24th.  This morning came my cozen Thos.  Pepys the Executor, to speak with me, and I had much talk with him both about matters of money which my Lord Sandwich has of his and I am bond for, as also of my uncle Thomas, who I hear by him do stand upon very high terms.  Thence to my painter’s, and there I saw our pictures in the frames, which please me well.  Thence to the Wardrobe, where very merry with my Lady, and after dinner I seat for the pictures thither, and mine is well liked; but she is much offended with my wife’s, and I am of her opinion, that it do much wrong her; but I will have it altered.  So home, in my way calling at Pope’s Head alley, and there bought me a pair of scissars and a brass square.  So home and to my study and to bed.

25th.  At home and the office all the morning.  Walking in the garden to give the gardener directions what to do this year (for I intend to have the garden handsome), Sir W. Pen came to me, and did break a business to me about removing his son from Oxford to Cambridge to some private college.  I proposed Magdalene, but cannot name a tutor at present; but I shall think and write about it.  Thence with him to the Trinity-house to dinner; where Sir Richard Brown (one of the clerks of the Council, and who is much concerned against Sir N. Crisp’s project of making a great sasse

     [A kind of weir with flood-gate, or a navigable sluice.  This
     project is mentioned by Evelyn, January 16th, 1661-62, and Lysons’
     “Environs” vol. iv., p. 392.—­B.]

in the King’s lands about Deptford, to be a wett-dock to hold 200 sail of ships.  But the ground, it seems, was long since given by the King to Sir Richard) was, and after the Trinity-house men had done their business, the master, Sir William Rider, came to bid us welcome; and so to dinner, where good cheer and discourse, but I eat a little too much beef, which made me sick, and so after dinner we went to the office, and there in a garden I went in the dark and vomited, whereby I did much ease my stomach.  Thence to supper with my wife to Sir W. Pen’s, his daughter being come home to-day, not being very well, and so while we were at supper comes Mr. Moore with letters from my Lord Sandwich, speaking of his lying still at Tangier, looking for the fleet; which, we hope, is now in a good way thither.  So home to write letters by the post to-night, and then again to Sir W. Pen’s to cards, where very merry, and so home and to bed.

26th (Lord’s day).  To church in the morning, and then home to dinner alone with my wife, and so both to church in the afternoon and home again, and so to read and talk with my wife, and to supper and to bed.  It having been a very fine clear frosty day-God send us more of them!—­for the warm weather all this winter makes us fear a sick summer.  But thanks be to God, since my leaving drinking of wine, I do find myself much better and do mind my business better, and do spend less money, and less time lost in idle company.