am a fool
for doing it. So to bed by daylight, I having a very great cold, so as
I doubt whether I shall be able to speak to-morrow at our attending the
Duke, being now so hoarse.

18th. Up and after taking leave of Sir W. Batten, who is gone this day
towards Portsmouth (to little purpose, God knows) upon his survey, I
home and spent the morning at dancing; at noon Creed dined with us and
Mr. Deane Woolwich, and so after dinner came Mr. Howe, who however had
enough for his dinner, and so, having done, by coach to Westminster, she
to Mrs. Clerke and I to St. James's, where the Duke being gone down by
water to-day with the King I went thence to my Lord Sandwich's lodgings,
where Mr. Howe and I walked a while, and going towards Whitehall through
the garden Dr. Clerk and Creed called me across the bowling green,
and so I went thither and after a stay went up to Mrs. Clerke who was
dressing herself to go abroad with my wife. But, Lord! in what a poor
condition her best chamber is, and things about her, for all the outside
and show that she makes, but I found her just such a one as Mrs. Pierce,
contrary to my expectation, so much that I am sick and sorry to see it.
Thence for an hour Creed and I walked to White Hall, and into the Park,
seeing the Queen and Maids of Honour passing through the house going to
the Park. But above all, Mrs. Stuart is a fine woman, and they say now a
common mistress to the King,

[The king said to 'la belle' Stuart, who resisted all his
importunities, that he hoped he should live to see her "ugly and
willing" (Lord Dartmouth's note to Burnet's "Own Time," vol. i.,
p. 436, ed. 1823).]

as my Lady Castlemaine is; which is a great pity. Thence taking a coach
to Mrs. Clerke's, took her, and my wife, and Ashwell, and a Frenchman,
a kinsman of hers, to the Park, where we saw many fine faces, and one
exceeding handsome, in a white dress over her head, with many others
very beautiful. Staying there till past eight at night, I carried
Mrs. Clerke and her Frenchman, who sings well, home, and thence home
ourselves, talking much of what we had observed to-day of the poor
household stuff of Mrs. Clerke and mere show and flutter that she makes
in the world; and pleasing myself in my own house and manner of living
more than ever I did by seeing how much better and more substantially I
live than others do. So to supper and bed.

19th. Up pretty betimes, but yet I observe how my dancing and