olliard came and sat with us, and gave us
both directions to observe.

24th. At the office all morning, at noon Luellin dined with me, and then
abroad to Fleet Street, leaving my wife at Tom's while I went out
and did a little business. So home again, and went to see Sir Robert
[Slingsby], who continues ill, and this day has not spoke at all, which
makes them all afeard of him. So home.

25th. To Whitehall, and so to dinner at the Wardrobe, where my wife met
me, and there we met with a venison pasty, and my Lady very merry and
very handsome, methought. After dinner my wife and I to the Opera, and
there saw again "Love and Honour," a play so good that it has been acted
but three times and I have seen them all, and all in this week; which is
too much, and more than I will do again a good while. Coming out of the
house we met Mrs. Pierce and her comrade Mrs. Clifford, and I seeming
willing to stay with them to talk my wife grew angry, and whether she be
jealous or no I know, not, but she loves not that I should speak of
Mrs. Pierce. Home on foot very discontented, in my way I calling at the
Instrument maker, Hunt's, and there saw my lute, which is now almost
done, it being to have a new neck to it and to be made to double
strings. So home and to bed. This day I did give my man Will a sound
lesson about his forbearing to give us the respect due to a master and
mistress.

26th. This morning Sir W. Pen and I should have gone out of town with
my Lady Batten, to have met Sir William coming back from Portsmouth; at
Kingston, but could not, by reason that my Lord of Peterborough (who is
to go Governor of Tangier) came this morning, with Sir G. Carteret, to
advise with us about completing of the affairs and preparacions for that
place. So at the office all the morning, and in the afternoon Sir W.
Pen, my wife and I to the Theatre, and there saw "The Country Captain,"
the first time it hath been acted this twenty-five years, a play of my
Lord Newcastle's, but so silly a play as in all my life I never saw, and
the first that ever I was weary of in my life. So home again, and in the
evening news was brought that Sir R. Slingsby, our Comptroller (who
hath this day been sick a week), is dead; which put me into so great a
trouble of mind, that all the night I could not sleep, he being a man
that loved me, and had many qualitys that made me to love him above all
the officers and commissioners in the Navy. Coming home we called at Dan