Wardrobe place he be otherwise provided. That done I by water to the
Strand, and there viewed the Queen-Mother's works at Somersett House, and
thence to the new playhouse, but could not get in to see it. So to visit
my Lady Jemimah, who is grown much since I saw her; but lacks mightily to
be brought into the fashion of the court to set her off: Thence to the
Temple, and there sat till one o'clock reading at Playford's in Dr.
Usher's 'Body of Divinity' his discourse of the Scripture, which is as
much, I believe, as is anywhere said by any man, but yet there is room to
cavill, if a man would use no faith to the tradition of the Church in
which he is born, which I think to be as good an argument as most is
brought for many things, and it may be for that among others. Thence to
my brother's, and there took up my wife and Ashwell to the Theatre Royall,
being the second day of its being opened. The house is made with
extraordinary good contrivance, and yet hath some faults, as the
narrowness of the passages in and out of the Pitt, and the distance from
the stage to the boxes, which I am confident cannot hear; but for all
other things it is well, only, above all, the musique being below, and
most of it sounding under the very stage, there is no hearing of the bases
at all, nor very well of the trebles, which sure must be mended. The play
was "The Humerous Lieutenant," a play that hath little good in it, nor
much in the very part which, by the King's command, Lacy now acts instead
of Clun. In the dance, the tall devil's actions was very pretty. The
play being done, we home by water, having been a little shamed that my
wife and woman were in such a pickle, all the ladies being finer and
better dressed in the pitt than they used, I think, to be. To my office
to set down this day's passage, and, though my oath against going to plays
do not oblige me against this house, because it was not then in being, yet
believing that at the time my meaning was against all publique houses, I
am resolved to deny myself the liberty of two plays at Court, which are in
arreare to me for the months of March and April, which will more than