Thence I went out and paid Waters, the vintner, and went to see Mrs. Jem, where I found my Lady Wright, but Scott was so drunk that he could not be seen.  Here I staid and made up Mrs. Ann’s bills, and played a game or two at cards, and thence to Westminster Hall, it being very dark.  I paid Mrs. Michell, my bookseller, and back to Whitehall, and in the garden, going through to the Stone Gallery—­[The Stone Gallery was a long passage between the Privy Garden and the river.  It led from the Bowling Green to the Court of the Palace]—­I fell into a ditch, it being very dark.  At the Clerk’s chamber I met with Simons and Luellin, and went with them to Mr. Mount’s chamber at the Cock Pit, where we had some rare pot venison, and ale to abundance till almost twelve at night, and after a song round we went home.  This day the Parliament sat late, and resolved of the declaration to be printed for the people’s satisfaction, promising them a great many good things.

24th.  In the morning to my office, where, after I had drank my morning draft at Will’s with Ethell and Mr. Stevens, I went and told part of the excise money till twelve o’clock, and then called on my wife and took her to Mr. Pierces, she in the way being exceedingly troubled with a pair of new pattens, and I vexed to go so slow, it being late.  There when we came we found Mrs. Carrick very fine, and one Mr. Lucy, who called one another husband and wife, and after dinner a great deal of mad stir.  There was pulling off Mrs. bride’s and Mr. bridegroom’s ribbons;

[The scramble for ribbons, here mentioned by Pepys in connection with weddings (see also January 26th, 1660-61, and February 8th, 1662-3), doubtless formed part of the ceremony of undressing the bridegroom, which, as the age became more refined, fell into disuse.  All the old plays are silent on the custom; the earliest notice of which occurs in the old ballad of the wedding of Arthur O’Bradley, printed in the Appendix to “Robin Hood,” 1795, where we read—­

                   “Then got they his points and his garters,
                    And cut them in pieces like martyrs;
                    And then they all did play
                    For the honour of Arthur O’Bradley.”

Sir Winston Churchill also observes ("Divi Britannici,” p. 340) that James I. was no more troubled at his querulous countrymen robbing him than a bridegroom at the losing of his points and garters.  Lady Fanshawe, in her “Memoirs,” says, that at the nuptials of Charles ii. and the Infanta, “the Bishop of London declared them married in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and then they caused the ribbons her Majesty wore to be cut in little pieces; and as far as they would go, every one had some.”  The practice still survives in the form of wedding favours.

A similar custom is still of every day’s occurrence at Dieppe.  Upon the