Volume 1

The diary of Samuel Pepys / completely transcribed by Mynors Bright, from the shorthand manuscript in the Pepysian Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge, with Lord Braybrooke's notes ; edited, with additions, by Henry B. Wheatley.

  • Samuel Pepys
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The diary of Samuel Pepys / completely transcribed by Mynors Bright, from the shorthand manuscript in the Pepysian Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge, with Lord Braybrooke's notes ; edited, with additions, by Henry B. Wheatley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    chose Valentines1 against to-morrow. My wife chose me, which did much please me ; my Lady Batten Sir W. Pen, &c. Here we sat late, and so home to bed, having got my Lady Batten to give me a spoonful of honey for my cold. 14th (Valentine’s day). Up early and to Sir W. Batten’s, but would not go in till I asked whether they that opened the door was a man or a woman, and Mingo, who was there, answered a woman, which, with his tone, made me laugh ; so up I went and took Mrs. Martha2 for my Valentine (which I do only for complacency), and Sir W. Batten he go in the same manner to my wife, and so we were very merry. About 10 o’clock we, with a great deal of company, went down by our barge to Deptford, and there only went to see how forward Mr. Pett’s yacht is ; and so all into the barge again, and so to Woolwich, on board the Rose-bush, Captain Brown’s3 ship, that is brother-in-law to Sir W. Batten, where we had a very fine dinner, dressed on shore, and great mirth and all things successfull; the first time I ever carried my wife a-ship-board, as also my boy Wayneman, who hath all this day been called young Pepys, as Sir W. Pen’s boy young Pen. So home by barge again ; good weather, but pretty cold. I to my study, and began to make up my accounts for my Lord, which I intend to end to-morrow. To bed. The talk of the town now is, who the King is like to have for his Queen : and whether Lent shall be kept with the strictness of the King’s proclama- tion ;4 which it is thought cannot be, because of the poor, 1 The observation of St. Valentine’s day is very ancient in this country. Shakespeare makes Ophelia sing— “ To-morrow is Saint Valentine’s day, All in the morning betime, And I a maid at your window To be your Valentine.” Hamlet, act iv. sc. 5.—M. B. * Mrs. Martha Batten, Sir W. Batten’s daughter. s Captain Arthur Browne. See p. 327 (note). 4 « a Proclamation for restraint of killing, dressing, and eating of Flesh in Lent or on fish-dayes appointed by the law to be observed,” was dated 29th January, i66o[-6i].