Friday 17 February 1659/60

Annotations

• N Alan Bedford on Tue 18 Feb 2003, 12:34am

  Okay, I’ll bite. What’s the significance of “the 27th year” that prevented Sam and Elizabeth from attending his uncle’s wedding feast?

• N Bert Winther on Tue 18 Feb 2003, 01:00am

  Alan, this is how I read it: SP thinks the 27th wedding anniversary of a distant relative is no big deal and decides to forego the invitation.

• N steve h on Tue 18 Feb 2003, 02:10am

  Small pox

  Samllpox was the major epidemic disease in Europe in the 17th century, when it really took off. It was a major problem in London in this period, with what seem to be a new series of epidemics from 1659 onward. Demographers believe that factors promoting smallpox in England included low temperatures in winter, low rainfall in autumn, crowding in the city, and malnutrition. Living in London was bad for your health.

  It’s one of the great sadnesses of history that smallpox was seemingly eradicated in the 1970s, one of the great triumphs of public health and global cooperation, yet we now have to worry about it again.

• N Bert Winther on Tue 18 Feb 2003, 02:14am

  Alan, here

• N Pauline on Tue 18 Feb 2003, 04:15am

  “…some of the members of the House had this day laid in firing into their lodgings…”
  Bert, Steve: And this?

• N language hat on Tue 18 Feb 2003, 04:39am

  firing (OED):

  7a Material for a fire, fuel.

  1555 Ridley in Contemp. Rev. (1878) XXXI. 771 To give him both meat, drink, clothing, and firing. 1591 Greene Disc. Coosnage (1592) 23 Fewel or fiering, being a thing necessary. 1667 Pepys Diary 24 Aug., The bells rung; but no bonfires.. any where,

• N Wulf Losee on Tue 18 Feb 2003, 05:16am

  “…and there drank a cup or two to the King…”

  This is the first indication that Pepys is a royalist, or at least sympathetic to the monarchy. Or am I misreading something here?

  —Wulf

• N PHE on Tue 18 Feb 2003, 01:08pm

  a drink to the King
  This is a highly significant milestone in Pepys’s political evolution given that he observed the execution of Charles I, and although only in his teens at the time, was a Roundhead sympathiser. Pressumably it’s more than conincidence that his changing allegiances reflected those of Montagu. Even if he did not discuss the matter directly with Montagu, I suspect evereyone was watching the changing mood very carefully and go along with it as much as was reasonable for self protection.

• N Sari Magaziner on Tue 18 Feb 2003, 03:31pm

  The reference to the instrument man, Mr.Hill, is very familiar to all string players, because the venerated instrument house of W.E. Hill and Sons,(in London from the 1800’s to the l970’s)took great pride in this entry. However, the biography of Arthur Bultitude,one of W.E.Hill’s bow makers, in tracing the geneology of the Hill family, now clearly disputes the claim.Nevertheless,those of us who have Hill bows, instruments, or certificates will probably go right on quoting Pepys’ mention with pleasure.
  

• N Mike Bursell on Tue 18 Feb 2003, 04:22pm

  This isn’t the first reference to Pepys’ royalist tendencies. On January 30th, we had a reference to the song he wrote to about Charles I, and he remembers the anniversary of his death.

• N Derek on Tue 18 Feb 2003, 04:36pm

  I’d just been wondering if ‘Mr Hills’ should actually be ‘Mr Hill’ and whether there was any connection with the legendary 19 & 20th century firm of luthiers and dealers, went off to do a little research and returned to find Sari had had the same idea. The genealogy may be challenged but Violinman.com lists the following makers:

  HILL, JOSEPH I, London, 1660.
  HILL, JOSEPH II, London, b. 1715, d. 1784.
  HILL, LOCKEY, London, b. 1756, d. 1810.
  HILL, WILLIAM, London, b. 1745, d. 1790.
  HILL, WILLLIAM EBSWORTH, London, b. 1817, d. 1895.
  HILL AND SONS, London, 140 New Bond St. W. One of the largest and highest
  class violin-making institutions in the world. The present members of the
  firm are William Hill, Arthur Fred Hill, William Henry Hill and Walter E.
  Hill.

  http://www.violinman.com/Violin_Family/LUTHERIE/makers.htm

  It certainly suggest the likelihood of a dynastic business, with the first Joseph being Sam’s man. The prestigious company apparently relocated to Great Missenden in 1975 and went out of business in the early 1990s.

• N j a gioia on Tue 18 Feb 2003, 04:53pm

  a toast to the king

  today we get a clear sense of sam’s anxiety over civil affairs - “so that we are at a great stand to think what will become of things” - as well as his own tenuous position in life, “I am about; 40l. beforehand in the world, and that is all”. he also loves his homely social pleasures; food and drink; his music making and his circle of family and friends. the king - *any* king - would certainly be a much desired post of stability for him.

• N Sari Magaziner on Tue 18 Feb 2003, 05:50pm

  Derek, the information I cited was in “Arthur Bultitude and the Hill Tradition” by Saddler, published in l999, in which the Hill family is traced.It does sound very convincing in refuting the family connection to Pepys’ man. W.E. Hill and Sons was on New Bond Street until the land lease was up, and then they left for Missenden. One of the Hills, George, still is still available for confirming records, etc.

  
  

• N language hat on Tue 18 Feb 2003, 07:18pm

  “about 40l. beforehand in the world”:

  This means he has

• N David Quidnunc on Tue 18 Feb 2003, 07:38pm

  40 l. beforehand

  This is the second of Pepys’s reckonings of his wealth (would “net worth” be a good term?), according to Robert Latham’s index volume to the diary (under the heading “Finances” and subheading “Amount of Personal Wealth in Cash,” p 103).

  Sometime last month (I forget the date, and Latham only gives a page number), Pepys was also worth 40 l., so he’s holding steady. In the index volume, the list of page numbers and amounts of money goes on for a quarter of a page (about 100 mentions), ending in Volume 8 (late 1667).

• N Roger Miller on Tue 18 Feb 2003, 07:57pm

  Gunning’s weekly fast?

  Since fasting means abstaining from eating and drinking how did Pepys observe a fast after first dining with Hawly and then later drinking at both Jacob’s and Harper’s?

• N michael f vincent on Tue 18 Feb 2003, 08:54pm

  “40l. beforehand in the world, and that is all.”
  He appears not to count the salable items, only coin.
  Was it kept in a vase? just a thought.
  My misqote of the day, the one I live by.
  “Happy is the ladd that earns a guinea
  and spends a pound.
  Unhappy is the ladd that earns a pound
  and spends a guinea.”

• N helena murphy on Tue 18 Feb 2003, 09:04pm

  pepys does not appear to have been a commotted royalist but like all ambitious men, especially of the “middling sort” or middle class he was astutely taking note of what way the political winds were blowing.We must remember that the tide had only turned for the parliamentarians after 1645 with the emergence of the new model army.From 1642-1645 the royalists had had decisive victories. The foundation stone of the commonwealth and protedorate governments had been military might due to a superior army which ironically was paid for by the levelling of greter taxation on all the population by parliament.These governments never had a popular mandate to rule but their rule did indcate the saying that might is right.

• N M.Stolzenbach on Tue 18 Feb 2003, 09:05pm

  Mr. Gunning’s Fast

  Feb. 17 being a Friday that year, I presumed that Mr. Gunning marked Fridays with a special sermon and probably prayers; the Book of Common Prayer does as I recall designate the Fridays of the year for “fasting.”

  Then again, perhaps Mr. Gunning simply felt that in the difficult times that were upon the nation, a special day of fasting and prayer for guidance was indicated. These have been held as recently as the ones Abraham Lincoln declared during the American Civil War.

  It’s also possible that Pepys had marked the “fast” by “abstinence,” that is, not eating meat - which is often called “fasting” - at his noonday dinner. But I rather doubt it.

• N Ann on Tue 18 Feb 2003, 10:06pm

  He may have meant “fasting” as a meatless day. The Anglican Church was rooted in Roman Catholicism. Catholics still “fast” on certain days (Ash Wednesday, Fridays during lent). This means no meat at your one meal of the day. Only light snacks to “maintain strength” for the rest of the day. When I was growing up, we fasted every friday, which meant fish sticks or macaroni and glue — I mean cheese — for lunch.
  

• N JonTom Kitttredge on Tue 18 Feb 2003, 10:42pm

  Pepys and Politics
  I basically agree with those who say that Mr. Pepys was always very conscious of the way the wind blew. He had thrown in his lot with his patron, Edward Montague, and Montague had, or was about to, throw in his lot with the restorationists.

  On the other hand, I doubt that it would be accurate to paint Pepys as nothing but a cynical timeserver. He had been a roundhead in his youth, but I think that his developing royalist leanings reflect a genuine enthusiasm. For one thing, he is so frank in his diary, that I think it would be clear if he were drinking those secret toasts were just to gain favor with the coming side.

  Of course it is clear by the events of the last month that the mood of London, if not the country, has swung toward restoration. In this case it may have been hard for Pepys himself, just as it can be us, to separate what are his own beliefs from what is the general mood of his time.

• N James Casey on Wed 19 Feb 2003, 09:18am

  It’s the comments like ‘M. L’Impertinent’ that really make bring the man out of the literature.

• N EIS on Wed 19 Feb 2003, 08:17pm

  The Parliamentarians did not win
  the English Civil war entirely through
  ‘the levelling of greater taxation on all the population’. They were able to secure decisive victories against the royalist forces after the Scots had joined them in an alliance against the king in 1644, an action which certainly occured primarily as a result of King Charles’s unwanted interference in the Scottish Presbyterian Church.

• N Glyn on Fri 8 Aug 2003, 09:16pm

  a cup of ale at Jacob’s

  It was in Threadneedle Street near the Royal Exchange and what is now the Bank of England. It soon changed from a tavern to a coffee house.

• N Arnfinn Stölen on Wed 7 Dec 2005, 08:30pm

  Concerning the instrument maker Hills: I have actually in my custody a very old but well playable instrument with the label of Joseph Hills, Hay Market 2, dated LONDON 82. The history of the instrument in Norway is obscure, but the cultural relations with England were always close. The authenticity of this instrument should then in any case require an s in the spelling of the name for Joseph Hills 1660 in Violin Man’s list.Joseph Hill born 1715 then hardly was the son, but of course may have been a nephew or grandson. But why should he change the name? What do the labels in his instruments say?