my
people home, and I to Westminster Hall about a little business, and
so by water home [to] supper, and my wife to read a ridiculous book I
bought today of the History of the Taylors' Company,

[The title of this book was, "The Honour of the Merchant Taylors."
Wherein is set forth the noble acts, valliant deeds, and heroick
performances of Merchant Taylors in former ages; their honourable
loves, and knightly adventures, their combating of foreign enemies
and glorious successes in honour of the English nation: together
with their pious....]

and all the while Deb. did comb my head, and I did toker her with my
main para very great pleasure, and so to bed.

11th. Up, and by water to Sir W. Coventry to visit him, whom I find yet
troubled at the Commissioners of Accounts, about this business of Sir
W. Warren, which is a ridiculous thing, and can come to nothing but
contempt, and thence to Westminster Hall, where the Parliament met
enough to adjourne, which they did, to the 10th of November next, and so
by water home to the office, and so to dinner, and thence at the Office
all the afternoon till night, being mightily pleased with a little trial
I have made of the use of a tube-spectacall of paper, tried with my
right eye. This day I hear that, to the great joy of the Nonconformists,
the time is out of the Act against them, so that they may meet: and they
have declared that they will have a morning lecture

[During the troubled reign of Charles I., the House of Commons gave
parishioners the right of appointing lecturers at the various
churches without the consent of rector or vicar, and this naturally
gave rise to many quarrels. In the early period of the war between
the king and the parliament, a course of sermons or lectures was
projected in aid of the parliamentary cause. These lectures, which
were preached by eminent Presbyterian divines at seven o'clock on
the Sunday mornings, were commenced in the church of St. Mary
Magdalen in Milk Street, but were soon afterwards removed to St.
Giles's, Cripplegate. After the Restoration the lectures were
collected in four volumes, and published under the title of the
"Cripplegate Morning Exercises," vol. i. in 1661; vol. ii. in 1674;
vol. iii. in 1682; and vol. iv. in 1690. In addition there were two
volumes which form a supplement to the work, viz., "The Morning
Exercise