ffice was up, and there dined, and very merry, and many good stories,
and after dinner to our discourse about Carcasse, and how much we are
troubled that we should be brought, as they say we shall, to defend our
report before the Council-board with him, and to have a clerk imposed on
us. He tells us in short that there is no intention in the Lords for the
latter, but wholly the contrary. That they do not desire neither to do
anything in disrespect to the Board, and he will endeavour to prevent,
as he hath done, our coming to plead at the table with our clerk, and
do believe the whole will amount to nothing at the Council, only what
he shall declare in behalf of the King against the office, if he
offers anything, will and ought to be received, to which we all shew a
readiness, though I confess even that (though I think I am as clear as
the clearest of them), yet I am troubled to think what trouble a rogue
may without cause give a man, though it be only by bespattering a man,
and therefore could wish that over, though I fear nothing to be proved.
Thence with much satisfaction, and Sir W. Pen and I to the Duke's house,
where a new play. The King and Court there: the house full, and an act
begun. And so went to the King's, and there saw "The Merry Wives of
Windsor:" which did not please me at all, in no part of it, and so after
the play done we to the Duke's house, where my wife was by appointment
in Sir W. Pen's coach, and she home, and we home, and I to my office,
where busy till letters done, and then home to supper and to bed.

16th. Up, and at the office all the morning, and so at noon to dinner,
and after dinner my wife and I to the Duke's playhouse, where we saw the
new play acted yesterday, "The Feign Innocence, or Sir Martin Marr-all;"
a play made by my Lord Duke of Newcastle, but, as every body says,
corrected by Dryden. It is the most entire piece of mirth, a complete
farce from one end to the other, that certainly was ever writ. I never
laughed so in all my life. I laughed till my head [ached] all the
evening and night with the laughing; and at very good wit therein, not
fooling. The house full, and in all things of mighty content to me.
Thence to the New Exchange with my wife, where, at my bookseller's, I
saw "The History of the Royall Society," which, I believe, is a fine
book, and have bespoke one in quires. So home, and I to the office a
little, and so to my chamber, and read the history of 88--[See 10th of
t