again, though I do not see it possible. Hence home and wrote to my father
at Brampton by the post. So to bed. This day I was told that my Lord
General Fleetwood told my lord that he feared the King of Sweden is dead
of a fever at Gottenburg.

4th. Lord's day. Before I went to church I sang Orpheus' Hymn to my
viall. After that to Mr. Gunning's, an excellent sermon upon charity.
Then to my mother to dinner, where my wife and the maid were come. After
dinner we three to Mr. Messum's where we met Mons. L'Impertinent, who got
us a seat and told me a ridiculous story how that last week he had caused
a simple citizen to spend; L80 in entertainments of him and some friends
of his upon pretence of some service that he would do him in his suit
after a widow. Then to my mother again, and after supper she and I talked
very high about religion, I in defence of the religion I was born in.
Then home.

5th. Early in the morning Mr. Hill comes to string my theorbo,

[The theorbo was a bass lute. Having gut strings it was played with
the fingers. There is a humorous comparison of the long waists of
ladies, which came into fashion about 1621, with the theorbo, by
Bishop Corbet:

"She was barr'd up in whale-bones, that did leese
None of the whale's length, for they reached her knees;
Off with her head, and then she hath a middle
As her waste stands, just like the new found fiddle,
The favourite Theorbo, truth to tell ye,
Whose neck and throat are deeper than the belly."