18th. Up betimes, and to the office to write fair my paper for D. Gawden
against anon, and then to other business, where all the morning. D. Gawden
by and by comes, and I did read over and give him the paper, which I think
I have much obliged him in. A little before noon comes my old good
friend, Mr. Richard Cumberland,--[Richard Cumberland, afterwards Bishop of
Peterborough]--to see me, being newly come to town, whom I have not seen
almost, if not quite, these seven years. In his plain country-parson's
dress. I could not spend much time with him, but prayed him come with his
brother, who was with him, to dine with me to-day; which he did do and I
had a great deal of his good company; and a most excellent person he is as
any I know, and one that I am sorry should be lost and buried in a little
country town, and would be glad to remove him thence; and the truth is, if
he would accept of my sister's fortune, I should give L100 more with him
than to a man able to settle her four times as much as, I fear, he is able
to do; and I will think of it, and a way how to move it, he having in
discourse said he was not against marrying, nor yet engaged. I shewed him
my closet, and did give him some very good musique, Mr. Caesar being here
upon his lute. They gone I to the office, where all the afternoon very
busy, and among other things comes Captain Jenifer to me, a great servant
of my Lord Sandwich's, who tells me that he do hear for certain, though I
do not yet believe it, that Sir W. Coventry is to be Secretary of State,
and my Lord Arlington Lord Treasurer. I only wish that the latter were as
fit for the latter office as the former is for the former, and more fit
than my Lord Arlington. Anon Sir W. Pen come and talked with me in the
garden, and tells me that for certain the Duke of Richmond is to marry
Mrs. Stewart, he having this day brought in an account of his estate and
debts to the King on that account. At night home to supper and so to bed.
My father's letter this day do tell me of his own continued illness, and
that my mother grows so much worse, that he fears she cannot long
continue, which troubles me very much. This day, Mr. Caesar told me a