ought to have gone with Lord Brouncker to Mr. Hooke this
morning betimes; but my Lord is taken ill of the gout, and says his new
lodgings have infected him, he never having had any symptoms of it till
now. So walked to Gresham College, to tell Hooke that my Lord could
not come; and so left word, he being abroad, and I to St. James's, and
thence, with the Duke of York, to White Hall, where the Board waited
on him all the morning: and so at noon with Sir Thomas Allen, and Sir
Edward Scott, and Lord Carlingford, to the Spanish Embassador's, where I
dined the first time. The Olio not so good as Sheres's. There was at
the table himself and a Spanish Countess, a good, comely, and witty
lady-three Fathers and us. Discourse good and pleasant. And here was an
Oxford scholar in a Doctor of Law's gowne, sent from the College where
the Embassador lay, when the Court was there, to salute him before his
return to Spain: This man, though a gentle sort of scholar, yet sat like
a fool for want of French or Spanish, but [knew] only Latin, which he
spoke like an Englishman to one of the Fathers. And by and by he and I
to talk, and the company very merry at my defending Cambridge against
Oxford: and I made much use of my French and Spanish here, to my great
content. But the dinner not extraordinary at all, either for quantity
or quality. Thence home, where my wife ill of those upon the maid's
bed, and troubled at my being abroad. So I to the office, and there till
night, and then to her, and she read to me the Epistle of Cassandra,
which is very good indeed; and the better to her, because recommended by
Sheres. So to supper, and to bed.

6th. Up, and by coach to Sir W. Coventry's, but he gone out. I by water
back to the Office, and there all the morning; then to dinner, and then
to the Office again, and anon with my wife by coach to take the ayre, it
being a noble day, as far as the Greene Man, mightily pleased with our
journey, and our condition of doing it in our own coach, and so home,
and to walk in the garden, and so to supper and to bed, my eyes being
bad with writing my journal, part of it, to-night.

7th. Up, and by coach to W. Coventry's; and there to talk with him a
great deal with great content; and so to the Duke of York, having a
great mind to speak to him about Tangier; but, when I come to it,
his interest for my Lord Middleton is such that I dare not. So to the
Treasury chamber, and then walked home round by the Excise Offic