Diary, Aug/Sep 1664 | Page 7

hopes of the boy,
which pleases me, and at Chappell I there met Mr. Blagrave, who gives
a report of the boy, and he showed me him, and I spoke to him, and the
boy seems a good willing boy to come to me, and I hope will do well. I
am to speak to Mr. Townsend to hasten his clothes for him, and then he
is to come. So I walked homeward and met with Mr. Spong, and he
with me as far as the Old Exchange talking of many ingenuous things,
musique, and at last of glasses, and I find him still the same ingenuous
man that ever he was, and do among other fine things tell me that by
his microscope of his owne making he do discover that the wings of a
moth is made just as the feathers of the wing of a bird, and that most
plainly and certainly. While we were talking came by several poor
creatures carried by, by constables, for being at a conventicle. They go
like lambs, without any resistance. I would to God they would either
conform, or be more wise, and not be catched! Thence parted with him,
mightily pleased with his company, and away homeward, calling at
Dan Rawlinson, and supped there with my uncle Wight, and then home
and eat again for form sake with her, and then to prayers and to bed.

8th. Up and abroad with Sir W. Batten, by coach to St. James's, where
by the way he did tell me how Sir J. Minnes would many times
arrogate to himself the doing of that that all the Board have equal share
in, and more that to himself which he hath had nothing to do in, and
particularly the late paper given in by him to the Duke, the translation
of a Dutch print concerning the quarrel between us and them, which he
did give as his own when it was Sir Richard Ford's wholly. Also he told
me how Sir W. Pen (it falling in our discourse touching Mrs. Falconer)
was at first very great for Mr. Coventry to bring him in guests, and that
at high rates for places, and very open was he to me therein. After
business done with the Duke, I home to the Coffee-house, and so home
to dinner, and after dinner to hang up my fine pictures in my dining
room, which makes it very pretty, and so my wife and I abroad to the

King's play- house, she giving me her time of the last month, she
having not seen any then; so my vowe is not broke at all, it costing me
no more money than it would have done upon her, had she gone both
her times that were due to her. Here we saw "Flora's Figarys." I never
saw it before, and by the most ingenuous performance of the young
jade Flora, it seemed as pretty a pleasant play as ever I saw in my life.
So home to supper, and then to my office late, Mr. Andrews and I to
talk about our victualling commission, and then he being gone I to set
down my four days past journalls and expenses, and so home to bed.

9th. Up, and to my office, and there we sat all the morning, at noon
home, and there by appointment Mr. Blagrave came and dined with me,
and brought a friend of his of the Chappell with him. Very merry at
dinner, and then up to my chamber and there we sung a Psalm or two of
Lawes's, then he and I a little talke by ourselves of his kinswoman that
is to come to live with my wife, who is to come about ten days hence,
and I hope will do well. They gone I to my office, and there my head
being a little troubled with the little wine I drank, though mixed with
beer, but it may be a little more than I used to do, and yet I cannot say
so, I went home and spent the afternoon with my wife talking, and then
in the evening a little to my office, and so home to supper and to bed.
This day comes the newes that the Emperour hath beat the Turke;
[This was the battle of St. Gothard, in which the Turks were defeated
with great slaughter by the imperial forces under Montecuculli, assisted
by the confederates from the Rhine, and by forty troops of French
cavalry under Coligni. St. Gothard is in Hungary, on the river Raab,
near the frontier of Styria; it is about one hundred and twenty miles
south of Vienna, and thirty east of Gratz. The battle took place on the
9th Moharrem, A.H. 1075,