the morning: and so at noon with Sir Thomas Allen, and Sir Edward Scott,
and Lord Carlingford, to the Spanish Embassador's, where I dined the first
time. The Olio not so good as Sheres's. There was at the table himself
and a Spanish Countess, a good, comely, and witty lady-three Fathers and
us. Discourse good and pleasant. And here was an Oxford scholar in a
Doctor of Law's gowne, sent from the College where the Embassador lay,
when the Court was there, to salute him before his return to Spain: This
man, though a gentle sort of scholar, yet sat like a fool for want of
French or Spanish, but [knew] only Latin, which he spoke like an
Englishman to one of the Fathers. And by and by he and I to talk, and the
company very merry at my defending Cambridge against Oxford: and I made
much use of my French and Spanish here, to my great content. But the
dinner not extraordinary at all, either for quantity or quality. Thence
home, where my wife ill of those upon the maid's bed, and troubled at my
being abroad. So I to the office, and there till night, and then to her,
and she read to me the Epistle of Cassandra, which is very good indeed;
and the better to her, because recommended by Sheres. So to supper, and
to bed.

6th. Up, and by coach to Sir W. Coventry's, but he gone out. I by water
back to the Office, and there all the morning; then to dinner, and then to
the Office again, and anon with my wife by coach to take the ayre, it
being a noble day, as far as the Greene Man, mightily pleased with our
journey, and our condition of doing it in our own coach, and so home, and
to walk in the garden, and so to supper and to bed, my eyes being bad with
writing my journal, part of it, to-night.

7th. Up, and by coach to W. Coventry's; and there to talk with him a
great deal with great content; and so to the Duke of York, having a great
mind to speak to him about Tangier; but, when I come to it, his interest