ceeding well done. We eat with great pleasure, and I enjoyed myself in it with reflections upon the pleasures which I at best can expect, yet not to exceed this; eating in silver plates, and all things mighty rich and handsome about me. Till dark at dinner, and then broke up with great pleasure, especially to myself; and they away, only Mr. Carteret and I to Gresham College, where they meet now weekly again, and here they had good discourse how this late experiment of the dog, which is in perfect good health, may be improved for good uses to men. Here was Mr. Henry Howard,' that will hereafter be Duke of Norfolk, who is admitted this day into the Society, and being a very proud man, and one that values himself upon his family, writes his name, as he do every where, Henry Howard of Norfolke. Thence home and there comes my Lady Pen Pegg and Mrs. Turner and played at cards and supped with us, and were mighty merry, and so spent the evening and then broke up, and I to bed, my mind mightily pleased with the day's entertainment.

29th. I late at the office, and all the newes I hear put into a letter this night to my Lord Brouncker at Chatham, thus:

I

"I doubt not of your lordship's hearing of Sir Thomas Clifford's succeeding Sir H. Pollard' in the Comptrollership of the King's house; but perhaps our ill, but confirmed, tidings from the Barbadoes may not have reached you yet, it coming but yesterday; viz., that about eleven ships, whereof two of the King's, the Hope and Coventry, going thence with men to attack St. Christopher's, were seized by a violent hurricane, and all sunk-two only of thirteen

1 See note in "Life," vol. i.

2 Sir Hugh Pollard, Bart., M.P. for Devonshire. Ob. Nov. 27, 1666.

1

escaping, and those with loss of masts, &c. My Lord Willoughby1 himself is involved in the disaster, and I think two ships thrown upon an island of the French, and so all the men, to 500, become their prisoners. 'Tis said, too, that eighteen Dutch menof-war are passed the Channell, in order to meet with our Smyrna ships; and some, I hear, do fright us with the King of Sweden's seizing our mast-ships at Gottenburgh. But we have too much ill newes true, to afflict ourselves with what is uncertain. That which I hear from Scotland is, the Duke of York's saying, yesterday, that he is confident the LieutenantGenerall there hath driven them into a pound, somewhere towards the mountains."

To show how mad we are at home, here, and unfit for any troubles : my Lord St. John did, a day or two since, openly pull a gentleman in Westminster Hall by the nose, one Sir Andrew Henly, while the Judges were upon their benches, and the other gentleman did give him a rap over the pate with his cane, of which fray the Judges, they say, will make a great matter: men are only sorry the gentleman did proceed to return a blow; for, otherwise, my Lord would have been soundly fined for the affront, and may be yet for his affront to the Judges.

30th. To White Hall; and pretty to see, it being St. Andrew's day, how some few did wear St. Andrew's crosse; but most did make a mockery at it, and the House of Parliament, contrary to practice, did sit also: people having no mind to observe the Scotch saints' days till they hear better newes from Scotland. Thence home, and just overtook my cozen Roger Pepys, Mrs. Turner, Dike, and Joyce Norton,

1 Francis Willoughby, fourth Lord Willoughby of Parham, drowned at Barbadoes in 1666.

2 Of Hartshill, Hants; and of Henley, Somersetshire. He was created a Baronet in June, 1660, and died about 1675.

coming by invitation to dine with me.

These ladies

Mrs. Turner

I have not seen since before the plague. is come to towne to look after her things in her house, but all is lost. She is quite weary of the country, but cannot get her husband to let her live here any more, which troubles her mightily. She was mighty angry with me, that in all this time I never wrote to her, which I do think and take to myself as a fault, and which I have promised to mend. Here I had a noble and costly dinner for them, dressed by a man-cooke, as that the other days was, and pretty merry we were, as I could be with this company and so great a change.

December 1st. Walking to the Old Swan, I did see a cellar in Tower Streete in a very fresh fire, the late great winds having blown it up.' It seemed to be only of log-wood, that hath kept the fire all this while in it. Going further, I met my late Lord Mayor Bludworth, under whom the City was burned. But, Lord! the silly talk that this silly fellow had, only how ready he would be to part with all his estate in these difficult times to advocate the King's service, and complaining that now, as every body did lately in the fire, every body endeavours to save himself, and let the whole perish: but a very weak man he seems to be. By coach home, in the evening, calling at Faythorne's, buying three of my Lady Castlemaine's heads, printed this day, which indeed is, as to the head, I think, a very fine picture, and like her. I did this afternoon get Mrs. Michell to let me only have a sight of a pamphlet lately printed, but sup

1 The fire continued burning in some cellars of the ruins of the city for four months, though it rained in the month of October ten days without ceasing.-RUGGE'S Diurnal.

2 See 7th Nov., ante. A fine impression of this now very rare print was purchased for the Duke of Buckingham, at Bindley's sale, in 1819, for 79.; and resold at the Stowe sale, in 1849, for 337.

pressed and much called after, called "The Catholique's Apology;" lamenting the severity of the Parliament against them, and comparing it with the lenity of other princes to Protestants; giving old and late instances of their loyalty to their princes, whatever is objected against them; and excusing their disquiets in Queen Elizabeth's time, for that it was impossible for them to think her a lawfull Queen, if Queen Mary, who had been owned as such, were so; one being the daughter of the true, and the other of a false wife: and that of the Gunpowder Treason, by saying that it was only the practice of some of us, if not the King, to trepan some of their religion into it, it never being defended by the generality of their Church, nor indeed known by them; and ends with a large Catalogue, in red letters, of the Catholiques which have lost their lives in the quarrel of the late King and this. The thing is very well writ indeed.

2nd. (Lord's day.) My wife and I to Mr. Martin's, where find the company almost all come to the christening of Mrs. Martin's child, a girl. A great deal of good plain company. After sitting long, till the church was done, the Parson comes, and then we to christen the child. I was Godfather, and Mrs. Holder, her husband, a good man, I know well, and a pretty lady, that waits, it seems, on my Lady Bath,2 at White Hall, her name, Mrs. Noble, were God

1 "An Apology in behalf of the Papists," by Roger Palmer, first Earl of Castlemaine. The piece has not his name, but it was answered by Lloyd, Bishop of St. Asaph, in 1667; and Lord Castlemaine and Robert Pugh, a secular priest, his assistant, published a reply to the Bishop, in 1668. Both the Earl's pamphlets were seized by order of the House of Commons.— WALPOLE'S Noble Authors.

2 Lady Bath was Rachel, daughter of Francis, Earl of Westmoreland, widow of Henry Bourchier, Earl of Bath. She afterwards married Lionel Cranfield, third Earl of Middlesex.

mothers. After the christening comes in the wine and the sweetmeats, and then to prate and tattle, and then very good company they were, and I among them. Here was old Mrs. Michell and Howlett, and several of the married women of the Hall, whom I knew mayds. Here was also Mrs. Burroughs and Mrs. Bales, the young widow, whom I led home, and having staid till the moon was up, I took my pretty gossip' to White Hall with us, and I saw her in her lodging, and then my owne company again took coach, and no sooner in the coach but something broke, that we were fain there to stay till a smith could be fetched, which was above an hour, and then it costing me 6s. to mend. Away round by the wall and Cow Lane, for fear it should break again, and in pain about the coach all the way. I went to Sir W. Batten's, and there I hear more ill newes still that all our New England fleete, which went out lately, are put back a third time by foul weather, and dispersed, some to one port and some to another; and their convoys also to Plymouth; and whether any of them be lost or not, we do not know. This, added to all the rest, do lay us flat in our hopes and courages, every body prophesying destruction to the nation.

3rd. Up, and, among a great number of people that came to speak with me, one was my Lord Peterborough's gentleman, who comes to me to dun me to get some money advanced for my Lord; and I de-. manding what newes, he tells me that at Court they begin to fear the business of Scotland more and more, and that the Duke of York intends to go to the North to raise an army, and that the King would have some of the nobility and others to go and assist; but they were so served the last year, among others

1 Mrs Noble.