PEP Y S ’ DIARY

Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) was the naval administrator and first secretary of the British Admiralty. Here’s what he wrote on this day in 1668.

Up, and to my office to set down my Journall for some days past, and so to other business.At the office all the morning upon some business of Sir W.Warren’s, and at noon home to dinner, and thence out by coach with my wife and Deb. and Mr. Harman, the upholster, and carried them to take measure of Mr.Wren’s bed at St.James’s, I being resolved to have just such another made me, and thence set him down in the Strand, and my wife and I to the Duke of York’s playhouse; and there saw, the first time acted,“The Queene of Arragon,” an old Blackfriars play, but an admirable one, so good that I am astonished at it, and wonder where it hath lain asleep all this while, that I have never heard of it before. Here met W. Batelier and Mrs. Hunt, Deb.‘s aunt; and saw her home—a very witty woman, and one that knows this play, and understands a play mighty well. Left her at home in Jewen Street, and we home, and to supper, and my wife to read to me, and so to bed.