m the Parliament.
So I to Westminster Hall, and there met my good friend Mr. Evelyn, and
walked with him a good while, lamenting our condition for want of good
council, and the King's minding of his business and servants. I out to
the Bell Taverne, and thither comes Doll to me . . . ., and after an
hour's stay, away and staid in Westminster Hall till the rising of the
house, having told Mr. Evelyn, and he several others, of my Gazette which
I had about me that mentioned in April last a plot for which several were
condemned of treason at the Old Bayly for many things, and among others
for a design of burning the city on the 3rd of September. The house sat
till three o'clock, and then up: and I home with Sir Stephen Fox to his
house to dinner, and the Cofferer with us. There I find Sir S. Fox's lady,
a fine woman, and seven the prettiest children of theirs that ever I knew
almost. A very genteel dinner, and in great state and fashion, and
excellent discourse; and nothing like an old experienced man and a
courtier, and such is the Cofferer Ashburnham. The House have been mighty
hot to-day against the Paper Bill, showing all manner of averseness to
give the King money; which these courtiers do take mighty notice of, and
look upon the others as bad rebells as ever the last were. But the
courtiers did carry it against those men upon a division of the House, a
great many, that it should be committed; and so it was: which they reckon
good news. After dinner we three to the Excise Office, and there had long
discourse about our monies, but nothing to satisfaction, that is, to shew
any way of shortening the time which our tallies take up before they
become payable, which is now full two years, which is 20 per, cent. for
all the King's money for interest, and the great disservice of his Majesty
otherwise. Thence in the evening round by coach home, where I find
Foundes his present, of a fair pair of candlesticks, and half a dozen of
plates come, which cost him full L50, and is a very good present; and here
I met with, sealed up, from Sir H. Cholmly, the lampoone, or the
Mocke-Advice to a Paynter,

[In a broadside (1680), quoted by Mr. G. T. Drury in his edition of
Waller's Poems, 1893, satirical reference is made to the fashionable
form of advice to the painters

"Each puny brother of the rhyming trade
At every turn implores the Painter's aid,
And fondly enamoured