26th. Up, having lain long, and then by coach with W. Hewer to the Excise
Office, and so to Lilly's, the Varnishes; who is lately dead, and his wife
and brother keep up the trade, and there I left my French prints to be put
on boards:, and, while I was there, a fire burst out in a chimney of a
house over against his house, but it was with a gun quickly put out. So
to White Hall, and did a little business there at the Treasury chamber,
and so homeward, calling at the laceman's for some lace for my new suit,
and at my tailor's, and so home, where to dinner, and Mr. Sheres dined,
with us, who come hither to-day to teach my wife the rules of perspective;
but I think, upon trial, he thinks it too hard to teach her, being
ignorant of the principles of lines. After dinner comes one Colonel
Macnachan, one that I see often at Court, a Scotchman, but know him not;
only he brings me a letter from my Lord Middleton, who, he says, is in
great distress for L500 to relieve my Lord Morton with, but upon, what
account I know not; and he would have me advance it without order upon his
pay for Tangier, which I was astonished at, but had the grace to deny him
with an excuse. And so he went away, leaving me a little troubled that I
was thus driven, on a sudden, to do any thing herein; but Creed, coming
just now to see me, he approves of what I have done. And then to talk of
general matters, and, by and by, Sheres being gone, my wife, and he, and I
out, and I set him down at Temple Bar, and myself and wife went down the
Temple upon seeming business, only to put him off, and just at the Temple
gate I spied Deb. with another gentlewoman, and Deb. winked on me and
smiled, but undiscovered, and I was glad to see her. So my wife and I to
the 'Change, about things for her; and here, at Mrs. Burnett's shop, I am
told by Betty, who was all undressed, of a great fire happened in
Durham-Yard last night, burning the house of one Lady Hungerford, who was
to come to town to it this night; and so the house is burned, new
furnished, by carelessness of the girl sent to take off a candle from a
bunch of candles, which she did by burning it off, and left the rest, as