23rd.  Up, and with Sir W. Batten and Sir W. Pen to White Hall, and there to the Duke of York, and did our usual business.  Having done there, I to St. James’s, to see the organ Mrs. Turner told me of the other night, of my late Lord Aubigney’s; and I took my Lord Bruncker with me, he being acquainted with my present Lord Almoner, Mr. Howard, brother to the Duke of Norfolke; so he and I thither and did see the organ, but I do not like it, it being but a bauble, with a virginal! joining to it:  so I shall not meddle with it.  Here we sat and talked with him a good while, and he seems a good-natured gentleman:  here I observed the deske which he hath, [made] to remove, and is fastened to one of the armes of his chayre.  I do also observe the counterfeit windows there was, in the form of doors with looking-glasses instead of windows, which makes the room seem both bigger and lighter, I think; and I have some thoughts to have the like in one of my rooms.  He discoursed much of the goodness of the musique in Rome, but could not tell me how long musique had been in any perfection in that church, which I would be glad to know.  He speaks much of the great buildings that this Pope,

     [Fabio Chigi, of Siena, succeeded Innocent X. in 1655 as Alexander
     vii.  He died May, 1667, and was succeeded by Clement ix.]

whom, in mirth to us, he calls Antichrist, hath done in his time.  Having done with the discourse, we away, and my Lord and I walking into the Park back again, I did observe the new buildings:  and my Lord, seeing I had a desire to see them, they being the place for the priests and fryers, he took me back to my Lord Almoner; and he took us quite through the whole house and chapel, and the new monastery, showing me most excellent pieces in wax-worke:  a crucifix given by a Pope to Mary Queen of Scotts, where a piece of the Cross is;

[Pieces of “the Cross” were formerly held in such veneration, and were so common, that it has been often said enough existed to build a ship.  Most readers will remember the distinction which Sir W. Scott represents Louis xi. (with great appreciation of that monarch’s character), as drawing between an oath taken on a false piece and one taken on a piece of the true cross.  Sir Thomas More, a very devout believer in relics, says ("Works,” p. 119), that Luther wished, in a sermon of his, that he had in his hand all the pieces of the Holy Cross; and said that if he so had, he would throw them there as never sun should shine on them:—­and for what worshipful reason would the wretch do such villainy to the cross of Christ?  Because, as he saith, that there is so much gold now bestowed about the garnishing of the pieces of the Cross, that there is none left for poore folke.  Is not this a high reason?  As though all the gold that is now bestowed about the pieces of the Holy Cross would not have failed to have been given to poor men, if they