19th (Lord’s day).  Lay very long in pleasant dreams till Church time, and so up, and it being foul weather so that I cannot walk as I intended to meet my Cozen Roger at Thomas Pepys’s house (whither he rode last night), to Hatcham, I went to church, where a sober Doctor made a good sermon.  So home to dinner alone, and then to read a little, and so to church again, where the Scot made an ordinary sermon, and so home to my office, and there read over my vows and increased them by a vow against all strong drink till November next of any sort or quantity, by which I shall try how I can forbear it.  God send it may not prejudice my health, and then I care not.  Then I fell to read over a silly play writ by a person of honour (which is, I find, as much as to say a coxcomb), called “Love a la Mode,"’ and that being ended, home, and played on my lute and sung psalms till bedtime, then to prayers and to bed.

20th.  Up and to my office, and then walked to Woolwich, reading Bacon’s “Faber fortunae,”

[Pepys may here refer either to Essay XLI. (of Fortune) or to a chapter’ in the “Advancement of Learning.”  The sentence, “Faber quisque fortunae propria,” said to be by Appius Claudian, is quoted more than once in the “De Augmentis Scientiarum,” lib. viii., cap. 2.]

which the oftener I read the more I admire.  There found Captain Cocke, and up and down to many places to look after matters, and so walked back again with him to his house, and there dined very finely.  With much ado obtained an excuse from drinking of wine, and did only taste a drop of Sack which he had for his lady, who is, he fears, a little consumptive, and her beauty begins to want its colour.  It was Malago Sack, which, he says, is certainly 30 years old, and I tasted a drop of it, and it was excellent wine, like a spirit rather than wine.  Thence by water to the office, and taking some papers by water to White Hall and St. James’s, but there being no meeting with the Duke to-day, I returned by water and down to Greenwich, to look after some blocks that I saw a load carried off by a cart from Woolwich, the King’s Yard.  But I could not find them, and so returned, and being heartily weary I made haste to bed, and being in bed made Will read and construe three or four Latin verses in the Bible, and chide him for forgetting his grammar.  So to sleep, and sleep ill all the night, being so weary, and feverish with it.

21st.  And so lay long in the morning, till I heard people knock at my door, and I took it to be about 8 o’clock (but afterwards found myself a little mistaken), and so I rose and ranted at Will and the maid, and swore I could find my heart to kick them down stairs, which the maid mumbled at mightily.  It was my brother, who staid and talked with me, his chief business being about his going about to build his house new at the top, which will be a great charge for him, and above his judgment.  By and by comes