gain, he tells me that he do verily fear that I have it again,
and has brought me something to dissolve it, which do make me very
much troubled, and pray to God to ease me. He gone, I down by water to
Woolwich and Deptford to look after the dispatch of the ships, all the
way reading Mr. Spencer's Book of Prodigys, which is most ingeniously
writ, both for matter and style. Home at noon, and my little girl got me
my dinner, and I presently out by water and landed at Somerset stairs,
and thence through Covent Garden, where I met with Mr. Southwell (Sir W.
Pen's friend), who tells me the very sad newes of my Lord Tiviott's and
nineteen more commission officers being killed at Tangier by the Moores,
by an ambush of the enemy upon them, while they were surveying their
lines; which is very sad, and, he says, afflicts the King much. Thence
to W. Joyce's, where by appointment I met my wife (but neither of them
at home), and she and I to the King's house, and saw "The Silent Woman;"
but methought not so well done or so good a play as I formerly thought
it to be, or else I am nowadays out of humour. Before the play was done,
it fell such a storm of hayle, that we in the middle of the pit were
fain to rise;

[The stage was covered in by a tiled roof, but the pit was open to
the sky. "The pit lay open to the weather for sake of light, but
was subsequently covered in with a glazed cupola, which, however,
only imperfectly protected the audience, so that in stormy weather
the house was thrown into disorder, and the people in the pit were
fain to rise" (Cunningham's "Story of Nell Gwyn," ed. 1893, p. 33).]

and all the house in a disorder, and so my wife and I out and got into a
little alehouse, and staid there an hour after the play was done before
we could get a coach, which at last we did (and by chance took up Joyce
Norton and Mrs. Bowles, and set them at home), and so home ourselves,
and I, after a little to my office, so home to supper and to bed.

2nd. Up and to the office, where we sat all the morning, and then to
the 'Change, where after some stay by coach with Sir J. Minnes and Mr.
Coventry to St. James's, and there dined with Mr. Coventry very finely,
and so over the Parke to White Hall to a Committee of Tangier about
providing provisions, money, and men for Tangier. At it all the
afternoon, but it is strange to see how poorly and brokenly things are
done of the greatest consequence, and how so