d, 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, and killed the dog outright presently. Thence
to Westminster palace, and there took boat and to Fox Hall, where we
walked, and eat, and drank, and sang, and very merry. But I find Mrs.
Horsfield one of the veriest citizen's wives in the world, so full
of little silly talk, and now and then a little sillily bawdy, that I
believe if you had her sola a man might hazer all with her. So back by
water to Westminster Palace, and there got a coach which carried us as
far as the Minorys, and there some thing of the traces broke,