26th. At the office all the morning, so dined at home, and then abroad
with my wife by coach to the Theatre to shew her "King and no King," it
being very well done. And so by coach, though hard to get it, being
rainy, home. So to my chamber to write letters and the journal for these
six last days past.

27th. By coach to Whitehall with my wife (where she went to see Mrs.
Pierce, who was this day churched, her month of childbed being out). I
went to Mrs. Montagu and other businesses, and at noon met my wife at the
Wardrobe; and there dined, where we found Captain Country (my little
Captain that I loved, who carried me to the Sound), come with some grapes
and millons

[The antiquity of the cultivation of the melon is very remote. Both
the melon (cucaimis melo) and the water-melon (cucumis citrullus)
were introduced into England at the end of the sixteenth century.
See vol. i., p. 228.]

from my Lord at Lisbon, the first that ever I saw any, and my wife and I
eat some, and took some home; but the grapes are rare things. Here we
staid; and in the afternoon comes Mr. Edwd. Montagu (by appointment this
morning) to talk with my Lady and me about the provisions fit to be
bought, and sent to my Lord along with him. And told us, that we need not
trouble ourselves how to buy them, for the King would pay for all, and
that he would take care to get them: which put my Lady and me into a great
deal of ease of mind. Here we staid and supped too, and, after my wife
had put up some of the grapes in a basket for to be sent to the King, we
took coach and home, where we found a hampire of millons sent to me also.

28th. At the office in the morning, dined at home, and then Sir W. Pen