before the King’s going out of town and proroguing the House.  At last the Councell risen, and Sir G. Carteret telling me what the Councell hath ordered about the ships designed to carry horse from Ireland to Portugall, which is now altered.  I got a coach and so home, sending the boat away without me.  At home I found my wife discontented at my being abroad, but I pleased her.  She was in her new suit of black sarcenet and yellow petticoat very pretty.  So to bed.

19th.  Long in bed, sometimes scolding with my wife, and then pleased again, and at last up, and put on my riding cloth suit, and a camelott coat new, which pleases me well enough.  To the Temple about my replication, and so to my brother Tom’s, and there hear that my father will be in town this week.  So home, the shops being but some shut and some open.  I hear that the House of Commons do think much that they should be forced to huddle over business this morning against the afternoon, for the King to pass their Acts, that he may go out of town.

[To ears accustomed to the official words of speeches from the throne at the present day, the familiar tone of the following extracts from Charles’s speech to the Commons, on the 1st of March; will be amusing:  “I will conclude with putting you in mind of the season of the year, and the convenience of your being in the country, in many respects, for the good and welfare of it; for you will find much tares have been sowed there in your absence.  The arrival of my wife, who I expect some time this month, and the necessity of my own being out of town to meet her, and to stay some time before she comes hither, makes it very necessary that the Parliament be adjourned before Easter, to meet again in the winter . . . . .  The mention of my wife’s arrival puts me in mind to desire you to put that compliment upon her, that her entrance into the town may be with more decency than the ways will now suffer it to be; and, to that purpose, I pray you would quickly pass such laws as are before you, in order to the amending those ways, and that she may not find Whitehall surrounded with water.”  Such a bill passed the Commons on the 24th June.  From Charles’s Speech, March 1st, 1662.—­B.]

But he, I hear since, was forced to stay till almost nine o’clock at night before he could have done, and then he prorogued them; and so to Gilford, and lay there.  Home, and Mr. Hunt dined with me, and were merry.  After dinner Sir W. Pen and his daughter, and I and my wife by coach to the Theatre, and there in a box saw “The Little Thief” well done.  Thence to Moorefields, and walked and eat some cheesecake and gammon of bacon, but when I was come home I was sick, forced to vomit it up again.  So my wife walking and singing upon the leads till very late, it being pleasant and moonshine, and so to bed.

10th.  Sir W. Pen and I did a little business at the office, and so home again.  Then comes Dean Fuller after we had dined, but I got something for him, and very merry we were for an hour or two, and I am most pleased with his company and goodness.  At last parted, and my wife and I by coach to the Opera, and there saw the 2nd part of “The Siege of Rhodes,” but it is not so well done as when Roxalana was there, who, it is said, is now owned by my Lord of Oxford.