(Lord's day). Up, and to church, where Alderman Backewell's wife, by my invitation with my head, come up with her mother, and sat with us, and after sermon I did walk with them home, and there left them, and home to dinner, and after dinner with Sir J. Minnes and T. Middleton to White Hall, by appointment; and at my Lord Arlington's the Office did attend the King and Cabal, to discourse the further quantity of victuals fit to be declared for, which was 2,000 men for six months; and so without more ado or stay, there, hearing no news but that Sir Thomas Allen is to be expected every hour at home with his fleete, or news of his being gone back to Algier, and so home, where got my wife to read to me; and so after supper to bed. The Queen-Mother hath been of late mighty ill, and some fears of her death.

to church with my head
with wit
with a white cabal fit
to be red

with no news but news
of the mother of death

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 4 April 1669.