Chris Horry, afterthought: "Posset" is eggnog. "Sack posset" would be eggnog spiked with the "sack" of that era, or nowadays with another alcohol beverage like brandy, dark rum, or bourbon.
Regarding what happens in Hyde Park, there is a scene in the 2004 movie "Vanity Fair" (with Reese Witherspoon) which shows the many coaches circling the park, with some of the people in the coaches admiring others while a few, like Becky Sharp, deliberately "cut" (snub, I suppose) those they feel superior to.
"But here being in the court-yard, God would have it, I spied Deb. which made my heart and head to work, . . ."
This is exactly why Cupid is depicted with a bow strung with a dart that is devastatingly sharp, sharp enough to prick our masterful navy official back into obsessive, passionate love.
" . . . the Duke of York, who did eye my wife mightily." We all know Elizabeth was a great beauty and she must have been ogled by many, many more men than just the Duke of York, not to mention that the Earl of Sandwich had made an indecent proposal to her through an intermediary, asking if she'd become his mistress, to which she replied no. I think the reason she became so depressed and furious and depressed when she discovered Sam's moves on Deb is that she was thinking, "Here I've been a good wife, I resisted all these attractive, rich, dashing men and remained faithful when I was so much sought-after, and for what? To catch him in the act of attempting to seduce my maid!" And she couldn't forgive him because she regretted that she had wasted a lot of opportunities for romance.
"She is a mighty proper maid, and pretty comely, but so so;" There is a little town in Mississippi called SoSo, presumably because it is nothing special.
I'm glad to hear that Coventry, sick and tired of all this nonsense and foolishness at the highest level of government, retired to Minster Lovell in Oxfordshire, where we can hope he lived out the rest of his life enjoying such gentlemanly pursuits as growing roses and raising champion sows like P. G. Wodehouse's ninth earl.
" . . . my eyes being very ill since last Sunday and this day se’nnight . . . . "
Okay, this is Monday, and his eyes have been very ill since Sunday and Monday a week ago, which is what "this day [the Monday] se'nnight [seven nights ago]" means. It's sort of like the German for "a week from today," which is "heute in acht Tagen": "today in eight days [counting this day]."
At the King’s play-house, March 19, 1665-66: "[M]y business here was to see the inside of the stage and all the tiring-rooms and machines; and, indeed, it was a sight worthy seeing."
" . . . thence with them to Mrs. Gotier’s, the Queen’s tire-woman . . . ." "Mrs. Gotier" is glossed as "Mrs. Gaultier," which would be "Mrs. Walter" to us (and to Italians: Gualtier is the first name of the lecherous Duke of Mantua's "poor student" alter ego in "Rigoletto"). The "tiring" room at a theater of that period was the costuming area. (I believe there was also already a "green room" back then too, where actors waited for their cues to go onstage, same as "the talent" waits to go on in a "green room" (it doesn't have to be green!) today.
" . . . and meeting Mr. Sidney Montagu and Sheres . . . so home to my house to dinner, where I had a pretty handsome sudden dinner, . . . ."
No matter what her faults may be, Elizabeth Pepys is clearly an excellent manager of the Pepys's household. It's amazing that her servants are so well schooled that Elizabeth apparently has fine food ready to serve at any time ("a pretty handsome sudden dinner" for Lord Sandwich's son) and plenty of it, not to mention that she is able to trot off to the theater every day after dinner and Pepys can even opt to invite Lord Peterborough, Lord Sandwich, and the Duke of York(!) to come have a "bit of bread" at his house. And we hear no more of "washing day" and lighting the fire under the cauldron in the wee hours, so the staff are presumably managing all that on their own. Maybe this ability comes from her aristocratic French background, i.e, she was born to it.
TF commented: "Who are 'them'? This seems to be an all Catholic affray: Captain Francis Bromwich was a cousin-german (first cousin) of James, Duke of Ormonde, [and] was killed by Mr. Symonds, one of Queen-Mother Henrietta Maria's servants."
Okay then, to me, if all those folks are Catholic, "would they would kill more of them" means "would these Catholics would kill more of these Catholics."
There certainly is a lot of lethal violence in this entry, starting with the reference to Clun (although his sensational murder, which everybody probably knew about, is not actually mentioned). It's enough to make the question of whether Sam's "guard" was actually a bodyguard a legitimate query. I wonder if the trouble-making "hectors" were predominantly Catholic too.
In our condo association I'm in charge of decorating the facade, carriageway, and courtyard of our 1820 French Creole Townhouse in the French Quarter in New Orleans, so today (Epiphany) I'm removing the Christmas decorations and replacing them with Mardi Gras decorations. King cakes are a VERY big deal down here. They're supposed to have a little Baby Jesus (Christ as the King) baked into them, but nowadays the little baby is included separately with the cake and publicly poked inside it in real time after baking, not baked inside, in an effort on the part of bakers to keep from being sued if people choke on it. Recently the City of New Orleans pro basketball team was named the "Baby Cakes," but that was a marketing failure because very few people outside New Orleans knew what it meant.
In our condo association I'm in charge of decorating the facade, carriageway, and courtyard of our 1820 French Creole Townhouse in the French Quarter in New Orleans, so today (Epiphany) I'm removing the Christmas decorations and replacing them with Mardi Gras decorations. King cakes are a VERY big deal down here. They're supposed to have just one token, a little baby Jesus (Christ as the King), baked into them, but nowadays the little baby is included with the cake but separately poked inside it in real time, after baking, to prevent people from choking on it. Recently the City of New Orleans pro basketball team was named the "Baby Cakes," onviously an allusion to the "Baby Jesus" in the king cakes, but that was a marketing failure because very few people outside of New Orleans knew what it meant.
Happy 2022 to all. "Auld Lang Syne" is my song because Jan. 1st is my birthday. I'll be four tomorrow -- four score, that is :-). I've loved the diary and will miss all this terribly when it comes to an end.
I come from the American "Deep South" (Mississippi), which was mostly settled by people from the British Isles. My name is Dutch, and I was surprised to discover (thanks to Ancestry) that I'm 55% Scottish, 33% English, 5% Irish, only 4% Dutch, and 3% Welsh. Down here we have the expression " I didn't know him from Adam's all fox," meaning "I didn't know him at all." It never made any sense whatsoever, but everyone knew what it meant, so making sense didn't matter. It turns out that "Adam's all fox" is a corruption of "Adam's off ox," i.e., the right-side ox of Adam's pair of oxen. (Adam's near ox has no fame at all.)
Such a great entry! I can see it all in my mind's eye. I do wish he had said more about "Macbeth," my favorite play and opera, but it sounds as if there were rivals enough in the audience for Lady Macbeth's vehemence.
"and so by hackney coach to Brooke House . . . . " Coach-owner Sam had to hop a common hackney. Had Elizabeth commandeered the coach to track Deb? Liked the ubi Hewer poem, but Hewer would have been in big trouble if he had "stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed."
"I fear that Sam's physical fitness will decline, now that he's riding instead of walking." AnnieC, I also wondered if that might happen, but because of his daily schedule it probably won't. I feel sure Sam was very fit, not only because he walked a lot, but also because he lived on what we today would call an "intermittent fasting" regimen. He still had, perhaps, a "morning draught" (something we haven't heard of since the early years of the diary) but no food in the morning. Then he breaks his fast by "dining" around noon and "supping" around 6:00pm. That means he doesn't eat from 6:00pm one day until 12:00pm the next day, resulting in a "fast" of eighteen hours, which is the intermittent fasting routine that I and many others have adopted to lose weight, and I believe it would have kept him trim too, whether he walked or rode in his coach.
Comments
Third Reading
About Saturday 7 January 1659/60
LKvM • Link
Chris Horry, afterthought:
"Posset" is eggnog.
"Sack posset" would be eggnog spiked with the "sack" of that era, or nowadays with another alcohol beverage like brandy, dark rum, or bourbon.
About Saturday 7 January 1659/60
LKvM • Link
Chris Horry,
A sack posset sounds like eggnog.
Second Reading
About Sunday 9 May 1669
LKvM • Link
Regarding what happens in Hyde Park, there is a scene in the 2004 movie "Vanity Fair" (with Reese Witherspoon) which shows the many coaches circling the park, with some of the people in the coaches admiring others while a few, like Becky Sharp, deliberately "cut" (snub, I suppose) those they feel superior to.
About Tuesday 13 April 1669
LKvM • Link
"But here being in the court-yard, God would have it, I spied Deb. which made my heart and head to work, . . ."
This is exactly why Cupid is depicted with a bow strung with a dart that is devastatingly sharp, sharp enough to prick our masterful navy official back into obsessive, passionate love.
About Sunday 11 April 1669
LKvM • Link
" . . . the Duke of York, who did eye my wife mightily."
We all know Elizabeth was a great beauty and she must have been ogled by many, many more men than just the Duke of York, not to mention that the Earl of Sandwich had made an indecent proposal to her through an intermediary, asking if she'd become his mistress, to which she replied no.
I think the reason she became so depressed and furious and depressed when she discovered Sam's moves on Deb is that she was thinking, "Here I've been a good wife, I resisted all these attractive, rich, dashing men and remained faithful when I was so much sought-after, and for what? To catch him in the act of attempting to seduce my maid!"
And she couldn't forgive him because she regretted that she had wasted a lot of opportunities for romance.
About Thursday 18 March 1668/69
LKvM • Link
"She is a mighty proper maid, and pretty comely, but so so;"
There is a little town in Mississippi called SoSo, presumably because it is nothing special.
About Monday 8 March 1668/69
LKvM • Link
It's been years since he mentioned getting his "morning draught"!
About Saturday 6 March 1668/69
LKvM • Link
I'm glad to hear that Coventry, sick and tired of all this nonsense and foolishness at the highest level of government, retired to Minster Lovell in Oxfordshire, where we can hope he lived out the rest of his life enjoying such gentlemanly pursuits as growing roses and raising champion sows like P. G. Wodehouse's ninth earl.
About Monday 22 February 1668/69
LKvM • Link
" . . . my eyes being very ill since last Sunday and this day se’nnight . . . . "
Okay, this is Monday, and his eyes have been very ill since Sunday and Monday a week ago, which is what "this day [the Monday] se'nnight [seven nights ago]" means.
It's sort of like the German for "a week from today," which is "heute in acht Tagen": "today in eight days [counting this day]."
About Saturday 20 February 1668/69
LKvM • Link
At the King’s play-house, March 19, 1665-66:
"[M]y business here was to see the inside of the stage and all the tiring-rooms and machines; and, indeed, it was a sight worthy seeing."
About Saturday 20 February 1668/69
LKvM • Link
" . . . thence with them to Mrs. Gotier’s, the Queen’s tire-woman . . . ."
"Mrs. Gotier" is glossed as "Mrs.
Gaultier," which would be "Mrs. Walter" to us (and to Italians: Gualtier is the first name of the lecherous Duke of Mantua's "poor student" alter ego in "Rigoletto").
The "tiring" room at a theater of that period was the costuming area. (I believe there was also already a "green room" back then too, where actors waited for their cues to go onstage, same as "the talent" waits to go on in a "green room" (it doesn't have to be green!) today.
About Monday 18 January 1668/69
LKvM • Link
" . . . and meeting Mr. Sidney Montagu and Sheres . . . so home to my house to dinner, where I had a pretty handsome sudden dinner, . . . ."
No matter what her faults may be, Elizabeth Pepys is clearly an excellent manager of the Pepys's household. It's amazing that her servants are so well schooled that Elizabeth apparently has fine food ready to serve at any time ("a pretty handsome sudden dinner" for Lord Sandwich's son) and plenty of it, not to mention that she is able to trot off to the theater every day after dinner and Pepys can even opt to invite Lord Peterborough, Lord Sandwich, and the Duke of York(!) to come have a "bit of bread" at his house.
And we hear no more of "washing day" and lighting the fire under the cauldron in the wee hours, so the staff are presumably managing all that on their own.
Maybe this ability comes from her aristocratic French background, i.e, she was born to it.
About Monday 11 January 1668/69
LKvM • Link
". . . but would they would kill more of them."
TF commented:
"Who are 'them'? This seems to be an all Catholic affray: Captain Francis Bromwich was a cousin-german (first cousin) of James, Duke of Ormonde, [and] was killed by Mr. Symonds, one of Queen-Mother Henrietta Maria's servants."
Okay then, to me, if all those folks are Catholic, "would they would kill more of them" means "would these Catholics would kill more of these Catholics."
There certainly is a lot of lethal violence in this entry, starting with the reference to Clun (although his sensational murder, which everybody probably knew about, is not actually mentioned). It's enough to make the question of whether Sam's "guard" was actually a bodyguard a legitimate query.
I wonder if the trouble-making "hectors" were predominantly Catholic too.
About Wednesday 6 January 1668/69
LKvM • Link
In our condo association I'm in charge of decorating the facade, carriageway, and courtyard of our 1820 French Creole Townhouse in the French Quarter in New Orleans, so today (Epiphany) I'm removing the Christmas decorations and replacing them with Mardi Gras decorations.
King cakes are a VERY big deal down here. They're supposed to have a little Baby Jesus (Christ as the King) baked into them, but nowadays the little baby is included separately with the cake and publicly poked inside it in real time after baking, not baked inside, in an effort on the part of bakers to keep from being sued if people choke on it.
Recently the City of New Orleans pro basketball team was named the "Baby Cakes," but that was a marketing failure because very few people outside New Orleans knew what it meant.
About Wednesday 6 January 1668/69
LKvM • Link
In our condo association I'm in charge of decorating the facade, carriageway, and courtyard of our 1820 French Creole Townhouse in the French Quarter in New Orleans, so today (Epiphany) I'm removing the Christmas decorations and replacing them with Mardi Gras decorations.
King cakes are a VERY big deal down here. They're supposed to have just one token, a little baby Jesus (Christ as the King), baked into them, but nowadays the little baby is included with the cake but separately poked inside it in real time, after baking, to prevent people from choking on it.
Recently the City of New Orleans pro basketball team was named the "Baby Cakes," onviously an allusion to the "Baby Jesus" in the king cakes, but that was a marketing failure because very few people outside of New Orleans knew what it meant.
About Thursday 31 December 1668
LKvM • Link
Happy 2022 to all. "Auld Lang Syne" is my song because Jan. 1st is my birthday. I'll be four tomorrow -- four score, that is :-). I've loved the diary and will miss all this terribly when it comes to an end.
About Wednesday 30 December 1668
LKvM • Link
I come from the American "Deep South" (Mississippi), which was mostly settled by people from the British Isles. My name is Dutch, and I was surprised to discover (thanks to Ancestry) that I'm 55% Scottish, 33% English, 5% Irish, only 4% Dutch, and 3% Welsh.
Down here we have the expression " I didn't know him from Adam's all fox," meaning "I didn't know him at all."
It never made any sense whatsoever, but everyone knew what it meant, so making sense didn't matter. It turns out that "Adam's all fox" is a corruption of "Adam's off ox," i.e., the right-side ox of Adam's pair of oxen.
(Adam's near ox has no fame at all.)
About Monday 21 December 1668
LKvM • Link
Such a great entry! I can see it all in my mind's eye.
I do wish he had said more about "Macbeth," my favorite play and opera, but it sounds as if there were rivals enough in the audience for Lady Macbeth's vehemence.
About Friday 18 December 1668
LKvM • Link
"and so by hackney coach to Brooke House . . . . " Coach-owner Sam had to hop a common hackney. Had Elizabeth commandeered the coach to track Deb?
Liked the ubi Hewer poem, but Hewer would have been in big trouble if he had "stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed."
About Friday 4 December 1668
LKvM • Link
"I fear that Sam's physical fitness will decline, now that he's riding instead of walking."
AnnieC, I also wondered if that might happen, but because of his daily schedule it probably won't.
I feel sure Sam was very fit, not only because he walked a lot, but also because he lived on what we today would call an "intermittent fasting" regimen.
He still had, perhaps, a "morning draught" (something we haven't heard of since the early years of the diary) but no food in the morning.
Then he breaks his fast by "dining" around noon and "supping" around 6:00pm.
That means he doesn't eat from 6:00pm one day until 12:00pm the next day, resulting in a "fast" of eighteen hours, which is the intermittent fasting routine that I and many others have adopted to lose weight, and I believe it would have kept him trim too, whether he walked or rode in his coach.