Annotations and comments

David G has posted 83 annotations/comments since 22 January 2016.

The most recent first…

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Third Reading

About Sunday 20 January 1660/61

David G  •  Link

After reading John Mathews’s question from 2017, I did a word search in the Diary and noticed that in April 1661, Pepys uses “diary” to refer to the volume in which he was recording his daily entries (that is, the usage that became more common a century later) and also uses “diarys” to refer to the entries he recorded for specific days, which is also still used occasionally, albeit most often as a verb.

About Thursday 27 December 1660

David G  •  Link

Dueling may have lasted longer in the US. For example, the original California constitution from 1849 provides as the penalty for dueling or acting as a second in a duel only the loss of the right to vote and disqualification from holding state office.

About Sunday 23 December 1660

David G  •  Link

I’m wondering whether the answer to MartinVT’s question is that the minister at St Olave’s Church has been spending his time drafting his magnum opus Christmas sermon and he therefore asked someone else (the “stranger”) to deliver the Sunday morning sermon the day before Christmas so he didn’t have to write two sermons. In fact, maybe the St Olave’s minister was previewing his Christmas sermon at the stranger’s church. We’ll never know, of course.

About Monday 26 November 1660

David G  •  Link

I have not located any verses by Robert Slingsby, but I did find a book that he published in 1660: A Discourse of the Navy, 1660, / by Sir Robert Slyngesbie. A copy is available on line at Hathitrust.org and hard copies are in the Harvard Library and the New York Public Library. When I then put "Robert Slyngesbie" into Google, I got many hits for vendors selling copies of the book, including, bizarrely, Walmart, but nothing further about poetry.

About Monday 26 November 1660

David G  •  Link

The prior commentators did not mention the Comptroller’s verses, which Sam apparently enjoyed. Curious as to what they were like, I checked some compilations of Restoration verse and ran a Google search but found nothing written by Slingsby. Before I research him at our local university library, does anyone know offhand whether any of Slingsby’s verses survived?

About Wednesday 31 October 1660

David G  •  Link

The commentators 20 years ago noted that Sam dropped the discussion of the dispute with Lady Davis about the leads after today, which is true, but a word search of the Diary reveals that he mentioned the leads in 105 diary entries, spread evenly over the diary period, and will have new disputes about the leads later on.

About Sunday 14 October 1660

David G  •  Link

San Diego Sarah makes a good point. Upper class women’s fashion included tight waists in the early 1660s so Barbara Villiers might have had trouble hiding her condition, though she was tall and only 19 in 1660, so maybe she was still able to get by at five months.

On the question posed 20 years ago about whether Sam carried writing implements when he was traveling on business, I assume that if he needed to write frequently and he couldn’t just go to an inn and request paper and ink, that’s what the boy was for. Although Sam only occasionally mentions the various boys he employed and even less occasionally the clerks who worked for him at the Navy Board, it’s likely that the boy and possibly a clerk would have accompanied him on what we now would refer to as business meetings or a business trip.

About Wednesday 26 September 1660

David G  •  Link

The Walter Raleigh model is unlikely. None of the nine references to tobacco in the Diary refers to smoking tobacco.

About Wednesday 26 September 1660

David G  •  Link

Probably not a smoke but from the occasional references to tobacco later on, maybe a worker might have had a chew. It’s a lovely image to picture the crew sitting around in the kitchen and talking with Sam while the plasterwork dries.

About Saturday 8 September 1660

David G  •  Link

Pepys’s role on the Navy Board at this point is reflected in his casual reference in today’s entry to the fact that Penn had sent for him (just as Sandwich had sent for him a few months before), as opposed to inviting him over for a glass of wine or calling on him, and that Pepys obeyed.

About Friday 10 August 1660

David G  •  Link

In response to the exchange ten years ago, Sam’s back pain could well have come from a kidney stone. I can personally attest that back pain is a symptom when a stone is passing!

About Thursday 26 July 1660

David G  •  Link

Returning to the discussion of 20 years ago about the potential dangers of traversing London late at night, I can't recall any instance in the diary when Sam says that he was robbed. He was afraid of theft, and he lost money due to carelessness, but I can't recall reading about an actual robbery (and this is my third time through the diary), which is interesting given that Sam frequently walks around London at night over the diary period.

About Sunday 3 June 1660

David G  •  Link

Though he would have been worth more if he had recognized right away that he should not play ninepins for money.

About Wednesday 16 May 1660

David G  •  Link

I agree that it's interesting that Montagu had Pepys translate into Latin for him. As San Diego Sarah notes, they both went to the same school (then Huntington Grammar School, now Hinchingbrooke School), where they certainly would have studied Latin. Perhaps Montagu didn't pay attention. I can't find any reference to Montagu attending Cambridge in any of the on-line sites but if he did enroll at Cambridge, proficient Latin would have been a requirement for entrance. (Responding to the exchange on the issue from 20 years ago, the Oxford women's colleges still required applicants to pass a Latin test as recently as 1973.)

About Saturday 7 April 1660

David G  •  Link

One thing that no one asked in the debate 20 years ago about the use of "caudle" in the Wheatley transcriptions of Thursday and Saturday is why Pepys would write out the word "cane" in longhand, rather than use shorthand, which would have been faster. I haven't looked at the original of Thursday's page but in the pages from the diary that I have seen, he usually uses longhand for names of people and places and I don't recall any instance in which he wrote a short, simple word in longhand. (Though I'm sure he must have done so from time to time - I just haven't seen it.) So is there a different explanation for Wheatley's "noted caudle" that L&M and the commentators in 2003 missed?

About Monday 27 February 1659/60

David G  •  Link

The Saffron Waldon tourist bureau has more information about the "very old" almshouse -- apparently roughly 200-250 years old at that point -- and about the cup that Sam drank from while visiting the almshouse:

"One purpose of the Guild [of Our Lady of Pity at Saffron Waldon, established in 1400] was to provide Almshouses for '13 poor men such as be lame, crooked, blind and bedridden and most at need.' Many local benefactors gave gifts of land and money. The infamous 16th-century Mazer Bowl, once drunk from and referred to by Samuel Pepys in his famous diary, was such a gift. Sold in 1929 to raise money for urgent roof repairs it is now in a private collection but a replica is on display in Saffron Walden Museum. By Act of Edward VI the Almshouse lands and estate were devolved to the King but he agreed to return them to the town in his name, and so they have continued. Since 1400 there has been a succession of buildings on the same site, housing local people of modest means through the centuries."
https://www.swalmshouses.org/about

Second Reading

About Friday 30 April 1669

David G  •  Link

After reading about the many errands that Sam completed today and the large sums we know he spent (the belt) or we can assume he spent (the coach work), it occurred to me that it feels like it has been years since he has said anything about the money coming in the door, in contrast to the first half of the diary when we heard about every shilling he received. Sam must be very comfortably off by now.

About Thursday 19 November 1668

David G  •  Link

I may be a bit slow on the uptake -- especially after nearly nine years of reading the diary and annotations every day -- but is the explanation for today's confrontation, and Bess's anger at Sam over the past weeks, that she has learned to read Sam's shorthand and is looking at his entries in the diary when he's out, so she "knows all," as they say?

Bess must know that Sam writes in his diary most days, and after more than 3,000 diary entries, there has to have been at least a few occasions when she saw him writing and leaned over his shoulder to ask what he's doing and why the letters look so odd. As the Diary Encyclopedia's entry on shorthand reflects, Sam was using a fairly common shorthand to write the diary and Bess could easily have purchased one of Thomas Shelton's guides to tachygraphy or perhaps Sam even kept a copy of a shorthand guide in the bookcase and she took a look at it.

About Sunday 21 June 1668

David G  •  Link

Any idea when Sam had supper? It must have been late if he went straight to bed afterwards, as the entry implies.