re a couple of
false persons, which I believe, and withal that he himself is a knave too.
He and I by and by to dinner mighty nobly, and the King having dined, he
come down, and I went in the barge with him, I sitting at the door. Down
to Woolwich (and there I just saw and kissed my wife, and saw some of her
painting, which is very curious; and away again to the King) and back
again with him in the barge, hearing him and the Duke talk, and seeing and
observing their manner of discourse. And God forgive me! though I admire
them with all the duty possible, yet the more a man considers and observes
them, the less he finds of difference between them and other men, though
(blessed be God!) they are both princes of great nobleness and spirits.
The barge put me into another boat that come to our side, Mr. Holder with
a bag of gold to the Duke, and so they away and I home to the office. The
Duke of Monmouth is the most skittish leaping gallant that ever I saw,
always in action, vaulting or leaping, or clambering. Thence mighty full
of the honour of this day, I took coach and to Kate Joyce's, but she not
within, but spoke with Anthony, who tells me he likes well of my proposal
for Pall to Harman, but I fear that less than L500 will not be taken, and
that I shall not be able to give, though I did not say so to him. After a
little other discourse and the sad news of the death of so many in the
parish of the plague, forty last night, the bell always going, I back to
the Exchange, where I went up and sat talking with my beauty, Mrs.
Batelier, a great while, who is indeed one of the finest women I ever saw
in my life. After buying some small matter, I home, and there to the
office and saw Sir J. Minnes now come from Portsmouth, I home to set my
Journall for these four days in order, they being four days of as great
content and honour and pleasure to me as ever I hope to live or desire, or
think any body else can live. For methinks if a man would but reflect
upon this, and think that all these things are ordered by God Almighty to
make me contented, and even this very marriage now on foot is one of the
things intended to find me content in, in my life and matter of mirth,
methinks it should make one mightily more satisfied in the world than he
is. This day poor Robin Shaw at Backewell's died, and Backewell himself
now in Flanders. The King himself asked about Shaw, and being told he was
dead, said he was very sorry for it. The s