ther of their victuals, which I hate, because of their
sluttery: and so home, and made my boy read to me part of Dr. Wilkins's
new book of the "Real Character;" and so to bed.

18th. Up, and to my office, where most of the morning doing business and
seeing my window-frames new painted, and then I out by coach to my Lord
Bellasses, at his new house by my late Lord Treasurer's, and there met him
and Mr. Sherwin, Auditor Beale, and Creed, about my Lord's accounts, and
here my Lord shewed me his new house, which, indeed, is mighty noble, and
good pictures--indeed, not one bad one in it. Thence to my tailor's, and
there did find Mercer come with Mrs. Horsfield and Gayet according to my
desire, and there I took them up, it being almost twelve o'clock, or a
little more, and carried them to the King's playhouse, where the doors
were not then open; but presently they did open; and we in, and find many
people already come in, by private ways, into the pit, it being the first
day of Sir Charles Sidly's new play, so long expected, "The Mullberry
Guarden," of whom, being so reputed a wit, all the world do expect great
matters. I having sat here awhile, and eat nothing to-day, did slip out,
getting a boy to keep my place; and to the Rose Tavern, and there got half
a breast of mutton, off of the spit, and dined all alone. And so to the
play again, where the King and Queen, by and by, come, and all the Court;
and the house infinitely full. But the play, when it come, though there
was, here and there, a pretty saying, and that not very many neither, yet
the whole of the play had nothing extraordinary in it, at all, neither of
language nor design; insomuch that the King I did not see laugh, nor
pleased the whole play from the beginning to the end, nor the company;
insomuch that I have not been less pleased at a new play in my life, I
think. And which made it the worse was, that there never was worse musick
played--that is, worse things composed, which made me and Captain Rolt,
who happened to sit near me, mad. So away thence, very little satisfied
with the play, but pleased with my company. I carried them to Kensington,
to the Grotto, and there we sang, to my great content, only vexed, in
going in, to see a son of Sir Heneage Finch's beating of a poor little dog
to death, letting it lie in so much pain that made me mad to see it, till,
by and by, the servants of the house chiding of their young master, one of
them come with a thong