lap, by Poussin, an admirable piece; with something of most other famous hands.

25th January. Dr. Dove1 preached before the King. I saw this evening such a scene of profuse gaming, and the King in the midst of his three concubines, as I have never before seen-luxurious dallying and profaneness.

2

27th. I dined at Lord Sunderland's, being invited to hear that celebrated voice of Mr. Pordage, newly come from Rome; his singing was after the Venetian recitative, as masterly as could be, and with an excellent voice both treble and bass; Dr. Wallgrave accompanied it with his theorbo lute,3 on which he performed beyond imagination, and is doubtless one of the greatest masters in Europe on that charming instrument. Pordage is a priest, as Mr. Bernard Howard' told me in private.

There was in the room where we dined, and in his bedchamber, those incomparable pieces of Columbus, a Flagellation, the Grammar-school, the Venus and Adonis of Titian; and of Vandyck's that picture of the late Earl of Digby (father of the Countess of Sunderland), and Earl of Bedford, Sir Kenelm Digby, and two ladies of incomparable performance; besides that of Moses and the burning bush of Bassano, and several other pieces of the best masters. A marble head of M. Brutus, etc.

5

28th. I was invited to my Lord Arundel of Wardour (now newly released of his six years' confinement in the Tower on suspicion of the plot called Oates's Plot), where after dinner the same Mr. Pordage entertained us with his voice, that excellent and stupendous artist, Signor John

1 [Henry Dove, 1640-95, Chaplain to Charles II.]

2 [The Duchess of Portsmouth, the Duchess of Cleveland, and the Duchess Mazarin.]

3 [See ante, vol. ii. p. 373. 5 See ante, vol. ii. p. 142.]

4 [See ante, vol. ii. p. 190.]