him, and very merry we were for an hour or two, and I am most pleased with
his company and goodness. At last parted, and my wife and I by coach to
the Opera, and there saw the 2nd part of "The Siege of Rhodes," but it is
not so well done as when Roxalana was there, who, it is said, is now owned
by my Lord of Oxford.

[For note on Mrs. Davenport, who was deceived by a pretended
marriage with the Earl of Oxford, see ante. Lord Oxford's first
wife died in 1659. He married, in 1672, his second wife, Diana
Kirke, of whom nothing more need be said than that she bore an
inappropriate Christian name.]

Thence to Tower-wharf, and there took boat, and we all walked to Halfeway
House, and there eat and drank, and were pleasant, and so finally home
again in the evening, end so good night, this being a very pleasant life
that we now lead, and have long done; the Lord be blessed, and make us
thankful. But, though I am much against too much spending, yet I do think
it best to enjoy some degree of pleasure now that we have health, money,
and opportunity, rather than to leave pleasures to old age or poverty,
when we cannot have them so properly.

21st. My wife and I by water to Westminster, and after she had seen her
father (of whom lately I have heard nothing at all what he does or her
mother), she comes to me to my Lord's lodgings, where she and I staid
walking in White Hall garden. And in the Privy-garden saw the finest
smocks and linnen petticoats of my Lady Castlemaine's, laced with rich
lace at the bottom, that ever I saw; and did me good to look upon them. So
to Wilkinson's, she and I and Sarah to dinner, where I had a good quarter
of lamb and a salat. Here Sarah told me how the King dined at my Lady
Castlemaine's, and supped, every day and night the last week; and that the