And after
talking there awhile, and agreeing to be all merry at my house on
Tuesday next, I away home; and there spent the evening talking and
reading, with my wife and Mr. Pelling, and yet much troubled with my
cold, it hardly suffering me to speak, we to bed.

MARCH 1668-1669

March 1st. Up, and to White Hall to the Committee of Tangier, but it did
not meet. But here I do hear first that my Lady Paulina Montagu did die
yesterday; at which I went to my Lord's lodgings, but he is shut up with
sorrow, and so not to be spoken with: and therefore I returned, and to
Westminster Hall, where I have not been, I think, in some months. And
here the Hall was very full, the King having, by Commission to some
Lords this day, prorogued the Parliament till the 19th of October next:
at which I am glad, hoping to have time to go over to France this year.
But I was most of all surprised this morning by my Lord Bellassis, who,
by appointment, met me at Auditor Wood's, at the Temple, and tells me of
a duell designed between the Duke of Buckingham and my Lord Halifax,
or Sir W. Coventry; the challenge being carried by Harry Saville, but
prevented by my Lord Arlington, and the King told of it; and this was
all the discourse at Court this day. But I, meeting Sir W. Coventry in
the Duke of York's chamber, he would not own it to me, but told me
that he was a man of too much peace to meddle with fighting, and so it
rested: but the talk is full in the town of the business. Thence,
having walked some turns with my cozen Pepys, and most people, by their
discourse, believing that this Parliament will never sit more, I away
to several places to look after things against to-morrow's feast, and
so home to dinner; and thence, after noon, my wife and I out by
hackneycoach, and spent the afternoon in several places, doing several
things at the 'Change and elsewhere against to-morrow; and, among
others, I did also bring home a piece of my face cast in plaister, for
to make a wizard upon, for my eyes. And so home, where W. Batelier come,
and sat with us; and there, after many doubts, did resolve to go on with
our feast and dancing to-morrow; and so, after supper, left the maids
to make clean the house, and to lay the cloth, and other things against
to-morrow, and we to bed.

2nd. Up, and at the office till noon, when home, and there I find my
company come, namely, Madam Turner, Dyke, The., and Betty Turner,
and Mr. Bellwood, formerly their father'