time that
I have seen him, or we waited on him, since his sickness; and, blessed be
God! he is not at all the worse for the smallpox, but is only a little
weak yet. We did much business with him, and so parted. My Lord Anglesey
told me how my Lord Northampton brought in a Bill into the House of Lords
yesterday, under the name of a Bill for the Honour and Privilege of the
House, and Mercy to my Lord Clarendon: which, he told me, he opposed,
saying that he was a man accused of treason by the House of Commons; and
mercy was not proper for him, having not been tried yet, and so no mercy
needful for him. However, the Duke of Buckingham and others did desire
that the Bill might be read; and it, was for banishing my Lord Clarendon
from all his Majesty's dominions, and that it should be treason to have
him found in any of them: the thing is only a thing of vanity, and to
insult over him, which is mighty poor I think, and so do every body else,
and ended in nothing, I think. By and by home with Sir J. Minnes, who
tells me that my Lord Clarendon did go away in a Custom-house boat, and is
now at Callis (Calais): and, I confess, nothing seems to hang more heavy
than his leaving of this unfortunate paper behind him, that hath angered
both Houses, and hath, I think, reconciled them in that which otherwise
would have broke them in pieces; so that I do hence, and from Sir W.
Coventry's late example and doctrine to me, learn that on these sorts of
occasions there is nothing like silence; it being seldom any wrong to a
man to say nothing, but, for the most part, it is to say anything. This
day, in coming home, Sir J. Minnes told me a pretty story of Sir Lewes
Dives, whom I saw this morning speaking with him, that having escaped once
out of prison through a house of office, and another time in woman's
apparel, and leaping over a broad canal, a soldier swore, says he, this is
a strange jade . . . . He told me also a story of my Lord Cottington,
who, wanting a son, intended to make his nephew his heir, a country boy;
but did alter his mind upon the boy's being persuaded by another young
heir, in roguery, to crow like a cock at my Lord's table, much company
being there, and the boy having a great trick at doing that perfectly. My
Lord bade them take away that fool from the table, and so gave over the
thoughts of making him his heir, from this piece of folly. So home, and
there to dinner, and after dinner abroad with my wife and girle