this we had much discourse;
and I observed therein, to the honour of this City, that I have not heard
of one citizen of London broke in all this war, this plague, this fire,
and this coming up of the enemy among us; which he owned to be very
considerable.

[This remarkable fact is confirmed by Evelyn, in a letter to Sir
Samuel Tuke, September 27th, 1666. See "Correspondence," vol.
iii., p. 345, edit. 1879.]

After dinner I to the King's playhouse, my eyes being so bad since last
night's straining of them, that I am hardly able to see, besides the pain
which I have in them. The play was a new play; and infinitely full: the
King and all the Court almost there. It is "The Storme," a play of
Fletcher's;' which is but so-so, methinks; only there is a most admirable
dance at the end, of the ladies, in a military manner, which indeed did
please me mightily. So, it being a mighty wet day and night, I with much
ado got a coach, and, with twenty stops which he made, I got him to carry
me quite through, and paid dear for it, and so home, and there comes my
wife home from the Duke of York's playhouse, where she hath been with my
aunt and Kate Joyce, and so to supper, and betimes to bed, to make amends
for my last night's work and want of sleep.

26th. Up, and to my chamber, whither Jonas Moore comes, and, among other
things, after our business done, discoursing of matters of the office, I
shewed him my varnished things, which he says he can outdo much, and tells
me the mighty use of Napier's bones;

[John Napier or Neper (1550-1617), laird of Merchiston (now
swallowed up in the enlarged Edinburgh of to-day, although the old
castle still stands), and the inventor of logarithms. He published
his "Rabdologiae seu numerationis per virgulas libri duo" in 1617,
and the work was reprinted and translated into Italian (1623) and
Dutch (1626). In 1667 William Leybourn published "The Art of
Numbering by Speaking Rods, vulgarly termed Napier's Bones."]

so that I will have a pair presently. To the office, where busy all the
morning sitting, and at noon home to dinner, and then with my wife abroad
to the King's playhouse, to shew her yesterday's new play, which I like as
I did yesterday, the principal thing extraordinary being the dance, which
is very good. So to Charing Cross by coach, about my wife's business, and
then home round by London Wall, it being very dark and dirty, and