n, a frank, merry man. We were very merry and played at cards
till late and so broke up and to bed in good hopes that this my
friendship with my uncle and aunt will end well.

27th. Up and to the office, and at noon to the Coffeehouse, where I sat
with Sir G. Ascue

[Sir George Ayscue or Askew. After his return from his imprisonment
he declined to go to sea again, although he was twice afterwards
formally appointed. He sat on the court-martial on the loss of the
"Defiance" in 1668.]

and Sir William Petty, who in discourse is, methinks, one of the most
rational men that ever I heard speak with a tongue, having all his
notions the most distinct and clear, and, among other things (saying,
that in all his life these three books were the most esteemed and
generally cried up for wit in the world "Religio Medici," "Osborne's
Advice to a Son,"

[Francis Osborne, an English writer of considerable abilities and
popularity, was the author of "Advice to a Son," in two parts,
Oxford, 1656-8, 8vo. He died in 1659. He is the same person
mentioned as "My Father Osborne," October 19th, 1661.--B.]

and "Hudibras "), did say that in these--in the two first
principally--the wit lies, and confirming some pretty sayings, which are
generally like paradoxes, by some argument smartly and pleasantly urged,
which takes with people who do not trouble themselves to examine the
force of an argument, which pleases them in the delivery, upon a subject
which they like; whereas, as by many particular instances of mine, and
others, out of Osborne, he did really find fault and weaken the strength
of many of Osborne's arguments, so as that in downright disputation
they would not bear weight; at least, so far, but that they might be
weakened, and better found in their rooms to confirm what is there said.
He shewed finely whence it happens that good writers are not admired
by the present age; because there are but few in any age that do mind
anything that is abstruse and curious; and so longer before any body do
put the true praise, and set it on foot in the world, the generality
of mankind pleasing themselves in the easy delights of the world, as
eating, drinking, dancing, hunting, fencing, which we see the meanest
men do the best, those that profess it. A gentleman never dances so well
as the dancing master, and an ordinary fiddler makes better musique for
a shilling than a gentleman will do after spending