and did himself observe to him (Sir G. Carteret), how those very people, meaning the Prince and Duke of Albemarle, are punished in the same kind as they did seek to abuse my Lord Sandwich.  Thence away, and got a hackney coach and carried my wife home, and there only drank, and myself back again to my Lord Treasurer’s, where the King, Duke of York, and Sir G. Carteret and Lord Arlington were and none else, so I staid not, but to White Hall, and there meeting nobody I would speak with, walked into the Park and took two or three turns all alone, and then took coach and home, where I find Mercer, who I was glad to see, but durst [not] shew so, my wife being displeased with her, and indeed I fear she is grown a very gossip.  I to my chamber, and there fitted my arguments which I had promised Mr. Gawden in his behalf in some pretences to allowance of the King, and then to supper, and so to my chamber a little again, and then to bed.  Duke of Buckingham not heard of yet.

18th.  Up betimes, and to the office to write fair my paper for D. Gawden against anon, and then to other business, where all the morning.  D. Gawden by and by comes, and I did read over and give him the paper, which I think I have much obliged him in.  A little before noon comes my old good friend, Mr. Richard Cumberland,—­[Richard Cumberland, afterwards Bishop of Peterborough]—­to see me, being newly come to town, whom I have not seen almost, if not quite, these seven years.  In his plain country-parson’s dress.  I could not spend much time with him, but prayed him come with his brother, who was with him, to dine with me to-day; which he did do and I had a great deal of his good company; and a most excellent person he is as any I know, and one that I am sorry should be lost and buried in a little country town, and would be glad to remove him thence; and the truth is, if he would accept of my sister’s fortune, I should give L100 more with him than to a man able to settle her four times as much as, I fear, he is able to do; and I will think of it, and a way how to move it, he having in discourse said he was not against marrying, nor yet engaged.  I shewed him my closet, and did give him some very good musique, Mr. Caesar being here upon his lute.  They gone I to the office, where all the afternoon very busy, and among other things comes Captain Jenifer to me, a great servant of my Lord Sandwich’s, who tells me that he do hear for certain, though I do not yet believe it, that Sir W. Coventry is to be Secretary of State, and my Lord Arlington Lord Treasurer.  I only wish that the latter were as fit for the latter office as the former is for the former, and more fit than my Lord Arlington.  Anon Sir W. Pen come and talked with me in the garden, and tells me that for certain the Duke of Richmond is to marry Mrs. Stewart, he having this day brought in an account of his estate and debts to the King on that account.  At night home to supper and so to bed.  My father’s letter this day do tell me of his own continued illness, and that my mother grows so much worse, that he fears she cannot long continue, which troubles me very much.  This day, Mr. Caesar told me a pretty experiment of his, of angling with a minikin, a gut-string varnished over, which keeps it from swelling, and is beyond any hair for strength and smallness.  The secret I like mightily.