but so little is now made of it!  He observes that my Lord Sandwich will lose a great friend in him; and I think so too, my Lord Hinchingbroke being about a match calculated purely out of respect to my Lord Chancellor’s family.  By and by Sir G. Carteret, and Townsend, and I, to consider of an answer to the Commissioners of the Treasury about my Lord Sandwich’s profits in the Wardrobe; which seem, as we make them, to be very small, not L1000 a-year; but only the difference in measure at which he buys and delivers out to the King, and then 6d. in the pound from the tradesmen for what money he receives for him; but this, it is believed, these Commissioners will endeavour to take away.  From him I went to see a great match at tennis, between Prince Rupert and one Captain Cooke, against Bab.  May and the elder Chichly; where the King was, and Court; and it seems are the best players at tennis in the nation.  But this puts me in mind of what I observed in the morning, that the King, playing at tennis, had a steele-yard carried to him, and I was told it was to weigh him after he had done playing; and at noon Mr. Ashburnham told me that it is only the King’s curiosity, which he usually hath of weighing himself before and after his play, to see how much he loses in weight by playing:  and this day he lost 4 lbs.  Thence home and took my wife out to Mile End Green, and there I drank, and so home, having a very fine evening.  Then home, and I to Sir W. Batten and [Sir] W. Pen, and there discoursed of Sir W. Coventry’s leaving the Duke of York, and Mr. Wren’s succeeding him.  They told me both seriously, that they had long cut me out for Secretary to the Duke of York, if ever [Sir] W. Coventry left him; which, agreeing with what I have heard from other hands heretofore, do make me not only think that something of that kind hath been thought on, but do comfort me to see that the world hath such an esteem of my qualities as to think me fit for any such thing.  Though I am glad, with all my heart, that I am not so; for it would never please me to be forced to the attendance that that would require, and leave my wife and family to themselves, as I must do in such a case; thinking myself now in the best place that ever man was in to please his own mind in, and, therefore, I will take care to preserve it.  So to bed, my cold remaining though not so much upon me.  This day Nell, an old tall maid, come to live with us, a cook maid recommended by Mr. Batelier.

3rd.  All the morning, business at the office, dined at home, then in the afternoon set my wife down at the Exchange, and I to St. James’s, and there attended the Duke of York about the list of ships that we propose to sell:  and here there attended Mr. Wren the first time, who hath not yet, I think, received the Duke of York’s seal and papers.  At our coming hither, we found the Duke and Duchesse all alone at dinner, methought melancholy; or else I thought so, from the late occasion of the Chancellor’s fall, who, they say, however, takes it very contentedly.  Thence I to White Hall a little, and so took up my wife at the ’Change, and so home, and at the office late, and so home to supper and to bed, our boy ill.