o
be assistants to the Comptroller, which quietly went down with Sir J.
Minnes, poor man, seeming a little as if he would be thought to have
desired it, but yet apparently to his discontent; and, I fear, as the
order runs, it will hardly do much good. At noon to dinner, and there
comes a letter from Mrs. Pierce, telling me she will come and dine with
us on Thursday next, with some of the players, Knipp, &c., which I was
glad of, but my wife vexed, which vexed me; but I seemed merry, but know
not how to order the matter, whether they shall come or no. After
dinner to the office, and there late doing much business, and so home to
supper, and to bed.

23rd. Up, and with Sir W. Batten and Sir W. Pen to White Hall, and there
to the Duke of York, and did our usual business. Having done there, I to
St. James's, to see the organ Mrs. Turner told me of the other night, of
my late Lord Aubigney's; and I took my Lord Bruncker with me, he being
acquainted with my present Lord Almoner, Mr. Howard, brother to the Duke
of Norfolke; so he and I thither and did see the organ, but I do not
like it, it being but a bauble, with a virginal! joining to it: so I
shall not meddle with it. Here we sat and talked with him a good while,
and he seems a good-natured gentleman: here I observed the deske which
he hath, [made] to remove, and is fastened to one of the armes of his
chayre. I do also observe the counterfeit windows there was, in the form
of doors with looking-glasses instead of windows, which makes the room
seem both bigger and lighter, I think; and I have some thoughts to have
the like in one of my rooms. He discoursed much of the goodness of the
musique in Rome, but could not tell me how long musique had been in any
perfection in that church, which I would be glad to know. He speaks much
of the great buildings that this Pope,

[Fabio Chigi, of Siena, succeeded Innocent X. in 1655 as Alexander
VII. He died May, 1667, and was succeeded by Clement IX.]

whom, in mirth to us, he calls Antichrist, hath done in his time. Having
done with the discourse, we away, and my Lord and I walking into the
Park back again, I did observe the new buildings: and my Lord, seeing
I had a desire to see them, they being the place for the priests and
fryers, he took me back to my Lord Almoner; and he took us quite through
the whole house and chapel, and the new monastery, showing me most
excellent pieces in wax-worke: a crucifix given by a Pope to