to dinner, and then after dinner comes Mr. Spong to see me, and brings me
my Parallelogram, in better order than before, and two or three draughts
of the port of Brest, to my great content, and I did call Mr. Gibson to
take notice of it, who is very much pleased therewith; and it seems this
Parallelogram is not, as Mr. Sheres would, the other day, have persuaded
me, the same as a Protractor, which do so much the more make me value it,
but of itself it is a most usefull instrument. Thence out with my wife
and him, and carried him to an instrument-maker's shop in Chancery Lane,
that was once a 'Prentice of Greatorex's, but the master was not within,
and there he [Gibson] shewed me a Parallelogram in brass, which I like so
well that I will buy, and therefore bid it be made clean and fit for me.
And so to my cozen Turner's, and there just spoke with The., the mother
not being at home; and so to the New Exchange, and thence home to my
letters; and so home to supper and to bed. This morning I made a slip
from the Office to White Hall, expecting Povy's business at a Committee of
Tangier, at which I would be, but it did not meet, and so I presently
back.

5th. Up betimes, by coach to Sir W. Coventry's, and with him by coach to
White Hall, and there walked in the garden talking of several things, and
by my visit to keep fresh my interest in him; and there he tells me how it
hath been talked that he was to go one of the Commissioners to Ireland,
which he was resolved never to do, unless directly commanded; for he told
me that for to go thither, while the Chief Secretary of State was his
professed enemy, was to undo himself; and, therefore, it were better for
him to venture being unhappy here, than to go further off, to be undone by
some obscure instructions, or whatever other way of mischief his enemies
should cut out for him. He mighty kind to me, and so parted, and thence
home, calling in two or three places--among others, Dancre's, where I find
him beginning of a piece for me, of Greenwich, which will please me well,