infinite
pleasure, and foresight of pleasure, I shall have with it; and therefore
desire to have that which I have bespoke, made. Many other pretty things
he showed us, and did give me a glass bubble, to try the strength of
liquors with.

[This seems to refer to the first form of the Hon. Robert Boyle's
hydrometer, which he described in a paper in the "Philosophical
Transactions" for June, 1675, under the title of a "New Essay
instrument." In this paper the author refers to a glass instrument
exhibited many years before by himself, "consisting of a bubble
furnished with a long and slender stem, which was to be put into
several liquors to compare and estimate their specific gravity."
Boyle describes this glass bubble in a paper in "Philosophical
Transactions," vol. iv., No. 50, p. 1001, 1669, entitled, "The
Weights of Water in Water with ordinary Balances and Weights."]

This done, and having spent 6d. in ale in the coach, at the door of the
Bull Inn, with the innocent master of the house, a Yorkshireman, for his
letting us go through his house, we away to Hercules Pillars, and there
eat a bit of meat: and so, with all speed, back to the Duke of York's
house, where mighty full again; but we come time enough to have a good
place in the pit, and did hear this new play again, where, though I better
understood it than before, yet my sense of it and pleasure was just the
same as yesterday, and no more, nor any body else's about us. So took our
coach and home, having now little pleasure to look about me to see the
fine faces, for fear of displeasing my wife, whom I take great comfort
now, more than ever, in pleasing; and it is a real joy to me. So home, and
to my Office, where spent an hour or two; and so home to my wife, to
supper and talk, and so to bed.

10th. Up, and to the Office, where busy all the morning: Middleton not
there, so no words or looks of him. At noon, home to dinner; and so to
the Office, and there all the afternoon busy; and at night W. Hewer home
with me; and we think we have got matter enough to make Middleton appear a
coxcomb. But it troubled me to have Sir W. Warren meet me at night, going
out of the Office home, and tell me that Middleton do intend to complain
to the Duke of York: but, upon consideration of the business, I did go to
bed, satisfied that it was best for me that he should; and so my trouble
was over, and to bed, and slept well.