and escaped hardly being set on fire
yesterday. At chappell we had a most excellent and eloquent sermon. And
here I spoke and saluted Mrs. Pierce, but being in haste could not learn
of her where her lodgings are, which vexes me. Thence took Ned Pickering
to dinner with us, and the two Marshes, father and Son, dined with us,
and very merry. After dinner Sir W. Batten and I, the Doctor, and Ned
Pickering by coach to the Yard, and there on board the Swallow in the
dock hear our navy chaplain preach a sad sermon, full of nonsense and
false Latin; but prayed for the Right Honourable the principal officers.

[Principal officers of the navy, of which body Pepys was one as
Clerk of the Acts.]

After sermon took him to Mr. Tippets's to drink a glass of wine, and so
at 4 back again by coach to Portsmouth, and then visited the Mayor, Mr.
Timbrell, our anchor-smith, who showed us the present they have for the
Queen; which is a salt-sellar of silver, the walls christall, with four
eagles and four greyhounds standing up at the top to bear up a dish;
which indeed is one of the neatest pieces of plate that ever I saw, and
the case is very pretty also.

[A salt-cellar answering this description is preserved at the
Tower.]

This evening came a merchantman in the harbour, which we hired at London
to carry horses to Portugall; but, Lord! what running there was to the
seaside to hear what news, thinking it had come from the Queen. In the
evening Sir George, Sir W. Pen and I walked round the walls, and thence
we two with the Doctor to the yard, and so to supper and to bed.

28th. The Doctor and I begun philosophy discourse exceeding pleasant.
He offers to bring me into the college of virtuosoes--[The Royal
Society.]--and my Lord Brouncker's acquaintance, and to show me some
anatomy, which makes me very glad; and I shall endeavour it when I come
to London. Sir W. Pen much troubled upon letters came last night. Showed
me one of Dr. Owen's

[John Owen, D.D., a learned Nonconformist divine, and a voluminous
theological writer, born 1616, made Dean of Christ Church in 1653 by
the Parliament, and ejected in 1659-60. He died at Ealing in 1683.]

to his son,--[William Penn, the celebrated Quaker.]--whereby it appears
his son is much perverted in his opinion by him; which I now perceive is
one thing that hath put Sir William so long off the hooks. By coach
to the Pay-house, and so to work again, and then to