say my Lord Chesterfield,
groom of the stole to the Queen, is either gone or put away from the
Court upon the score of his lady's having smitten the Duke of York, so
as that he is watched by the Duchess of York, and his lady is retired
into the country upon it. How much of this is true, God knows, but it is
common talk. After dinner I did reckon with Mrs. Sarah for what we have
eat and drank here, and gave her a crown, and so took coach, and to the
Duke's House, where we saw "The Villaine" again; and the more I see it,
the more I am offended at my first undervaluing the play, it being very
good and pleasant, and yet a true and allowable tragedy. The house was
full of citizens, and so the less pleasant, but that I was willing to
make an end of my gaddings, and to set to my business for all the year
again tomorrow. Here we saw the old Roxalana in the chief box, in a
velvet gown, as the fashion is, and very handsome, at which I was glad.
Hence by coach home, where I find all well, only Sir W. Pen they say ill
again. So to my office to set down these two or three days' journall,
and to close the last year therein, and so that being done, home to
supper, and to bed, with great pleasure talking and discoursing with my
wife of our late observations abroad.

2nd. Lay long in bed, and so up and to the office, where all the morning
alone doing something or another. So dined at home with my wife, and in
the afternoon to the Treasury office, where Sir W. Batten was paying off
tickets, but so simply and arbitrarily, upon a dull pretence of doing
right to the King, though to the wrong of poor people (when I know
there is no man that means the King less right than he, or would trouble
himself less about it, but only that he sees me stir, and so he would
appear doing something, though to little purpose), that I was weary of
it. At last we broke up, and walk home together, and I to see Sir W.
Pen, who is fallen sick again. I staid a while talking with him, and so
to my office, practising some arithmetique, and so home to supper and
bed, having sat up late talking to my poor wife with great content.

3rd. Up and to the office all the morning, and dined alone with my wife
at noon, and then to my office all the afternoon till night, putting
business in order with great content in my mind. Having nothing now
in my mind of trouble in the world, but quite the contrary, much joy,
except only the ending of our difference with my uncle Thomas, a