ouse, so that that street is like to be a very fine place. I
drank, but did not see Betty, and so to Charing Cross stairs, and thence
walked to Sir W. Coventry's,

[Sir William Coventry's love of money is said by Sir John Denham to
have influenced him in promoting naval officers, who paid him for
their commissions.

"Then Painter! draw cerulian Coventry
Keeper, or rather Chancellor o' th' sea
And more exactly to express his hue,
Use nothing but ultra-mariuish blue.
To pay his fees, the silver trumpet spends,
And boatswain's whistle for his place depends.
Pilots in vain repeat their compass o'er,
Until of him they learn that one point more
The constant magnet to the pole doth hold,
Steel to the magnet, Coventry to gold.
Muscovy sells us pitch, and hemp, and tar;
Iron and copper, Sweden; Munster, war;
Ashley, prize; Warwick, custom;
Cart'ret, pay;
But Coventry doth sell the fleet away."--B.]

and talked with him, who tells me how he hath been persecuted, and how he
is yet well come off in the business of the dividing of the fleete, and
the sending of the letter. He expects next to be troubled about the
business of bad officers in the fleete, wherein he will bid them name whom
they call bad, and he will justify himself, having never disposed of any
but by the Admiral's liking. And he is able to give an account of all
them, how they come recommended, and more will be found to have been
placed by the Prince and Duke of Albemarle than by the Duke of York during
the war, and as no bad instance of the badness of officers he and I did
look over the list of commanders, and found that we could presently
recollect thirty-seven commanders that have been killed in actuall service
this war. He tells me that Sir Fr. Hollis is the main man that hath
persecuted him hitherto, in the business of dividing the fleete, saying
vainly that the want of that letter to the Prince hath given him that,
that he shall remember it by to his grave, meaning the loss of his arme;
when, God knows! he is as idle and insignificant a fellow as ever come
into the fleete. He tells me that in discourse on Saturday he did repeat
Sir Rob. Howard's words about rowling out of counsellors, that for his
part he neither car