rest a little alone to see whether it would abate, and W. Howe and I went down and walked in the gardens, which are very fine, and a pretty fountayne, with which I was finely wetted, and up to a banquetting house, with a very fine prospect, and so back to my father, who I found in such pain that I could not bear the sight of it without weeping, never thinking that I should be able to get him from thence, but at last, finding it like to continue, I got him to go to the coach, with great pain, and driving hard, he all the while in a most unsufferable torment (meeting in the way with Captain Ferrers going to my Lord, to tell him that my Lady Jemimah is come to town, and that Will Stankes is come with my father’s horses), not staying the coach to speak with any body, but once, in St. Paul’s Churchyard, we were forced to stay, the jogging and pain making my father vomit, which it never had done before.  At last we got home, and all helping him we got him to bed presently, and after half an hour’s lying in his naked bed (it being a rupture [with] which he is troubled, and has been this 20 years, but never in half the pain and with so great swelling as now, and how this came but by drinking of cold small beer and sitting long upon a low stool and then standing long after it he cannot tell) . . . .  After which he was at good ease, and so continued, and so fell to sleep, and we went down whither W. Stankes was come with his horses.  But it is very pleasant to hear how he rails at the rumbling and ado that is in London over it is in the country, that he cannot endure it.  He supped with us, and very merry, and then he to his lodgings at the Inne with the horses, and so we to bed, I to my father who is very well again, and both slept very well.

30th.  Up, and after drinking my morning draft with my father and W. Stankes, I went forth to Sir W. Batten, who is going (to no purpose as he uses to do) to Chatham upon a survey.  So to my office, where till towards noon, and then to the Exchange, and back home to dinner, where Mrs. Hunt, my father, and W. Stankes; but, Lord! what a stir Stankes makes with his being crowded in the streets and wearied in walking in London, and would not be wooed by my wife and Ashwell to go to a play, nor to White Hall, or to see the lyons,

     [The Tower menagerie, with its famous lions, which was one of the
     chief sights of London, and gave rise to a new English word, was not
     abolished until the early part of the present century.]

though he was carried in a coach.  I never could have thought there had been upon earth a man so little curious in the world as he is.  At the office all the afternoon till 9 at night, so home to cards with my father, wife, and Ashwell, and so to bed.

     ETEXT editor’s bookmarks: