["Such an operation was performed in this year, after a consultation of medical men, and chiefly by Locke’s advice, and the wound was afterwards always kept open, a silver pipe being inserted.  This saved Lord Ashley’s life, and gave him health”—­Christie’s Life of the first Earl of Shaftesbury, vol. ii., p. 34.  ‘Tapski’ was a name given to Shaftesbury in derision, and vile defamers described the abscess, which had originated in a carriage accident in Holland, as the result of extreme dissipation.  Lines by Duke, a friend and imitator of Dryden: 

              “The working ferment of his active mind,
               In his weak body’s cask with pain confined,
               Would burst the rotten vessel where ’tis pent,
               But that ’tis tapt to give the treason vent.”]

At noon home to dinner, and thence by coach to White Hall, where we attended the Duke of York in his closet, upon our usual business.  And thence out, and did see many of the Knights of the Garter, with the King and Duke of York, going into the Privychamber, to elect the Elector of Saxony into that Order, who, I did hear the Duke of York say, was a good drinker:  I know not upon what score this compliment is done him.  Thence with W. Pen, who is in great pain of the gowte, by coach round by Holborne home, he being at every kennel full of pain.  Thence home, and by and by comes my wife and Deb. home, have been at the King’s playhouse to-day, thinking to spy me there; and saw the new play, “Evening Love,” of Dryden’s, which, though the world commends, she likes not.  So to supper and talk, and all in good humour, and then to bed, where I slept not well, from my apprehensions of some trouble about some business of Mr. Povy’s he told me of the other day.

20th.  Up, and talked with my wife all in good humour, and so to the office, where all the morning, and then home to dinner, and so she and I alone to the King’s house, and there I saw this new play my wife saw yesterday, and do not like it, it being very smutty, and nothing so good as “The Maiden Queen,” or “The Indian Emperour,” of his making, that I was troubled at it; and my wife tells me wholly (which he confesses a little in the epilogue) taken out of the “Illustre Bassa.”  So she to Unthanke’s and I to Mr. Povy, and there settled some business; and here talked of things, and he thinks there will be great revolutions, and that Creed will be a great man, though a rogue, he being a man of the old strain, which will now be up again.  So I took coach, and set Povy down at Charing Cross, and took my wife up, and calling at the New Exchange at Smith’s shop, and kissed her pretty hand, and so we home, and there able to do nothing by candlelight, my eyes being now constantly so bad that I must take present advice or be blind.  So to supper, grieved for my eyes, and to bed.

21st (Lord’s day).  Up, and to church, and home and dined with my wife and Deb. alone, but merry and in good humour, which is, when all is done, the greatest felicity of all, and after dinner she to read in the “Illustre Bassa” the plot of yesterday’s play, which is most exactly the same, and so to church I alone, and thence to see Sir W. Pen, who is ill again, and then home, and there get my wife to read to me till supper, and then to bed.