notwithstanding my care all
the year to keep things in as good method as any man can do. Past 11
o'clock home to supper and to bed.
2nd. Up, and it being a most fine, hard frost I walked a good way toward
White Hall, and then being overtaken with Sir W. Pen's coach, went into
it, and with him thither, and there did our usual business with the
Duke. Thence, being forced to pay a great deale of money away in boxes
(that is, basins at White Hall), I to my barber's, Gervas, and there had
a little opportunity of speaking with my Jane alone, and did give her
something, and of herself she did tell me a place where I might come to
her on Sunday next, which I will not fail, but to see how modestly and
harmlessly she brought it out was very pretty. Thence to the Swan, and
there did sport a good while with Herbert's young kinswoman without
hurt, though they being abroad, the old people. Then to the Hall, and
there agreed with Mrs. Martin, and to her lodgings which she has now
taken to lie in, in Bow Streete, pitiful poor things, yet she thinks
them pretty, and so they are for her condition I believe good enough.
Here I did 'ce que je voudrais avec' her most freely, and it having
cost 2s. in wine and cake upon her, I away sick of her impudence, and
by coach to my Lord Brunker's, by appointment, in the Piazza, in
Covent-Guarding; where I occasioned much mirth with a ballet I brought
with me, made from the seamen at sea to their ladies in town; saying
Sir W. Pen, Sir G. Ascue, and Sir J. Lawson made them. Here a most noble
French dinner and banquet, the best I have seen this many a day and good
discourse. Thence to my bookseller's and at his binder's saw Hooke's
book of the Microscope,
["Micrographia: or some physiological descriptions of minute bodies
made by Magnifying Glasses. London, 1665," a very remarkable work
with elaborate plates, some of which have been used for lecture
illustrations almost to our own day. On November 23rd, 1664, the
President of the Royal Society was "desired to sign a licence for
printing of Mr. Hooke's microscopical book." At this time the book
was mostly printed, but it was delayed, much to Hooke's disgust, by
the examination of several Fellows of the Society. In spite of this
examination the council were anxious that the author should make it
clear that he alone was responsible for any theory put forward, and
they gave him notice to that ef
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