great pleasure till late at night, and then home to supper and to bed.

20th (Lord's day). Up betimes and down to the Old Swan, there called on
Michell and his wife, which in her night linen appeared as pretty almost
as ever to my thinking I saw woman. Here I drank some burnt brandy. They
shewed me their house, which, poor people, they have built, and is very
pretty. I invited them to dine with me, and so away to White Hall to Sir
W. Coventry, with whom I have not been alone a good while, and very kind
he is, and tells me how the business is now ordered by order of council
for my Lord Bruncker to assist Sir J. Minnes in all matters of accounts
relating to the Treasurer, and Sir W. Pen in all matters relating to the
victuallers' and pursers' accounts, which I am very glad of, and the more
for that I think it will not do me any hurt at all. Other discourse, much
especially about the heat the House was in yesterday about the ill
management of the Navy, which I was sorry to hear; though I think they
were well answered, both by Sir G. Carteret and [Sir] W. Coventry, as he
informs me the substance of their speeches. Having done with him, home
mightily satisfied with my being with him, and coming home I to church,
and there, beyond expectation, find our seat, and all the church crammed,
by twice as many people as used to be: and to my great joy find Mr.
Frampton in the pulpit; so to my great joy I hear him preach, and I think
the best sermon, for goodness and oratory, without affectation or study,
that ever I heard in my life. The truth is, he preaches the most like an
apostle that ever I heard man; and it was much the best time that ever I
spent in my life at church. His text, Ecclesiastes xi., verse 8th--the
words, "But if a man live many years, and rejoice in them all, yet let him
remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many. All that cometh is
vanity." He done, I home, and there Michell and his wife, and we dined
and mighty merry, I mightily taken more and more with her. After dinner I
with my brother away by water to White Hall, and there walked in the