITED WITH ADDITIONS BY
HENRY B. WHEATLEY F.S.A.

DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS. JANUARY & FEBRUARY 1665-1666

January 1st (New-Yeare's Day). Called up by five o'clock, by my order,
by Mr. Tooker, who wrote, while I dictated to him, my business of the
Pursers; and so, without eating or drinking, till three in the afternoon,
and then, to my great content, finished it. So to dinner, Gibson and he
and I, and then to copying it over, Mr. Gibson reading and I writing,
and went a good way in it till interrupted by Sir W. Warren's coming,
of whom I always learne something or other, his discourse being very
good and his brains also. He being gone we to our business again, and
wrote more of it fair, and then late to bed.
[This document is in the British Museum (Harleian MS. 6287), and is
entitled, "A Letter from Mr. Pepys, dated at Greenwich, 1 Jan. 1665-6,
which he calls his New Year's Gift to his hon. friend, Sir Wm.
Coventry, wherein he lays down a method for securing his Majesty in
husbandly execution of the Victualling Part of the Naval Expence." It
consists of nineteen closely written folio pages, and is a remarkable
specimen of Pepys's business habits.--B. There are copies of several
letters on the victualling of the navy, written by Pepys in 1666, among
the Rawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian.]

2nd. Up by candlelight again, and wrote the greatest part of my
business fair, and then to the office, and so home to dinner, and after
dinner up and made an end of my fair writing it, and that being done,
set two entering while to my Lord Bruncker's, and there find Sir J.
Minnes and all his company, and Mr. Boreman and Mrs. Turner, but,
above all, my dear Mrs. Knipp, with whom I sang, and in perfect
pleasure I was to hear her sing, and especially her little Scotch song of
"Barbary Allen;"
[The Scottish ballad is entitled, "Sir John Grehme and Barbara Allan,"

and the English version, "Barbara Allen's Cruelty." Both are printed in
Percy's "Reliques," Series III.]
and to make our mirthe the completer, Sir J. Minnes was in the highest
pitch of mirthe, and his mimicall tricks, that ever I saw, and most
excellent pleasant company he is, and the best mimique that ever I saw,
and certainly would have made an excellent actor, and now would be
an excellent teacher of actors. Thence, it being post night, against my
will took leave, but before I come to my office, longing for more of her
company, I returned and met them coming home in coaches, so I got
into the coach where Mrs. Knipp was and got her upon my knee (the
coach being full) and played with her breasts and sung, and at last set
her at her house and so good night. So home to my lodgings and there
endeavoured to have finished the examining my papers of Pursers'
business to have sent away to-night, but I was so sleepy with my late
early risings and late goings to bed that I could not do it, but was forced
to go to bed and leave it to send away to-morrow by an Expresse.

3rd. Up, and all the morning till three in the afternoon examining and
fitting up my Pursers' paper and sent it away by an Expresse. Then
comes my wife, and I set her to get supper ready against I go to the
Duke of Albemarle and back again; and at the Duke's with great joy I
received the good news of the decrease of the plague this week to 70,
and but 253 in all; which is the least Bill hath been known these twenty
years in the City. Through the want of people in London is it, that must
make it so low below the ordinary number for Bills. So home, and find
all my good company I had bespoke, as Coleman and his wife, and
Laneare, Knipp and her surly husband; and good musique we had, and,
among other things, Mrs. Coleman sang my words I set of "Beauty
retire," and I think it is a good song, and they praise it mightily. Then to
dancing and supper, and mighty merry till Mr. Rolt come in, whose
pain of the tooth-ake made him no company, and spoilt ours; so he
away, and then my wife's teeth fell of akeing, and she to bed.