I went up again
to Sir W. Pen, and took my wife home, and after supper to prayers, and
read very seriously my vowes, which I am fearful of forgetting by my
late great expenses, but I hope in God I do not, and so to bed.

19th. Waked with a very high wind, and said to my wife, "I pray God
I hear not of the death of any great person, this wind is so high!"
fearing that the Queen might be dead. So up; and going by coach with
Sir W. Batten and Sir J. Minnes to St. James's, they tell me that Sir
W. Compton, who it is true had been a little sickly for a week or
fortnight, but was very well upon Friday at night last at the Tangier
Committee with us, was dead--died yesterday: at which I was most
exceedingly surprised, he being, and so all the world saying that he
was, one of the worthyest men and best officers of State now in England;
and so in my conscience he was: of the best temper, valour, abilities
of mind, integrity, birth, fine person, and diligence of any one man he
hath left behind him in the three kingdoms; and yet not forty years old,
or if so, that is all.

[Sir William Compton (1625-1663) was knighted at Oxford, December
12th, 1643. He was called by Cromwell "the sober young man and the
godly cavalier." After the Restoration he was M.P. for Cambridge
(1661), and appointed Master of the Ordnance. He died in Drury
Lane, suddenly, as stated in the text, and was buried at Compton
Wynyates, Warwickshire.]

I find the sober men of the Court troubled for him; and yet not so as to
hinder or lessen their mirth, talking, laughing, and eating, drinking,
and doing every thing else, just as if there was no such thing, which is
as good an instance for me hereafter to judge of death, both as to the
unavoidableness, suddenness, and little effect of it upon the spirits of
others, let a man be never so high, or rich, or good; but that all die
alike, no more matter being made of the death of one than another,
and that even to die well, the praise of it is not considerable in the
world, compared to the many in the world that know not nor make anything
of it, nor perhaps to them (unless to one that like this poor gentleman,
who is one of a thousand, there nobody speaking ill of him) that will
speak ill of a man. Coming to St. James's, I hear that the Queen did
sleep five hours pretty well to-night, and that she waked and gargled
her mouth, and to sleep again; but that her pulse beats fast, beating
t