are disputing which is the coward among them; and yet men that take
the greatest liberty of censuring others! Here, with him, very late, till
I could hardly get a coach or link willing to go through the ruines; but I
do, but will not do it again, being, indeed, very dangerous. So home and
to supper, and bed, my head most full of an answer I have drawn this noon
to the Committee of the Council to whom Carcasses business is referred to
be examined again.
10th. Up, and to the Office, and there finished the letter about
Carcasse, and sent it away, I think well writ, though it troubles me we
should be put to trouble by this rogue so much. At the office all the
morning, and at noon home to dinner, where I sang and piped with my wife
with great pleasure, and did hire a coach to carry us to Barnett
to-morrow. After dinner I to the office, and there wrote as long as my
eyes would give me leave, and then abroad and to the New Exchange, to the
bookseller's there, where I hear of several new books coming out--Mr.
Spratt's History of the Royal Society, and Mrs. Phillips's' poems. Sir
John Denham's poems are going to be all printed together; and, among
others, some new things; and among them he showed me a copy of verses of
his upon Sir John Minnes's going heretofore to Bullogne to eat a pig.
[The collected edition of Denham's poems is dated 1668. The verses
referred to are inscribed "To Sir John Mennis being invited from
Calice to Bologne to eat a pig," and two of the lines run
"Little Admiral John
To Bologne is gone."]
Cowley, he tells me, is dead; who, it seems, was a mighty civil, serious
man; which I did not know before. Several good plays are likely to be
abroad soon, as Mustapha and Henry the 5th. Here having staid and
divertised myself a good while, I home again and to finish my letters by
the post, and so home, and betimes to bed with my wife because of rising
betimes to-morrow.
11th (Lord's day). Up by four o'clock, and ready with Mrs. Turner to take
coach before five; which we did, and set on our journey, and got to the
Wells at Barnett by seven o'clock, and there found many people a-drinking;
but the morning is a very cold morning, so as we were very cold all the
way in the coach. Here we met Joseph Batelier, and I talked with him, and
here was W. Hewer also, and his uncle Steventon: so, after drinking three
glasses and the women nothing, we back by
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