not be at, enmity with him, but I will
not have him find any friendship so good as mine. By and by rose and by
water to White Hall, and then called my wife at Unthanke's. So home and
to my chamber, to my accounts, and finished them to my heart's wishes
and admiration, they being grown very intricate, being let alone for
two months, but I brought them together all naturally, within a few
shillings, but to my sorrow the Poll money I paid this month and
mourning have made me L80 a worse man than at my last balance, so that I
am worth now but L6700, which is yet an infinite mercy to me, for which
God make me thankful. So late to supper, with a glad heart for the
evening of my accounts so well, and so to bed.

MAY 1667

May 1st. Up, it being a fine day, and after doing a little business in
my chamber I left my wife to go abroad with W. Hewer and his mother in a
Hackney coach incognito to the Park, while I abroad to the Excise Office
first, and there met the Cofferer and Sir Stephen Fox about our money
matters there, wherein we agreed, and so to discourse of my Lord
Treasurer, who is a little better than he was of the stone, having
rested a little this night. I there did acquaint them of my knowledge of
that disease, which I believe will be told my Lord Treasurer. Thence to
Westminster; in the way meeting many milk-maids with their garlands upon
their pails, dancing with a fiddler before them;

[On the 1st of May milkmaids used to borrow silver cups, tankards,
&c., to hang them round their milkpails, with the addition of
flowers and ribbons, which they carried upon their heads,
accompanied by a bagpipe or fiddle, and went from door to door,
dancing before the houses of their customers, in order to obtain a
small gratuity from each of them.

"In London thirty years ago,
When pretty milkmaids went about,
It was a goodly sight to see
Their May-day pageant all drawn out.

"Such scenes and sounds once blest my eyes
And charm'd my ears; but all have vanish'd,
On May-day now no garlands go,
For milkmaids and their dance are banish'd."

Hone's Every-Day Book, vol. i., pp. 569, 570.]

and saw pretty Nelly standing at her lodgings' door in Drury-lane in her
smock sleeves and bodice, looking upon one: she seemed a mighty pretty
creature. To the Hall and th