nd pain in my head increasing, and the palate of my mouth
falling, I was in great pain all night. My wife also was not well,
so that a mayd was fain to sit up by her all night. Lay long in the
morning, at last up, and amongst others comes Mr. Fuller, that was the
wit of Cambridge, and Praevaricator

[At the Commencement (Comitia Majora) in July, the Praevaricator, or
Varier, held a similar position to the Tripos at the Comitia Minora.
He was so named from varying the question which he proposed, either
by a play upon the words or by the transposition of the terms in
which it was expressed. Under the pretence of maintaining some
philosophical question, he poured out a medley of absurd jokes and
'personal ridicule, which gradually led to the abolition of the
office. In Thoresby's "Diary" we read, "Tuesday, July 6th. The
Praevaricator's speech was smart and ingenious, attended with
vollies of hurras" (see Wordsworth's "University Life in the
Eighteenth Century ").--M. B.]

in my time, and staid all the morning with me discoursing, and his
business to get a man discharged, which I did do for him. Dined with
little heart at noon, in the afternoon against my will to the office,
where Sir G. Carteret and we met about an order of the Council for the
hiring him a house, giving him L1000 fine, and L70 per annum for
it. Here Sir J. Minnes took occasion, in the most childish and most
unbeseeming manner, to reproach us all, but most himself, that he was
not valued as Comptroller among us, nor did anything but only set his
hand to paper, which is but too true; and every body had a palace, and
he no house to lie in, and wished he had but as much to build him a
house with, as we have laid out in carved worke. It was to no end to
oppose, but all bore it, and after laughed at him for it. So home, and
late reading "The Siege of Rhodes" to my wife, and then to bed, my head
being in great pain and my palate still down.

24th. Up and to the office, where all the morning busy, then home to
dinner, and so after dinner comes one Phillips, who is concerned in
the Lottery, and from him I collected much concerning that business. I
carried him in my way to White Hall and set him down at Somersett House.
Among other things he told me that Monsieur Du Puy, that is so great a
man at the Duke of Yorke's, and this man's great opponent, is a knave
and by quality but a tailor. To the Tangier Commi