merry man. We were very merry and played at cards till late and so broke
up and to bed in good hopes that this my friendship with my uncle and aunt
will end well.

27th. Up and to the office, and at noon to the Coffeehouse, where I sat
with Sir G. Ascue

[Sir George Ayscue or Askew. After his return from his imprisonment
he declined to go to sea again, although he was twice afterwards
formally appointed. He sat on the court-martial on the loss of the
"Defiance" in 1668.]

and Sir William Petty, who in discourse is, methinks, one of the most
rational men that ever I heard speak with a tongue, having all his notions
the most distinct and clear, and, among other things (saying, that in all
his life these three books were the most esteemed and generally cried up
for wit in the world "Religio Medici," "Osborne's Advice to a Son,"

[Francis Osborne, an English writer of considerable abilities and
popularity, was the author of "Advice to a Son," in two parts,
Oxford, 1656-8, 8vo. He died in 1659. He is the same person
mentioned as "My Father Osborne," October 19th, 1661.--B.]

and "Hudibras "), did say that in these--in the two first principally--the
wit lies, and confirming some pretty sayings, which are generally like
paradoxes, by some argument smartly and pleasantly urged, which takes with
people who do not trouble themselves to examine the force of an argument,
which pleases them in the delivery, upon a subject which they like;
whereas, as by many particular instances of mine, and others, out of
Osborne, he did really find fault and weaken the strength of many of