of Money is passed, they being never
likely to give him more; how he [the King] hath great opportunity of
making himself popular by stopping this Act against Conventicles; and
how my Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, if the Parliament continue,
will undoubtedly fall, he having managed that place with so much
self-seeking, and disorder, and pleasure, and some great men are
designing to overthrow [him], as, among the rest, my Lord Orrery; and
that this will try the King mightily, he being a firm friend to my Lord
Lieutenant. So home; and to supper a little, and then to bed, having
stepped, after I come home, to Alderman Backewell's about business, and
there talked a while with him and his wife, a fine woman of the country,
and how they had bought an estate at Buckeworth, within four mile of
Brampton.

4th. Up betimes, and by water to Charing Cross, and so to W. Coventry,
and there talked a little with him, and thence over the Park to White
Hall, and there did a little business at the Treasury, and so to the
Duke, and there present Balty to the Duke of York and a letter from the
Board to him about him, and the Duke of York is mightily pleased with
him, and I doubt not his continuance in employment, which I am glad of.
Thence with Sir H. Cholmly to Westminster Hall talking, and he crying
mightily out of the power the House of Lords usurps in this business of
the East India Company. Thence away home and there did business, and
so to dinner, my sister Michell and I, and thence to the Duke of York's
house, and there saw "The Impertinents" again, and with less pleasure
than before, it being but a very contemptible play, though there are
many little witty expressions in it; and the pit did generally say that
of it. Thence, going out, Mrs. Pierce called me from the gallery, and
there I took her and Mrs. Corbet by coach up and down, and took up
Captain Rolt in the street; and at last, it being too late to go to the
Park, I carried them to the Beare in Drury Lane, and there did treat
them with a dish of mackrell, the first I have seen this year, and
another dish, and mighty merry; and so carried her home, and thence home
myself, well pleased with this evening's pleasure, and so to bed.

5th. Up, and all the morning at the office. At noon home to dinner
and Creed with me, and after dinner he and I to the Duke of York's
playhouse; and there coming late, he and I up to the balcony-box, where
we find my Lady Castlemayne and several great la