es.
25th (Lord's day). Up, and to my Office awhile, and thither comes Lead
with my vizard, with a tube fastened within both eyes; which, with
the help which he prompts me to, of a glass in the tube, do content
me mightily. So to church, where a stranger made a dull sermon, but I
mightily pleased to looks upon Mr. Buckworth's little pretty daughters,
and so home to, dinner, where W. Howe come and dined with us; and then
I to my Office, he being gone, to write down my journal for the last
twelve days: and did it with the help of my vizard and tube fixed to it,
and do find it mighty manageable, but how helpfull to my eyes this trial
will shew me. So abroad with my wife, in the afternoon, to the Park,
where very much company, and the weather very pleasant. I carried my
wife to the Lodge, the first time this year, and there in our coach eat
a cheese-cake and drank a tankard of milk. I showed her this day also
first the Prince of Tuscany, who was in the Park, and many very fine
ladies, and so home, and after supper to bed.
26th. Up, having lain long, and then by coach with W. Hewer to the
Excise Office, and so to Lilly's, the Varnishes; who is lately dead,
and his wife and brother keep up the trade, and there I left my French
prints to be put on boards:, and, while I was there, a fire burst out
in a chimney of a house over against his house, but it was with a gun
quickly put out. So to White Hall, and did a little business there at
the Treasury chamber, and so homeward, calling at the laceman's for some
lace for my new suit, and at my tailor's, and so home, where to dinner,
and Mr. Sheres dined, with us, who come hither to-day to teach my wife
the rules of perspective; but I think, upon trial, he thinks it too hard
to teach her, being ignorant of the principles of lines. After dinner
comes one Colonel Macnachan, one that I see often at Court, a Scotchman,
but know him not; only he brings me a letter from my Lord Middleton,
who, he says, is in great distress for L500 to relieve my Lord Morton
with, but upon, what account I know not; and he would have me advance it
without order upon his pay for Tangier, which I was astonished at, but
had the grace to deny him with an excuse. And so he went away, leaving
me a little troubled that I was thus driven, on a sudden, to do any
thing herein; but Creed, coming just now to see me, he approves of what
I have done. And then to talk of general matters, and, by and by, Sheres
being gone,
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