8th. Up, and to my chamber, and by and by comes Greeting, and to my
flageolett with him with a pretty deal of pleasure, and then to the
office, where [Sir] W. Batten, [Sir] W. Pen and I met about putting men to
work for the weighing of the ships in the River sunk. Then home again,
and there heard Mr. Caesar play some very good things on the lute together
with myself on the violl and Greeting on the viallin. Then with my wife
abroad by coach, she to her tailor's, I to Westminster to Burges about my
Tangier business, and thence to White Hall, where I spoke with Sir John
Nicholas, who tells me that Mr. Coventry is come from Bredah, as was
expected; but, contrary to expectation, brings with him two or three
articles which do not please the King: as, to retrench the Act of
Navigation, and then to ascertain what are contraband goods; and then that
those exiled persons, who are or shall take refuge in their country, may
be secure from any further prosecution. Whether these will be enough to
break the peace upon, or no, he cannot tell; but I perceive the certainty
of peace is blown over. So called on my wife and met Creed by the way,
and they two and I to Charing Cross, there to see the great boy and girle
that are lately come out of Ireland, the latter eight, the former but four
years old, of most prodigious bigness for their age. I tried to weigh them
in my arms, and find them twice as heavy as people almost twice their age;
and yet I am apt to believe they are very young. Their father a little
sorry fellow, and their mother an old Irish woman. They have had four
children of this bigness, and four of ordinary growth, whereof two of each
are dead. If, as my Lord Ormond certifies, it be true that they are no
older, it is very monstrous. So home and to dinner with my wife and to
pipe, and then I to the office, where busy all the afternoon till the
evening, and then with my wife by coach abroad to Bow and Stratford, it
being so dusty weather that there was little pleasure in it, and so home
and to walk in the garden, and thither comes Pelling to us to talk, and so