some two or
three hundred pounds worth of toys, to be laughed at"--Ben Jonson,
The Silent Woman, act i. sc. 1.]

I bought a pair of short black stockings, to wear over a pair of silk
ones for mourning; and here I met with The. Turner and Joyce, buying of
things to go into mourning too for the Duke, (which is now the mode
of all the ladies in town), where I wrote some letters by the post to
Hinchinbroke to let them know that this day Mr. Edw. Pickering is come
from my Lord, and says that he left him well in Holland, and that he
will be here within three or four days. To-day not well of my last
night's drinking yet. I had the boy up to-night for his sister to teach
him to put me to bed, and I heard him read, which he did pretty well.

23rd (Lord's day). My wife got up to put on her mourning to-day and to
go to Church this morning. I up and set down my journall for these 5
days past. This morning came one from my father's with a black cloth
coat, made of my short cloak, to walk up and down in. To church my
wife and I, with Sir W. Batten, where we heard of Mr. Mills a very good
sermon upon these words, "So run that ye may obtain." After dinner all
alone to Westminster. At Whitehall I met with Mr. Pierce and his wife
(she newly come forth after childbirth) both in mourning for the Duke of
Gloucester. She went with Mr. Child to Whitehall chapel and Mr. Pierce
with me to the Abbey, where I expected to hear Mr. Baxter or Mr. Rowe
preach their farewell sermon, and in Mr. Symons's pew I sat and heard
Mr. Rowe. Before sermon I laughed at the reader, who in his prayer
desires of God that He would imprint his word on the thumbs of our right
hands and on the right great toes of our right feet. In the midst of the
sermon some plaster fell from the top of the Abbey, that made me and all
the rest in our pew afeard, and I wished myself out. After sermon with
Mr. Pierce to Whitehall, and from thence to my Lord, but Diana did not
come according to our agreement. So calling at my father's (where
my wife had been this afternoon but was gone home) I went home. This
afternoon, the King having news of the Princess being come to Margate,
he and the Duke of York went down thither in barges to her.

24th (Office day). From thence to dinner by coach with my wife to my
Cozen Scott's, and the company not being come, I went over the way to
the Barber's. So thither again to dinner, where was my uncle Fenner and
my aunt, my father and moth