younger brother of W. Howe's sings, even to my astonishment, and mighty
pleasant. By and by Gayet goes away, being a Catholick, to her devotions,
and Mercer to church; but we continuing an hour or two singing, and so
parted; and I to Sir W. Pen's, and there sent for a hackney-coach; and he
and she [Lady Pen] and I out, to take the gyre. We went to Stepney, and
there stopped at the Trinity House, he to talk with the servants there
against to-morrow, which is a great day for the choice of a new Master,
and thence to Mile End, and there eat and drank, and so home; and I supped
with them--that is, eat some butter and radishes, which is my excuse for
not eating any other of their victuals, which I hate, because of their
sluttery: and so home, and made my boy read to me part of Dr. Wilkins's
new book of the "Real Character;" and so to bed.

18th. Up, and to my office, where most of the morning doing business and
seeing my window-frames new painted, and then I out by coach to my Lord
Bellasses, at his new house by my late Lord Treasurer's, and there met him
and Mr. Sherwin, Auditor Beale, and Creed, about my Lord's accounts, and
here my Lord shewed me his new house, which, indeed, is mighty noble, and
good pictures--indeed, not one bad one in it. Thence to my tailor's, and
there did find Mercer come with Mrs. Horsfield and Gayet according to my
desire, and there I took them up, it being almost twelve o'clock, or a
little more, and carried them to the King's playhouse, where the doors
were not then open; but presently they did open; and we in, and find many
people already come in, by private ways, into the pit, it being the first
day of Sir Charles Sidly's new play, so long expected, "The Mullberry
Guarden," of whom, being so reputed a wit, all the world do expect great
matters. I having sat here awhile, and eat nothing to-day, did slip out,
getting a boy to keep my place; and to the Rose Tavern, and there got half
a breast of mutton, off of the spit, and dined all alone. And so to the
play again, where the King and Queen, by and by, come, and all the Court;