Wednesday 18 January 1659/60

Annotations

• N M. Stolzenbach on Sun 19 Jan 2003, 02:03am

  Here

• N David Bell on Sun 19 Jan 2003, 10:27am

  What ciphers did Pepys use?

  We have a reference to a letter from Lord Montagu, with the note that ciphers were a popular entertainment, but the combination doesn’t quite ring true. With the people he’s involved with, would they be using a cipher in a letter for entertainment? I think not.

  There’s certainly scope for people to be using the puzzle aspect as a mask for more serious uses, though cryptography was quite a serious business, even without the science that developed.

  Alternatively, was the reference to a letter written in a shorthand, as were Pepys diaries?

  It does suggest there was something special about the letter, however it was written, and also something special about Pepys relationship with Montagu. Who would you trust with a cipher system, in that time and place?

• N Bored on Sun 19 Jan 2003, 11:04am

  I wonder if Pepys ever mentions seeing any of Shakespeares plays, who died in 1616?

• N Roger Miller on Sun 19 Jan 2003, 11:20am

  Cryptology: I happened across this survey of of cryptology in the 16th and 17th Centuries:-
  http://home.att.net/~tleary/cryptolo.htm

  It seems to me to be a bit like those secret drawers that you sometimes find in old pieces of furniture. They could be places to hide things or they could be just displays of ingenuity.

  Or possibly both.

• N Fred Coleman on Sun 19 Jan 2003, 03:30pm

  The Diary mentions quite a few of Shakespeare’s plays that Pepys attended. A few that come to mind include “Merry Wives of Windsor”, “The Tempest”, “Henry IV, Part 1”, “Othello” and “Midsummer’s Night Dream”. He could be very critical. Of the latter he wrote, “the most insipid, ridiculous play that I ever saw in my life”.

• N Susanna on Sun 19 Jan 2003, 07:33pm

  Pepys’ Cipher

  Let us hope for his and Montague’s sake that they were using a polyalphabetic subsitution cipher, though a simple substitution cipher is more likely for the time period. The former is much more difficult to break.

• N mary on Sun 19 Jan 2003, 09:33pm

  Pepys does mention seeing at least one Shakespeare play. I don’t remember which one it was, but he wasn’t impressed.

• N Eric Walla on Sun 19 Jan 2003, 10:27pm

  Re: Monk’s decision

  I keep imagining all “men of means” walking around with preoccupied looks on their faces, doing as little as necessary. Imagine the indecision that reigned in all their minds, the damper it put upon their every action or avowal of allegiance.

  It is as if the broader cast is just waiting for the major players to appear on the scene. Will we have a comedy, tragedy or farce?

• N David Bell on Sun 19 Jan 2003, 11:07pm

  Pepys’ Cipher

  According to David Kahn’s “The Codebreakers”, there was a statute of 1657 which established a postal service, and provided for the interception of mail. A little further down the page is written, “Nevertheless, most men of affairs were aware of the practice of opening private letters, and the often enciphered their correspondence or entrusted it to private messengers when secrecy was essential.”

  (This is near the end of chapter 6.)

  Perhaps this casts some light on Pepys’ earlier efforts to send a letter to Lord Montagu at Hinchenbrooke.

  I still wonder if the letter from Montagu was written in a shorthand rather than in any code or cipher.

  Or just dreadful handwriting?
  

• N Paul Chapin on Tue 21 Jan 2003, 04:49am

  By “all the world” Pepys obviously means “everybody in and around London”, using the phrase in the sense of French “tout le monde”. You can’t do that in contemporary American English - does British English still allow this usage? (apologia - I’m a linguist by trade, and these things catch my attention)

• N Grahamt on Wed 22 Jan 2003, 01:24pm

  We don’t say “all the world” to mean everybody in normal speech in British English, but we do use the cliche “the world and his dog” to mean emphatically everyone. Here, “the world” is obviously being used in the same sense as Pepys used it. I guess “Invent a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door” is a similar usage.