Having writ my letter, I home to supper and to bed, the world being mightily troubled at the ill news from Barbadoes, and the consequence of the Scotch business, as little as we do make of it. And to shew how mad we are at home, here, and unfit for any troubles: my Lord St. John did, a day or two since, openly pull a gentleman in Westminster Hall by the nose, one Sir Andrew Henly, while the judges were upon their benches, and the other gentleman did give him a rap over the pate with his cane, of which fray the judges, they say, will make a great matter: men are only sorry the gentle man did proceed to return a blow; for, otherwise, my Lord would have been soundly fined for the affront, and may be yet for his affront to the judges.
30th. Up, and with Sir W. Batten to White Hall, and there we did attend the Duke of York, and had much business with him; and pretty to see, it being St. Andrew's day, how some few did wear St. Andrew's crosse; but most did make a mockery at it, and the House of Parliament, contrary to practice, did sit also: people having no mind to observe the Scotch saints' days till they hear better newes from Scotland. Thence to Westminster Hall and the Abbey, thinking as I had appointed to have met Mrs. Burroughs there, but not meeting her I home, and just overtook my cozen Roger Pepys, Mrs. Turner, Dicke, and Joyce Norton, coming by invitation to dine with me. These ladies I have not seen since before the plague. Mrs. Turner is come to towne to look after her things in her house, but all is lost. She is quite weary of the country, but cannot get her husband to let her live here any more, which troubles her mightily. She was mighty angry with me, that in all this time I never writ to her, which I do think and take to myself as a fault, and which I have promised to mend. Here I had a noble and costly dinner for them, dressed by a man-cooke, as that the other day was, and pretty merry we were, as I could be with this company and so great a charge. We sat long, and after much talk of the plenty of her country in fish, but in nothing also that is pleasing, we broke up with great kindness, and when it begun to be dark we parted, they in one coach home, and I in another to Westminster Hall, where by appointment Mrs. Burroughs and I were to meet, but did not after I had spent the whole evening there. Only I did go drink at the Swan, and there did meet with Sarah, who is now newly married, and there I did lay the beginnings of a future 'amour con elle'. . . . . Thence it being late away called at Mrs. Burroughs' mother's door, and she come out to me, and I did hazer whatever I would . . . . and then parted, and home, and after some playing at cards with my wife, we to supper and to bed.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Amending of bad blood by borrowing from a better body
And for his beef, says he, "Look how fat it is"
First their apes, that they may be afterwards their slaves
For a land-tax and against a general excise
I had six noble dishes for them, dressed by a man-cook
In opposition to France, had made us throw off their fashion
Magnifying the graces of the nobility and prelates
Origin in the use of a plane against the grain of the wood
Play on the harpsicon, till she tired everybody
Reading to my wife and brother something in Chaucer
Said that there hath been a design to poison the King
Tax the same man in three or four several capacities
There I did lay the beginnings of a future 'amour con elle'
Too much ill newes true, to afflict ourselves with uncertain
What I had writ foule in short hand