f sitting, which is such a Bill as do speak
very high proceedings, to the lessening of the King; and this they will
carry, and whatever else they desire, before they will give any money; and
the King must have money, whatever it cost him. I stepped to the Dog
Tavern, and thither come to me Doll Lane, and there we did drink together,
and she tells me she is my valentine . . . . Thence, she being gone,
and having spoke with Mr. Spicer here, whom I sent for hither to discourse
about the security of the late Act of 11 months' tax on which I have
secured part of my money lent to Tangier. I to the Hall, and there met
Sir W. Pen, and he and I to the Beare, in Drury Lane, an excellent
ordinary, after the French manner, but of Englishmen; and there had a good
fricassee, our dinner coming to 8s., which was mighty pretty, to my great
content; and thence, he and I to the King's house, and there, in one of
the upper boxes, saw "Flora's Vagarys," which is a very silly play; and
the more, I being out of humour, being at a play without my wife, and she
ill at home, and having no desire also to be seen, and, therefore, could
not look about me. Thence to the Temple, and there we parted, and I to
see Kate Joyce, where I find her and her friends in great ease of mind,
the jury having this day given in their verdict that her husband died of a
feaver. Some opposition there was, the foreman pressing them to declare
the cause of the feaver, thinking thereby to obstruct it: but they did
adhere to their verdict, and would give no reason; so all trouble is now
over, and she safe in her estate, which I am mighty glad of, and so took
leave, and home, and up to my wife, not owning my being at a play, and
there she shews me her ring of a Turky-stone set with little sparks of
dyamonds,

[The turquoise. This stone was sometimes referred to simply as the
turkey, and Broderip ("Zoological Recreations") conjectured that the
bird (turkey) took its name from the blue or turquoise colour of the
skin about its head.]

which I am to give her, as my Valentine, and I am not much troubled at it.
It will cost me near L5--she costing me but little compared with other
wives, and I have not many occasions to spend on her. So to my office,
where late, and to think upon my observations to-morrow, upon the report
of the Committee to the Parliament about the business of tickets, whereof
my head is full, and so home to supper and to bed.

1