Diary, Aug/Sep 1660 | Page 5

with his lady, a comely, proper woman,
though not handsome; but a woman of the best language I ever heard.
Here dined Mrs. Pierce and her husband. After dinner I took leave to go
to Westminster, where I was at the Privy Seal Office all day, signing
things and taking money, so that I could not do as I had intended, that
is to return to them and go to the Red Bull Playhouse,
[This well-known theatre was situated in St. John's Street on the site of
Red Bull Yard. Pepys went there on March 23rd, 1661, when he
expressed a very poor opinion of the place. T. Carew, in some

commendatory lines on Sir William. Davenant's play, "The just
Italian," 1630, abuses both audiences and actors:--
"There are the men in crowded heaps that throng To that adulterate
stage, where not a tongue Of th' untun'd kennel can a line repeat Of
serious sense."
There is a token of this house (see "Boyne's Trade Tokens," ed.
Williamson, vol. i., 1889, p. 725).]
but I took coach and went to see whether it was done so or no, and I
found it done. So I returned to Dr. Clerke's, where I found them and my
wife, and by and by took leave and went away home.

4th. To White Hall, where I found my Lord gone with the King by
water to dine at the Tower with Sir J. Robinson,' Lieutenant. I found
my Lady Jemimah--[Lady Jemima Montage, daughter of Lord
Sandwich, previously described as Mrs. Jem.]--at my Lord's, with
whom I staid and dined, all alone; after dinner to the Privy Seal Office,
where I did business. So to a Committee of Parliament (Sir Hen[eage]
Finch, Chairman), to give them an answer to an order of theirs, "that we
could not give them any account of the Accounts of the Navy in the
years 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, as they desire." After that I went and bespoke
some linen of Betty Lane in the Hall, and after that to the Trumpet,
where I sat and talked with her, &c. At night, it being very rainy, and it
thundering and lightning exceedingly, I took coach at the Trumpet door,
taking Monsieur L'Impertinent along with me as far as the Savoy,
where he said he went to lie with Cary Dillon,
[Colonel Cary Dillon, a friend of the Butlers, who courted the fair
Frances; but the engagement was subsequently broken off, see
December 31 st, 1661.]
and is still upon the mind of going (he and his whole family) to Ireland.
Having set him down I made haste home, and in the courtyard, it being
very dark, I heard a man inquire for my house, and having asked his
business, he told me that my man William (who went this morning--out
of town to meet his aunt Blackburne) was come home not very well to
his mother, and so could not come home to-night. At which I was very
sorry. I found my wife still in pain. To bed, having not time to write
letters, and indeed having so many to write to all places that I have no
heart to go about them. Mrs. Shaw did die yesterday and her husband

so sick that he is not like to live.

5th. Lord's day. My wife being much in pain, I went this morning to Dr.
Williams (who had cured her once before of this business), in Holborn,
and he did give me an ointment which I sent home by my boy, and a
plaister which I took with me to Westminster (having called and seen
my mother in the morning as I went to the doctor), where I dined with
Mr. Sheply (my Lord dining at Kensington). After dinner to St.
Margaret's, where the first time I ever heard Common Prayer in that
Church. I sat with Mr. Hill in his pew; Mr. Hill that married in Axe
Yard and that was aboard us in the Hope. Church done I went and Mr.
Sheply to see W. Howe at Mr. Pierces, where I staid singing of songs
and psalms an hour or two, and were very pleasant with Mrs. Pierce
and him. Thence to my Lord's, where I staid and talked and drank with
Mr. Sheply. After that to Westminster stairs, where I saw a fray
between Mynheer Clinke, a Dutchman, that was at Hartlibb's wedding,
and a waterman, which made good sport. After that I got a Gravesend
boat, that was come up to fetch some bread on this side the bridge, and
got them to carry me to the bridge, and so home, where I found my
wife. After prayers I to bed to her, she having had a very bad night of it.
This morning before