ith me talking, and so to Deptford and did the
like-there, and then walked to Redriffe (calling and eating a bit of
collops and eggs at Half-way house), and so home to the office, where we
sat late, and home weary to supper and to bed.
25th (Lady-day). Up and by water to White Hall, and there to chappell;
where it was most infinite full to hear Dr. Critton. Being not knowne,
some great persons in the pew I pretended to, and went in, did question
my coming in. I told them my pretence; so they turned to the orders of
the chappell, which hung behind upon the wall, and read it; and were
satisfied; but they did not demand whether I was in waiting or no; and
so I was in some fear lest he that was in waiting might come and
betray me. The Doctor preached upon the thirty-first of Jeremy, and the
twenty-first and twenty-second verses, about a woman compassing a man;
meaning the Virgin conceiving and bearing our Saviour. It was the worst
sermon I ever heard him make, I must confess; and yet it was good,
and in two places very bitter, advising the King to do as the Emperor
Severus did, to hang up a Presbyter John (a short coat and a long gowne
interchangeably) in all the Courts of England. But the story of Severus
was pretty, that he hanged up forty senators before the Senate house,
and then made a speech presently to the Senate in praise of his owne
lenity; and then decreed that never any senator after that time should
suffer in the same manner without consent of the Senate: which he
compared to the proceeding of the Long Parliament against my Lord
Strafford. He said the greatest part of the lay magistrates in England
were Puritans, and would not do justice; and the Bishopps, their powers
were so taken away and lessened, that they could not exercise the power
they ought. He told the King and the ladies plainly, speaking of death
and of the skulls and bones of dead men and women,
[The preacher appears to have had the grave scene in "Hamlet" in
his mind, as he gives the same illustration of Alexander as Hamlet
does.]
how there is no difference; that nobody could tell that of the great
Marius or Alexander from a pyoneer; nor, for all the pains the ladies
take with their faces, he that should look in a charnels-house could not
distinguish which was Cleopatra's, or fair Rosamond's, or Jane Shoare's.
Thence by water home. After dinner to the office, thence with my wife to
see my father and discourse how he finds Tom'
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