5th.  Early in the morning Mr. Hill comes to string my theorbo,

[The theorbo was a bass lute.  Having gut strings it was played with the fingers.  There is a humorous comparison of the long waists of ladies, which came into fashion about 1621, with the theorbo, by Bishop Corbet: 

         “She was barr’d up in whale-bones, that did leese
          None of the whale’s length, for they reached her knees;
          Off with her head, and then she hath a middle
          As her waste stands, just like the new found fiddle,
          The favourite Theorbo, truth to tell ye,
          Whose neck and throat are deeper than the belly.”

Corbet, ’Iter Boreale’.]

which we were about till past ten o’clock, with a great deal of pleasure.  Then to Westminster, where I met with Mr. Sheply and Mr. Pinkney at Will’s, who took me by water to Billingsgate, at the Salutation Tavern, whither by-and-by, Mr. Talbot and Adams came, and bring a great [deal of] good meat, a ham of bacon, &c.  Here we staid and drank till Mr. Adams began to be overcome.  Then we parted, and so to Westminster by water, only seeing Mr. Pinkney at his own house, where he shewed me how he had alway kept the Lion and Unicorn, in the back of his chimney, bright, in expectation of the King’s coming again.  At home I found Mr. Hunt, who told me how the Parliament had voted that the Covenant be printed and hung in churches again.  Great hopes of the King’s coming again.  To bed.

6th. (Shrove Tuesday.) I called Mr. Sheply and we both went up to my Lord’s lodgings at Mr. Crew’s, where he bade us to go home again, and get a fire against an hour after.  Which we did at White Hall, whither he came, and after talking with him and me about his going to sea, he called me by myself to go along with him into the garden, where he asked me how things were with me, and what he had endeavoured to do with my uncle to get him to do something for me but he would say nothing too.  He likewise bade me look out now at this turn some good place, and he would use all his own, and all the interest of his friends that he had in England, to do me good.  And asked me whether I could, without too much inconvenience, go to sea as his secretary, and bid me think of it.  He also began to talk of things of State, and told me that he should want one in that capacity at sea, that he might trust in, and therefore he would have me to go.  He told me also, that he did believe the King would come in, and did discourse with me about it, and about the affection of the people and City, at which I was full glad.  After he was gone, I waiting upon him through the garden till he came to the Hall, where I left him and went up to my office, where Mr. Hawly brought one to me, a seaman, that had promised Rio to him if he get him a purser’s place, which I think to endeavour to do.  Here comes my uncle Tom, whom I took to Will’s and drank with, poor man, he comes to inquire about the knights of Windsor, of which he desires to get to be one.