for my Lord Middleton is such that I dare not. So to the Treasury
chamber, and then walked home round by the Excise Office, having by
private vows last night in prayer to God Almighty cleared my mind for the
present of the thoughts of going to Deb. at Greenwich, which I did long
after. I passed by Guildhall, which is almost finished, and saw a poor
labourer carried by, I think, dead with a fall, as many there are, I hear.
So home to dinner, and then to the office a little, and so to see my Lord
Brouncker, who is a little ill of the gout; and there Madam Williams told
me that she heard that my wife was going into France this year, which I
did not deny, if I can get time, and I pray God I may. But I wondering
how she come to know it, she tells me a woman that my wife spoke to for a
maid, did tell her so, and that a lady that desires to go thither would be
glad to go in her company. Thence with my wife abroad, with our coach,
most pleasant weather; and to Hackney, and into the marshes, where I never
was before, and thence round about to Old Ford and Bow; and coming through
the latter home, there being some young gentlewomen at a door, and I
seeming not to know who they were, my wife's jealousy told me presently
that I knew well enough it was that damned place where Deb. dwelt, which
made me swear very angrily that it was false, as it was, and I carried
[her] back again to see the place, and it proved not so, so I continued
out of humour a good while at it, she being willing to be friends, so I
was by and by, saying no more of it. So home, and there met with a letter
from Captain Silas Taylor, and, with it, his written copy of a play that
he hath wrote, and intends to have acted.--It is called "The Serenade, or
Disappointment," which I will read, not believing he can make any good of
that kind. He did once offer to show Harris it, but Harris told him that
he would judge by one Act whether it were good or no, which is indeed a
foolish saying, and we see them out themselves in the choice of a play
after they have read the whole, it being sometimes found not fit to act
above three times; nay, and some that have been refused at one house is