quarter's end with what he hath had,
let the King get more as he can. All the company gone, Sir G. Carteret
and I to talk: and it is pretty to observe how already he says that
he did always look upon the Chancellor indeed as his friend, though he
never did do him any service at all, nor ever got any thing by him, nor
was he a man apt, and that, I think, is true, to do any man any kindness
of his own nature; though I do know that he was believed by all the
world to be the greatest support of Sir G. Carteret with the King of
any man in England: but so little is now made of it! He observes that
my Lord Sandwich will lose a great friend in him; and I think so too, my
Lord Hinchingbroke being about a match calculated purely out of respect
to my Lord Chancellor's family. By and by Sir G. Carteret, and Townsend,
and I, to consider of an answer to the Commissioners of the Treasury
about my Lord Sandwich's profits in the Wardrobe; which seem, as we make
them, to be very small, not L1000 a-year; but only the difference in
measure at which he buys and delivers out to the King, and then 6d. in
the pound from the tradesmen for what money he receives for him; but
this, it is believed, these Commissioners will endeavour to take away.
From him I went to see a great match at tennis, between Prince Rupert
and one Captain Cooke, against Bab. May and the elder Chichly; where the
King was, and Court; and it seems are the best players at tennis in the
nation. But this puts me in mind of what I observed in the morning, that
the King, playing at tennis, had a steele-yard carried to him, and I
was told it was to weigh him after he had done playing; and at noon
Mr. Ashburnham told me that it is only the King's curiosity, which he
usually hath of weighing himself before and after his play, to see how
much he loses in weight by playing: and this day he lost 4 lbs. Thence
home and took my wife out to Mile End Green, and there I drank, and so
home, having a very fine evening. Then home, and I to Sir W. Batten and
[Sir] W. Pen, and there discoursed of Sir W. Coventry's leaving the Duke
of York, and Mr. Wren's succeeding him. They told me both seriously,
that they had long cut me out for Secretary to the Duke of York, if ever
[Sir] W. Coventry left him; which, agreeing with what I have heard from
other hands heretofore, do make me not only think that something of that
kind hath been thought on, but do comfort me to see that the world hath
such an estee