Diary, Feb/Mar 1668/69 | Page 5

she did, and do on all such
occasions, mind my eyes. I did, with much difficulty, pacify her, and
were friends, she desiring that hereafter, at that house, we might always
sit either above in a box, or, if there be [no] room, close up to the lower
boxes.

3rd. So up, and to the Office till noon, and then home to a little dinner,
and thither again till night, mighty busy, to my great content, doing a
great deal of business, and so home to supper, and to bed; I finding this
day that I may be able to do a great deal of business by dictating, if I do
not read myself, or write, without spoiling my eyes, I being very well in
my eyes after a great day's work.

4th. Up, and at the office all the morning. At noon home with my
people 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, and so home to dinner, and very
busy all the afternoon, and so at night home to supper, and to bed.

6th. Up, and to the office, where all the morning, and thence after
dinner to the King's playhouse, and there,--in an upper box, where
come in Colonel Poynton and Doll Stacey, who is very fine, and, by her
wedding-ring, I suppose he hath married her at last,--did see "The Moor
of Venice:" but ill acted in most parts; Mohun, which did a little
surprise me, not acting Iago's part by much so well as Clun used to do;
nor another Hart's, which was Cassio's; nor, indeed, Burt doing the
Moor's so well as I once thought he did. Thence home, and just at

Holborn Conduit the bolt broke, that holds the fore-wheels to the perch,
and so the horses went away with them, and left the coachman and us;
but being near our coachmaker's, and we staying in a little ironmonger's
shop, we were presently supplied with another, and so home, and there
to my letters at the office, and so to supper and to bed.

7th (Lord's day). My wife mighty peevish in the morning about my
lying unquietly a-nights, and she will have it that it is a late practice,
from my evil thoughts in my dreams, . . . .and mightily she is troubled
about it; but all blew over, and I up, and to church, and so home to
dinner, where she in a worse fit, which lasted all the afternoon, and shut