being but little. Here we saw Gosnell, who is become
very homely, and sings meanly, I think, to what I thought she did.

29th. Busy all the morning at the office. So home to dinner, where
Mercer, and there comes Mr. Swan, my old acquaintance, and dines
with me, and tells me, for a certainty, that Creed is to marry Betty
Pickering, and that the thing is concluded, which I wonder at, and am
vexed for. So he gone I with my wife and two girls to the King's house,
and saw "The Mad Couple," a mean play altogether, and thence to Hyde
Parke, where but few coaches, and so to the New Exchange, and thence by
water home, with much pleasure, and then to sing in the garden, and so
home to bed, my eyes for these four days being my trouble, and my heart
thereby mighty sad.

30th. Up, and by water to White Hall. There met with Mr. May, who was
giving directions about making a close way for people to go dry from the
gate up into the House, to prevent their going through the galleries;
which will be very good. I staid and talked with him about the state of
the King's Offices in general, and how ill he is served, and do still
find him an excellent person, and so back to the office. So close at my
office all the afternoon till evening, and then out with my wife to the
New Exchange, and so back again.

31st. Up, and at my office all the morning. About noon with Mr.
Ashburnham to the new Excise Office, and there discoursed about
our business, and I made him admire my drawing a thing presently in
shorthand: but, God knows! I have paid dear for it, in my eyes. Home and
to dinner, and then my wife and Deb. and I, with Sir J. Minnes, to White
Hall, she going hence to the New Exchange, and the Duke of York not
being in the way, Sir J. Minnes and I to her and took them two to the
King's house, to see the first day of Lacy's "Monsieur Ragou," now new
acted. The King and Court all there, and mighty merry--a farce. Thence
Sir J. Minnes giving us, like a gentleman, his coach, hearing we had
some business, we to the Park, and so home. Little pleasure there, there
being little company, but mightily taken with a little chariot that we
saw in the street, and which we are resolved to have ours like it. So
home to walk in the garden a little, and then to bed. The month ends
mighty sadly with me, my eyes being now past all use almost; and I am
mighty hot upon trying the late printed experiment of paper tubes.

[An account of these tubulous spectacles