re, which is,
that I cannot blame my wife to be now in a worse humour than she used to
be, for I am taken up in my talk with Ashwell, who is a very witty girl,
that I am not so fond of her as I used and ought to be, which now I do
perceive I will remedy, but I would to the Lord I had never taken
any, though I cannot have a better than her. To supper and to bed.
The consideration that this is the longest day in the year is very
unpleasant to me.--[It is necessary to note that this was according to
the old style.]--This afternoon my wife had a visit from my Lady Jeminah
and Mr. Ferrers.

12th. Up and my office, there conning my measuring Ruler, which I shall
grow a master of in a very little time. At noon to the Exchange and so
home to dinner, and abroad with my wife by water to the Royall Theatre;
and there saw "The Committee," a merry but indifferent play, only
Lacey's part, an Irish footman, is beyond imagination. Here I saw my
Lord Falconbridge, and his Lady, my Lady Mary Cromwell, who looks as
well as I have known her, and well clad; but when the House began to
fill she put on her vizard,

[Masks were commonly used by ladies in the reign of Elizabeth, and
when their use was revived at the Restoration for respectable women
attending the theatre, they became general. They soon, however,
became the mark of loose women, and their use was discontinued by
women of repute. On June 1st, 1704, a song was sung at the theatre
in Lincoln's Inn Fields called "The Misses' Lamentation for want of
their Vizard Masques at the Theatre." Mr. R. W. Lowe gives several
references to the use of vizard masks at the theatre in his
interesting biography, "Thomas Betterton."]

and so kept it on all the play; which of late is become a great fashion
among the ladies, which hides their whole face. So to the Exchange, to
buy things with my wife; among others, a vizard for herself. And so by
water home and to my office to do a little business, and so to see Sir
W. Pen, but being going to bed and not well I could not see him. So
home and to supper and bed, being mightily troubled all night and next
morning with the palate of my mouth being down from some cold I took
to-day sitting sweating in the playhouse, and the wind blowing through
the windows upon my head.

13th. Up and betimes to Thames Street among the tarr men, to look the
price of tarr and so by water to Whitehall thinking to speak with Si