corrected by Dryden. It is the most entire piece of mirth, a complete
farce from one end to the other, that certainly was ever writ. I never
laughed so in all my life. I laughed till my head [ached] all the evening
and night with the laughing; and at very good wit therein, not fooling.
The house full, and in all things of mighty content to me. Thence to the
New Exchange with my wife, where, at my bookseller's, I saw "The History
of the Royall Society," which, I believe, is a fine book, and have bespoke
one in quires. So home, and I to the office a little, and so to my
chamber, and read the history of 88--[See 10th of this month.]--in Speede,
in order to my seeing the play thereof acted to-morrow at the King's
house. So to supper in some pain by the sudden change of the weather cold
and my drinking of cold drink, which I must I fear begin to leave off,
though I shall try it as long as I can without much pain. But I find
myself to be full of wind, and my anus to be knit together as it is always
with cold. Every body wonders that we have no news from Bredah of the
ratification of the peace; and do suspect that there is some stop in it.
So to bed.

17th. Up, and all the morning at the office, where we sat, and my head
was full of the business of Carcasse, who hath a hearing this morning
before the Council and hath summonsed at least thirty persons, and which
is wondrous, a great many of them, I hear, do declare more against him
than for him, and yet he summonses people without distinction. Sure he is
distracted. At noon home to dinner, and presently my wife and I and Sir
W. Pen to the King's playhouse, where the house extraordinary full; and
there was the King and Duke of York to see the new play, "Queen
Elizabeth's Troubles and the History of Eighty Eight." I confess I have
sucked in so much of the sad story of Queen Elizabeth, from my cradle,
that I was ready to weep for her sometimes; but the play is the most
ridiculous that sure ever come upon the stage; and, indeed, is merely a