it seems did not know her before,
say, being told who she was, that "she was well enough." Thence home,
and I ended and sent away my letter to Mr. Coventry (having first read
it and had the opinion of Sir W. Warren in the case), and so home to
supper and to bed, my cold being pretty well gone, but my eye remaining
still snare and rhumey, which I wonder at, my right eye ayling nothing.
8th. Up with some little discontent with my wife upon her saying that
she had got and used some puppy-dog water, being put upon it by a desire
of my aunt Wight to get some for her, who hath a mind, unknown to her
husband, to get some for her ugly face. I to the office, where we
sat all the morning, doing not much business through the multitude of
counsellors, one hindering another. It was Mr. Coventry's own saying to
me in his coach going to the 'Change, but I wonder that he did give me
no thanks for my letter last night, but I believe he did only forget it.
Thence home, whither Luellin came and dined with me, but we made no long
stay at dinner; for "Heraclius" being acted, which my wife and I have a
mighty mind to see, we do resolve, though not exactly agreeing with the
letter of my vowe, yet altogether with the sense, to see another this
month, by going hither instead of that at Court, there having been none
conveniently since I made my vowe for us to see there, nor like to be
this Lent, and besides we did walk home on purpose to make this going
as cheap as that would have been, to have seen one at Court, and my
conscience knows that it is only the saving of money and the time also
that I intend by my oaths, and this has cost no more of either, so that
my conscience before God do after good consultation and resolution of
paying my forfeit, did my conscience accuse me of breaking my vowe, I do
not find myself in the least apprehensive that I have done any violence
to my oaths. The play hath one very good passage well managed in it,
about two persons pretending, and yet denying themselves, to be son
to the tyrant Phocas, and yet heire of Mauritius to the crowne. The
garments like Romans very well. The little girle is come to act very
prettily, and spoke the epilogue most admirably. But at the beginning,
at the drawing up of the curtaine, there was the finest scene of the
Emperor and his people about him, standing in their fixed and different
pastures in their Roman habitts, above all that ever I yet saw at any of
the theatres. Walked home
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