ery
nation has a particular accent and tone in discourse, so as the tone of
one not to agree with or please the other, no more can the fashion of
singing to words, for that the better the words are set, the more they
take in of the ordinary tone of the country whose language the song
speaks, so that a song well composed by an Englishman must be better to
an Englishman than it can be to a stranger, or than if set by a stranger
in foreign words. Thence back to White Hall, and there saw the King come
out of chapel after prayers in the afternoon, which he is never at but
after having received the Sacrament: and the Court, I perceive, is quite
out of mourning; and some very fine; among others, my Lord Gerard, in
a very rich vest and coat. Here I met with my Lord Bellasses: and it is
pretty to see what a formal story he tells me of his leaving, his place
upon the death of my Lord Cleveland, by which he is become Captain of
the Pensioners; and that the King did leave it to him to keep the other
or take this; whereas, I know the contrary, that they had a mind to have
him away from Tangier. He tells me he is commanded by the King to go
down to the Northward to satisfy the Deputy Lieutenants of Yorkshire,
who have desired to lay down their commissions upon pretence of having
no profit by their places but charge, but indeed is upon the Duke of
Buckingham's being under a cloud (of whom there is yet nothing heard),
so that the King is apprehensive of their discontent, and sends him to
pacify them, and I think he is as good a dissembler as any man else, and
a fine person he is for person, and proper to lead the Pensioners, but
a man of no honour nor faith I doubt. So to Sir G. Carteret's again
to talk with him about Balty's money, and wrote a letter to Portsmouth
about part of it, and then in his coach, with his little daughter Porpot
(as he used to nickname her), and saw her at home, and her maid, and
another little gentlewoman, and so I walked into Moore Fields, and, as
is said, did find houses built two stories high, and like to stand; and
it must become a place of great trade, till the City be built; and
the street is already paved as London streets used to be, which is a
strange, and to mean unpleasing sight. So home and to my chamber about
sending an express to Portsmouth about Balty's money, and then comes
Mrs. Turner to enquire after her son's business, which goes but bad,
which led me to show her how false Sir W. Pen is to her