I cannot keep my hair dry
without one), and so by water to White Hall, by the way hearing that the
Bishop of London had given a very strict order against boats going on
Sundays, and as I come back again, we were examined by the masters of
the company in another boat; but I told them who I was. But the door not
being open to Westminster stairs there, called in at the Legg and drank
a cup of ale and a toast, which I have not done many a month before, but
it served me for my two glasses of wine to-day. Thence to St. James's to
Mr. Coventry, and there staid talking privately with him an hour in his
chamber of the business of our office, and found him to admiration good
and industrious, and I think my most true friend in all things that
are fair. He tells me freely his mind of every man and in every thing.
Thence to White Hall chapel, where sermon almost done, and I heard
Captain Cooke's new musique. This the first day of having vialls and
other instruments to play a symphony between every verse of the anthem;
but the musique more full than it was the last Sunday, and very fine it
is.

[Charles II. determined to form his own chapel on the model of that
at Versailles. Twenty-four instrumentalists were engaged, and this
was the first day upon which they were brought into requisition.
Evelyn alludes to the change in his Diary, but he puts the date down
as the 21st instead of the 14th. "Instead of the antient, grave and
solemn wind musiq accompanying the organ, was introduc'd a concert
of 24 violins between every pause after the French fantastical light
way, better suiting a tavern or playhouse than a church. This was
the first time of change, and now we no more heard the cornet which
gave life to the organ, that instrument quite left off in which the
English were so skilful." A list of the twenty-four fiddlers in
1674, taken from an Exchequer document, "The names of the Gents of
his Majesties Private Musick paid out of the Exchequer," is printed
in North's "Memoires of Musick," ed. Rimbault, 1846, p. 98 (note).]

But yet I could discern Captain Cooke to overdo his part at singing,
which I never did before. Thence up into the Queen's presence, and there
saw the Queen again as I did last Sunday, and some fine ladies with her;
but, my troth, not many. Thence to Sir G. Carteret's, and find him to
have sprained his foot and is lame, but yet hath been at chapp