while before. Here was one Mr. Benson, a Dutchman, played and
supped with us, that pretends to sing well, and I expected great matters
but found nothing to be pleased with at all. So home and to bed, yet
troubled in my mind.

19th. Up, without any kindness to my wife, and so to the office, where
we sat all the morning, and at noon I to the 'Change, and thence to Mr.
Cutler's with Sir W. Rider to dinner, and after dinner with him to the
Old James upon our reference of Mr. Bland's, and, having sat there upon
the business half an hour, broke up, and I home and there found Madame
Turner and her sister Dike come to see us, and staid chatting till
night, and so away, and I to my office till very late, and my eyes began
to fail me, and be in pain which I never felt to now-a-days, which I
impute to sitting up late writing and reading by candle-light. So home
to supper and to bed.

20th. Up and by coach to my Lord Sandwich's, and after long staying till
his coming down (he not sending for me up, but it may be he did not know
I was there), he came down, and I walked with him to the Tennis Court,
and there left him, seeing the King play. At his lodgings this morning
there came to him Mr. W. Montague's fine lady, which occasioned my
Lord's calling me to her about some business for a friend of hers
preferred to be a midshipman at sea. My Lord recommended the whole
matter to me. She is a fine confident lady, I think, but not so pretty
as I once thought her. My Lord did also seal a lease for the house he
is now taking in Lincoln's Inn Fields, which stands him in 250 per annum
rent. Thence by water to my brother's, whom I find not well in bed,
sicke, they think, of a consumption, and I fear he is not well, but
do not complain, nor desire to take anything. From him I visited Mr.
Honiwood, who is lame, and to thank him for his visit to me the other
day, but we were both abroad. So to Mr. Commander's in Warwicke Lane, to
speak to him about drawing up my will, which he will meet me about in a
day or two. So to the 'Change and walked home, thence with Sir Richard
Ford, who told me that Turner is to be hanged to-morrow, and with what
impudence he hath carried out his trial; but that last night, when
he brought him newes of his death, he began to be sober and shed some
tears, and he hopes will die a penitent; he having already confessed all
the thing, but says it was partly done for a joke, and partly to get an
occasion of obliging the old