16th.  Up, and to the office, where sat all the morning, at noon home to dinner, and thence in haste to carry my wife to see the new play I saw yesterday, she not knowing it.  But there, contrary to expectation, find “The Silent Woman.”  However, in; and there Knipp come into the pit.  I took her by me, and here we met with Mrs. Horsley, the pretty woman—­an acquaintance of Mercer’s, whose house is burnt.  Knipp tells me the King was so angry at the liberty taken by Lacy’s, part to abuse him to his face, that he commanded they should act no more, till Moone went and got leave for them to act again, but not this play.  The King mighty angry; and it was bitter indeed, but very true and witty.  I never was more taken with a play than I am with this “Silent Woman,” as old as it is, and as often as I have seen it.  There is more wit in it than goes to ten new plays.  Thence with my wife and Knipp to Mrs. Pierce’s, and saw her closet again, and liked her picture.  Thence took them all to the Cake-house, in Southampton Market-place, where Pierce told us the story how, in good earnest, [the King] is offended with the Duke of Richmond’s marrying, and Mrs. Stewart’s sending the King his jewels again.  As she tells it, it is the noblest romance and example of a brave lady that ever I read in my life.  Pretty to hear them talk of yesterday’s play, and I durst not own to my wife to have seen it.  Thence home and to [Sir] W. Batten!’s, where we have made a bargain for the ending of some of the trouble about some of our prizes for L1400.  So home to look on my new books that I have lately bought, and then to supper and to bed.

17th.  Up, and with the two Sir Williams by coach to the Duke of York, who is come to St. James’s, the first time we have attended him there this year.  In our way, in Tower Street, we saw Desbrough walking on foot:  who is now no more a prisoner, and looks well, and just as he used to do heretofore.  When we come to the Duke of York’s I was spoke to by Mr. Bruncker on behalf of Carcasse.  Thence by coach to Sir G. Carteret’s, in London, there to pass some accounts of his, and at it till dinner, and then to work again a little, and then go away, and my wife being sent for by me to the New Exchange I took her up, and there to the King’s playhouse (at the door met with W. Joyce in the street, who come to our coach side, but we in haste took no notice of him, for which I was sorry afterwards, though I love not the fellow, yet for his wife’s sake), and saw a piece of “Rollo,” a play I like not much, but much good acting in it:  the house very empty.  So away home, and I a little to the office, and then to Sir Robert Viner’s, and so back, and find my wife gone down by water to take a little ayre, and I to my chamber and there spent the night in reading my new book, “Origines Juridiciales,” which pleases me.  So to supper and to bed.