old that my Lord General Fleetwood told my lord that he
feared the King of Sweden is dead of a fever at Gottenburg.

4th. Lord's day. Before I went to church I sang Orpheus' Hymn to my
viall. After that to Mr. Gunning's, an excellent sermon upon charity.
Then to my mother to dinner, where my wife and the maid were come. After
dinner we three to Mr. Messum's where we met Mons. L'Impertinent, who
got us a seat and told me a ridiculous story how that last week he had
caused a simple citizen to spend; L80 in entertainments of him and some
friends of his upon pretence of some service that he would do him in his
suit after a widow. Then to my mother again, and after supper she and I
talked very high about religion, I in defence of the religion I was born
in. Then home.

5th. Early in the morning Mr. Hill comes to string my theorbo,

[The theorbo was a bass lute. Having gut strings it was played with
the fingers. There is a humorous comparison of the long waists of
ladies, which came into fashion about 1621, with the theorbo, by
Bishop Corbet:

"She was barr'd up in whale-bones, that did leese
None of the whale's length, for they reached her knees;
Off with her head, and then she hath a middle
As her waste stands, just like the new found fiddle,
The favourite Theorbo, truth to tell ye,
Whose neck and throat are deeper than the belly."

Corbet, 'Iter Boreale'.]

which we were about till past ten o'clock, with a great deal of
pleasure. Then to Westminster, where I met with Mr. Sheply and Mr.
Pinkney at Will's, who took me by water to Billingsgate, at the
Salutation Tavern, whither by-and-by, Mr. Talbot and Adams came, and
bring a great [deal of] good meat, a ham of bacon, &c. Here we staid
and drank till Mr. Adams began to be overcome. Then we parted, and so to
Westminster by water, only seeing Mr. Pinkney at his own house, where he
shewed me how he had alway kept the Lion and Unicorn, in the back of his
chimney, bright, in expectation of the King's coming again. At home
I found Mr. Hunt, who told me how the Parliament had voted that the
Covenant be printed and hung in churches again. Great hopes of the
King's coming again. To bed.

6th. (Shrove Tuesday.) I called Mr. Sheply and we both went up to my
Lord's lodgings at Mr. Crew's, where he bade us to go home again, and
get a fire against an hour after. Whic