whom my wife carried with her, they made me room; and there I sat, it
costing me 8s. upon them in oranges, at 6d. a-piece. By and by the King
come; and we sat just under him, so that I durst not turn my back all the
play. The play is a translation out of French, and the plot Spanish, but
not anything extraordinary at all in it, though translated by Sir W.
Davenant, and so I found the King and his company did think meanly of it,
though there was here and there something pretty: but the most of the
mirth was sorry, poor stuffe, of eating of sack posset and slabbering
themselves, and mirth fit for clownes; the prologue but poor, and the
epilogue little in it but the extraordinariness of it, it being sung by
Harris and another in the form of a ballet. Thence, by agreement, we all
of us to the Blue Balls, hard by, whither Mr. Pierce also goes with us,
who met us at the play, and anon comes Manuel, and his wife, and Knepp,
and Harris, who brings with him Mr. Banister, the great master of musique;
and after much difficulty in getting of musique, we to dancing, and then
to a supper of some French dishes, which yet did not please me, and then
to dance and sing; and mighty merry we were till about eleven or twelve at
night, with mighty great content in all my company, and I did, as I love
to do, enjoy myself in my pleasure as being the height of what we take
pains for and can hope for in this world, and therefore to be enjoyed
while we are young and capable of these joys. My wife extraordinary fine
to-day, in her flower tabby suit, bought a year and more ago, before my
mother's death put her into mourning, and so not worn till this day: and
every body in love with it; and indeed she is very fine and handsome in
it. I having paid the reckoning, which come to almost L4., we parted: my
company and William Batelier, who was also with us, home in a coach, round
by the Wall, where we met so many stops by the Watches, that it cost us
much time and some trouble, and more money, to every Watch, to them to
drink; this being encreased by the trouble the 'prentices did lately give
the City, so that the Militia and Watches are very strict at this time;