on will a little suffer in common talk by this late success; but
there is no help for it now. The Queen of England (as she is now owned
and called) I hear doth keep open Court, and distinct at Lisbon. Hence,
much against my nature and will, yet such is the power of the Devil over
me I could not refuse it, to the Theatre, and saw "The Merry Wives of
Windsor," ill done. And that ended, with Sir W. Pen and Sir G. More to
the tavern, and so home with him by coach, and after supper to prayers
and to bed. In full quiet of mind as to thought, though full of
business, blessed be God.

26th. At the office all the morning, so dined at home, and then abroad
with my wife by coach to the Theatre to shew her "King and no King,"
it being very well done. And so by coach, though hard to get it, being
rainy, home. So to my chamber to write letters and the journal for these
six last days past.

27th. By coach to Whitehall with my wife (where she went to see Mrs.
Pierce, who was this day churched, her month of childbed being out). I
went to Mrs. Montagu and other businesses, and at noon met my wife at
the Wardrobe; and there dined, where we found Captain Country (my little
Captain that I loved, who carried me to the Sound), come with some
grapes and millons

[The antiquity of the cultivation of the melon is very remote. Both
the melon (cucaimis melo) and the water-melon (cucumis citrullus)
were introduced into England at the end of the sixteenth century.
See vol. i., p. 228.]

from my Lord at Lisbon, the first that ever I saw any, and my wife and
I eat some, and took some home; but the grapes are rare things. Here we
staid; and in the afternoon comes Mr. Edwd. Montagu (by appointment
this morning) to talk with my Lady and me about the provisions fit to
be bought, and sent to my Lord along with him. And told us, that we need
not trouble ourselves how to buy them, for the King would pay for all,
and that he would take care to get them: which put my Lady and me into a
great deal of ease of mind. Here we staid and supped too, and, after
my wife had put up some of the grapes in a basket for to be sent to the
King, we took coach and home, where we found a hampire of millons sent
to me also.

28th. At the office in the morning, dined at home, and then Sir W.
Pen and his daughter and I and my wife to the Theatre, and there saw
"Father's own Son," a very good play, and the first time I ever saw
it, and so at night to my h