y and by the King
come; and we sat just under him, so that I durst not turn my back all
the play. The play is a translation out of French, and the plot Spanish,
but not anything extraordinary at all in it, though translated by Sir
W. Davenant, and so I found the King and his company did think meanly
of it, though there was here and there something pretty: but the most
of the mirth was sorry, poor stuffe, of eating of sack posset and
slabbering themselves, and mirth fit for clownes; the prologue but poor,
and the epilogue little in it but the extraordinariness of it, it
being sung by Harris and another in the form of a ballet. Thence, by
agreement, we all of us to the Blue Balls, hard by, whither Mr. Pierce
also goes with us, who met us at the play, and anon comes Manuel, and
his wife, and Knepp, and Harris, who brings with him Mr. Banister,
the great master of musique; and after much difficulty in getting of
musique, we to dancing, and then to a supper of some French dishes,
which yet did not please me, and then to dance and sing; and mighty
merry we were till about eleven or twelve at night, with mighty great
content in all my company, and I did, as I love to do, enjoy myself in
my pleasure as being the height of what we take pains for and can hope
for in this world, and therefore to be enjoyed while we are young and
capable of these joys. My wife extraordinary fine to-day, in her flower
tabby suit, bought a year and more ago, before my mother's death put
her into mourning, and so not worn till this day: and every body in love
with it; and indeed she is very fine and handsome in it. I having paid
the reckoning, which come to almost L4., we parted: my company and
William Batelier, who was also with us, home in a coach, round by the
Wall, where we met so many stops by the Watches, that it cost us much
time and some trouble, and more money, to every Watch, to them to drink;
this being encreased by the trouble the 'prentices did lately give the
City, so that the Militia and Watches are very strict at this time; and
we had like to have met with a stop for all night at the Constable's
watch, at Mooregate, by a pragmatical Constable; but we come well
home at about two in the morning, and so to bed. This noon, from Mrs.
Williams's, my Lord Brouncker sent to Somersett House to hear how the
Duchess of Richmond do; and word was brought him that she is pretty
well, but mighty full of the smallpox, by which all do conclude she will