31st.  Up, and at the Office all the morning.  At noon Capt.  Ferrers and Mr. Sheres

[Henry Sheres accompanied Lord Sandwich in his embassy to Spain, and returned to England in September, 1667, bearing letters from the ambassador (see September 8th, 22nd, 27th).  He was an officer in the Ordnance, and served under Lord Dartmouth at the demolition of the Mole at Tangier in 1683.  He was knighted about 1684.  He translated Polybius (2 vols. 8vo., 1693), and also some of the “Dialogues” of Lucian, included in the translation published in 1711 (3 vols. 8vo.).  Pepys bequeathed him a ring, and he died about 1713.]

come to me to dinner, who did, and pretty pleased with their talk of Spayne; but my wife did not come down, I suppose because she would not, Captain Ferrers being there, to oblige me by it.  They gone, after dinner, I to the office, and then in the evening home, being the last day of the year, to endeavour to pay all bills and servants’ wages, &c., which I did almost to L5 that I know that I owe in the world, but to the publique; and so with great pleasure to supper and to bed, and, blessed be God! the year ends, after some late very great sorrow with my wife by my folly, yet ends, I say, with great mutual peace and content, and likely to last so by my care, who am resolved to enjoy the sweet of it, which I now possess, by never giving her like cause of trouble.  My greatest trouble is now from the backwardness of my accounts, which I have not seen the bottom of now near these two years, so that I know not in what condition I am in the world, but by the grace of God, as far as my eyes will give me leave, I will do it.

     ETEXT editor’s bookmarks: 

     Craft and cunning concerning the buying and choosing of horses
     Did see the knaveries and tricks of jockeys
     Hath not a liberty of begging till he hath served three years
     He told me that he had so good spies
     Laissez nous affaire—­Colbert
     Nonconformists do now preach openly in houses
     Offered to shew my wife further satisfaction if she desired
     Seeing that he cared so little if he was out
     Tell me that I speak in my dreams

     ETEXT editor’s bookmarks, diary of Samuel Pepys, 1668 N.S., Complete: 

     A book the Bishops will not let be printed again
     Act against Nonconformists and Papists
     All things to be managed with faction
     And will not kiss a woman since his wife’s death
     And the woman so silly, as to let her go that took it
     And they did lay pigeons to his feet
     As all other women, cry, and yet talk of other things
     At work, till I was almost blind, which makes my heart sad
     Beating of a poor little dog to death, letting it lie
     Being very poor and mean as to the bearing with trouble
     Being the people that,