inelli at Charing Crosse, which is prettier
and prettier, and so full of variety that it is extraordinary good
entertainment. Thence by coach home, that is, my wife home, and I to the
Exchange, and there met with Fenn, who tells me they have yet no orders
out of the Exchequer for money upon the Acts, which is a thing not to
be borne by any Prince of understanding or care, for no money can be got
advanced upon the Acts only from the weight of orders in form out of
the Exchequer so long time after the passing of the Acts. So home to
the office a little, where I met with a sad letter from my brother, who
tells me my mother is declared by the doctors to be past recovery, and
that my father is also very ill every hour: so that I fear we shall see
a sudden change there. God fit them and us for it! So to Sir W. Pen's,
where my wife was, and supped with a little, but yet little mirth, and
a bad, nasty supper, which makes me not love the family, they do all
things so meanly, to make a little bad show upon their backs. Thence
home and to bed, very much troubled about my father's and my mother's
illness.

21st. Up, and to the office, where sat all the morning. At noon home to
dinner, and had some melancholy discourse with my wife about my mother's
being so ill and my father, and after dinner to cheer myself, I having
the opportunity of Sir W. Coventry and the Duke of York's being out
of town, I alone out and to the Duke of York's play-house, where
unexpectedly I come to see only the young men and women of the house
act; they having liberty to act for their own profit on Wednesdays and
Fridays this Lent: and the play they did yesterday, being Wednesday, was
so well-taken, that they thought fit to venture it publickly to-day;
a play of my Lord Falkland's' called "The Wedding Night," a kind of
a tragedy, and some things very good in it, but the whole together, I
thought, not so. I confess I was well enough pleased with my seeing
it: and the people did do better, without the great actors, than I did
expect, but yet far short of what they do when they are there, which I
was glad to find the difference of. Thence to rights home, and there
to the office to my business hard, being sorry to have made this scape
without my wife, but I have a good salvo to my oath in doing it. By and
by, in the evening, comes Sir W. Batten's Mingo to me to pray me to come
to his master and Sir Richard Ford, who have very ill news to tell me.
I knew what it w