he Varnishes; who is lately dead,
and his wife and brother keep up the trade, and there I left my French
prints to be put on boards:, and, while I was there, a fire burst out
in a chimney of a house over against his house, but it was with a gun
quickly put out. So to White Hall, and did a little business there at
the Treasury chamber, and so homeward, calling at the laceman's for some
lace for my new suit, and at my tailor's, and so home, where to dinner,
and Mr. Sheres dined, with us, who come hither to-day to teach my wife
the rules of perspective; but I think, upon trial, he thinks it too hard
to teach her, being ignorant of the principles of lines. After dinner
comes one Colonel Macnachan, one that I see often at Court, a Scotchman,
but know him not; only he brings me a letter from my Lord Middleton,
who, he says, is in great distress for L500 to relieve my Lord Morton
with, but upon, what account I know not; and he would have me advance it
without order upon his pay for Tangier, which I was astonished at, but
had the grace to deny him with an excuse. And so he went away, leaving
me a little troubled that I was thus driven, on a sudden, to do any
thing herein; but Creed, coming just now to see me, he approves of what
I have done. And then to talk of general matters, and, by and by, Sheres
being gone, my wife, and he, and I out, and I set him down at Temple
Bar, and myself and wife went down the Temple upon seeming business,
only to put him off, and just at the Temple gate I spied Deb. with
another gentlewoman, and Deb. winked on me and smiled, but undiscovered,
and I was glad to see her. So my wife and I to the 'Change, about things
for her; and here, at Mrs. Burnett's shop, I am told by Betty, who
was all undressed, of a great fire happened in Durham-Yard last night,
burning the house of one Lady Hungerford, who was to come to town to it
this night; and so the house is burned, new furnished, by carelessness
of the girl sent to take off a candle from a bunch of candles, which she
did by burning it off, and left the rest, as is supposed, on fire. The
King and Court were here, it seems, and stopped the fire by blowing up
of the next house. The King and Court went out of town to Newmarket this
morning betimes, for a week. So home, and there to my chamber, and got
my wife to read to me a little, and so to supper and to bed. Coming home
this night I did call at the coachmaker's, and do resolve upon having
the standards of