7 February 1684 – 13 February 1684

I dined with my Lord Keeper, , and walking alone with him some time in his gallery, we had discourse of music. He told me he had been brought up to it from a child, so as to sing his part at first sight. Then speaking of painting, of which he was also a great lover, and other ingenious matters, he desired me to come oftener to him.

I went this evening to visit that great and knowing virtuoso, Monsieur Justell. The weather was set in to an absolute thaw and rain; but the Thames still frozen.

After eight weeks missing the foreign posts, there came abundance of intelligence from abroad.

The Earl of Danby, late Lord-Treasurer, together with the Roman Catholic Lords impeached of high treason in the Popish Plot, had now their habeas corpus, and came out upon bail, after five years' imprisonment in the Tower. Then were also tried and deeply fined Mr. Hampden and others, for being supposed of the late plot, for which Lord Russell and Colonel Sidney suffered; as also the person who went about to prove that the Earl of Essex had his throat cut in the Tower by others; likewise Mr. Johnson, the author of that famous piece called Julian.