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Saturday 25 February 1659/60

To the Falcon, in the Petty Cury, where we found my father and brother very well. After dressing myself, about ten o’clock, my father, brother, and I to Mr. Widdririgton, at Christ’s College, who received us very civilly, and caused my brother to be admitted, while my father, he, and I, sat talking. After that done, we take leave. My father and brother went to visit some friends, Pepys’s, scholars in Cambridge, while I went to Magdalene College, to Mr. Hill, with whom I found Mr. Zanchy, Burton, and Hollins, and was exceeding civilly received by them. I took leave on promise to sup with them, and to my Inn again, where I dined with some others that were there at an ordinary. After dinner my brother to the College, and my father and I to my Cozen Angier’s, to see them, where Mr. Fairbrother came to us. Here we sat a while talking. My father he went to look after his things at the carrier’s, and my brother’s chamber, while Mr. Fairbrother, my Cozen Angier, and Mr. Zanchy, whom I met at Mr. Merton’s shop (where I bought ‘Elenchus Motuum’, having given my former to Mr. Downing when he was here), to the Three Tuns, where we drank pretty hard and many healths to the King, &c., till it began to be darkish: then we broke up and I and Mr. Zanchy went to Magdalene College, where a very handsome supper at Mr. Hill’s chambers, I suppose upon a club among them, where in their discourse I could find that there was nothing at all left of the old preciseness in their discourse, specially on Saturday nights. And Mr. Zanchy told me that there was no such thing now-a-days among them at any time. After supper and some discourse then to my Inn, where I found my father in his chamber, and after some discourse, and he well satisfied with this day’s work, we went to bed, my brother lying with me, his things not being come by the carrier that he could not lie in the College.

26 Feb 166024 Feb 1660

Also on this day

Temperature: 4°C / 39°F

  • (Average for February 1660)

In Earls Colne, Essex

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Translations

Annotations

  • “ordinary”: a fixed-price eatery.
    See the details at this earlier entry:
    http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1660/01/19/index.php#c643

  • “…an ordinary.”
    “Brit: a meal served to all comers at a fixed price.” (merriam webster)
    Used currently? Never heard it this side.

  • “Elenchus Motuum”:

    From http://www.history.rochester.edu/pennymag/229/death.htm :
    “Dr. Bate, one of the physicians of Oliver Cromwell, has given an account of his last sickness in the work entitled ‘Elenchus Motuum Nuperorum in Anglia.’ The Protector, encouraged by the assurances of this chaplains, imagined to the last that he should recover, and, with this expectation, consented to be removed from Hampton Court to London. On examination, there was increased vascularity of the brain and slight inflammation of the lungs, but the spleen was a mass of disease, and filled with matter like the lees of oil.”

    From a book site (http://www.thornbooks.com/cgi-bin/thb455/169-63.html):
    Title: A Short Narrative of the Late Troubles in England

    Author: (Bate, George)

    Description: First written in Latin by an Anonymous, for the information of Ferreners, and now don into English, for the behoof and pleasure of our Country-man. 1649. London: F. E. Robinson and Co., 1902. Translation of Bate’s Elenchus Motuum nuperorum in Anglia. One of 350 numbered copies on handmade paper. 8vo. Full vellum gilt, top edge gilt. Portrait of Charles I. Note on the binding by Cyril Davenport. Occasional spotting and rubbing of the vellum else a very good copy. The binding is a reproduction of one made for Charles, Prince of Wales, in 1624.

  • Wow! I though I was bumping into something when I clicked Post.

  • “Magdalene College … , where a very handsome supper at Mr. Hill’s chambers, I suppose upon a club among them, where in their discourse I could find that there was nothing at all left of the old preciseness in their discourse, … Mr. Zanchy told me that there was no such thing now-a-days among them at any time.”

    Pepys is always on the qui vive for good serious talk, but has his expectations disappointed at his old college—-made the keener, perhaps, because the dinner suggested a club had organized it. By his standards, decay would seem to have set in during the mere six years since he took his B.A. there.

  • “a club among them”, probably means that they “clubbed together” and bought the supper. Here “club” is a verb and not a noun.

  • “…there was nothing at all left of the old preciseness in their discourse, specially on Saturday nights.”
    I take this as a joke, meaning that the folks he was visiting at the college, like Sam, “drank pretty hard” on Saturday, with consequent loss of precision in conversation. At least it made me laugh.

  • Paul, I like your take…
    I was reading it with a laugh too: that everyone leaves their formal education to look back and disparage the slippage in standards. 343 years later, it is amazing that there is anything left to admire.

  • “After dressing myself, about ten o

  • Re:

  • Pauline, ‘Ordinary’ to describe a meal has long since fallen out of usage here in the UK - you’d get a very blank look if you walked into a pub and asked for a pint and the ordinary. I’ve always assumed it to mean something like the ‘plat de jour’ in a modern french cafe - the cheap and cheerful standard meal prepared for that day. If we had such a thing I’m sure modern marketing speech would deplore the negative connotations of the word ‘ordinary’ and come up with something like ‘regular meal’ anyway…

  • Scanning errors
    Perhaps this way lies madness (and please forgive me if I’m reopening a can of worms), but I wonder if the occasional correction of scanning errors in the journal entries might be possible. My reasoning is that this site follows the text of the 1893 ed., and errors due to the scanning for Project Gutenberg have nothing to do w/ the diaries either as they were written or edited. Such errors can also occasionally stand in our way of interpreting what Pepys wrote, as we saw a few days ago when the number 100 appeared as “too” instead.
    In order to save time and effort for everyone, what I have in mind is limiting corrections to substantial errors we can pretty reasonably trace to the transfer from print to an electronic medium. The purpose wd be to bring the text here to more closely reflect the 1893 text, absolutely not to make any enhancements or additions to it. I also propose that such corrections be made only if they are noticeable and important enough for readers to note in these annotations.
    This proposal still leaves a fair-sized grey area around what constitutes a “substantial” change, of course. I imagine some number of the stray commas in the entries are due to scanning glitches, but they don’t interfere with interpreting the sentences, and in any case they appear too regularly to be worth checking individually. “Too” for “100” obviously qualifies, but “Widdririgton” for “Widdrington” is debatable - on the one hand the name is still easily recognizable, but on the other, someone doing a search for the name would not pull up today’s entry.
    Actually, the longer I continue, the more time and confusion it sounds like this proposal could cause. I do keep thinking back, though, to reading “too” in the 23 Feb entry; if I were a casual reader who did not follow the annotations, I would absolutely not have been able to interpret what Sam was reporting there. At any rate, the thought is now submitted for consideration.

  • I’ve answered this point before Emilio, but I’m happy to do so again!

    Yes, there are errors in the text. The problem for me is that while some may obviously be due to the digitisation process, others might be more ambiguous. I don’t have the time or facilities to compare the digital text with the 1893 original and verify every word. And rather than create yet another version of the diaries I’m simply posting the Project Gutenberg version.

    I have contacted David Widger, the guy who digitised the diary for PG, and if anyone *emails* me corrections to the entries I will be periodically forwarding them on to him.

  • “there was nothing at all left of the old preciseness in their discourse”: in Claire Tomalin’s biography of Pepys she explains this as a change since the days when Cambridge was controlled by the Puritans, which would have been when Sam was there. Puritan speech was very “godly”, and in the educational setting involved “precise” discussions of biblical texts etc. This has already devolved into a more casual, worldly form of discourse, presaging the change to the distinctly “ungodly” character of the Restoration court.

  • I’m not up on the details of which faction controlled Cambridge, though Oxford was the Royalist capital for most of the First Civil War and Cambridge was securely in Parliamentarian territory.

    What does seem to be significant is that Sam also records that people are drinking toasts to the King. It’s not just a fading of Puritan Godliness in how people talk, it’s change in what they’re willing to talk about.

  • I thought that he was actually relieved, not disappointed, that the dinner conversation turned out to be informal and not the ‘precise’ academic or (as Rita points out above) Puritan-influenced style of discussion he remembers from his own time as a student.
    Imagine the alternative: being stuck at a dinner table on a Saturday night with your old teachers as they hold forth about the finer points of some obscure academic point after you’ve been busy at the pub all afternoon… phew!

  • Annotational dialectic: vis

  • precise and precisians

    Rita (along with ‘Dormouse’) is right. I believe; the preciseness that Pepys is talking about was a formalized manner of speaking adopted by the Puritans, so-called precisians. i don’t have an OED handy, but the American Heritage Dictionary defines precisian as “1. One who is strict and precise in adherence to established rules, forms, or standards, especially with regard to religious observance or moral behavior. 2. a Puritan. See precise”

    Note this quote about the early life of John Bunyan, the Puritan author of Pilgrim’s Progress: “God left him to himself, as he puts it, and gave him over to his own wicked inclinations. He fell, he says, into all kinds of vice and ungodliness without further check. The expression is very strong, yet when we look for particulars we can find only that he was fond of games which Puritan preciseness disapproved. He had high animal spirits, and engaged in lawless enterprise.”

    Various sources talk of Puritan preciseness with derision. So does Pepys mean that he liked the new less sanctimonious discourse or did he find that speakers were less careful philosophers and rhetoricans?

  • precise, precisian (OED)

    precise:
    Strict or scrupulous in religious observance; in 16th and 17th c., puritanical.

    1566 Abp. Parker Corr. (Parker Soc.) 278 These precise folk would offer their goods and bodies to prison, rather than they would relent. 1589 Marprel. Epit. (1843) 7 In assaulting the fort of our precise brethren. 1657 Sanderson Serm. (1674) 17 The hottest precisest and most scrupulous nonconformer. 1693 Wood Life 15 June (O.H.S.) III. 424 He was too precise and religious. 1694 Atterbury Serm., Prov. xiv. 6 (1726) I. 195 How did they deride that Grave Preacher of Righteousness [Noah], and his Precise Family. 1827 Hallam Const. Hist. (1876) I. iii. 167 Those.. who favoured the more precise reformers, and looked coldly on the established church.

    precisian:
    One who is rigidly precise or punctilious in the observance of rules or forms. a spec. One who is precise in religious observance: in the 16th and 17th c. synonymous with Puritan.

    1572 J. Jones Bathes of Bath iii. 24 The Puritanes, but better we may terme them piuish [peevish] precisians. 1598 B. Jonson Ev. Man in Hum. iii. ii, He’s no precisian, that I’m certain of, Nor rigid Roman Catholic: ..I haue heard him swear. 1612 Drayton Poly-olb. vi. 94 Like our Precisions.. Who for some Crosse or Saint they in the window see Will pluck downe all the Church. 1652 Brome Eng. Moor v. iii, Forgiv’ me for swearing, and turn Precisian, and pray I’ the nose that all my brethren.. spend no worse. 1725 Watts Logic i. vi.

  • Excellent colloquy on “the old preciseness”! Many thanks: you have cast light in the darkness. So — what do you suppose they wound up talking about? If they had been out toasting the king, they presumably didn’t have to be especially circumspect about their views — or perhaps, in the turmoil of the times, in a public place like the Three Tuns such a toast was suddenly de rigeur. But back in Mr. Hill’s chambers at Magdalen? Do we know anything about Hill, Zanchy, Burton and Hollins? I don’t find them in the annotation index.

  • According to a note in L&M Sam seems to be remembering the bad old days for”it was in Hill’s chamber on Fri 21 October 1653,in the presence of all the fellows then resident,that Pepys and a companion, Hind,had been solemny admonished by Wood and Hillfor having been scandalousy overseene in drink the night before”
    Plus ca change……

  • Hill, Zanchy, Burton and Hollins
    The Companion entries begin:

    Hill, Joseph (1625-1707). A biblical scholar ‘very knowing in the affairs of state’; elected a Fellow of Magdalene in Nov. 1649, and one of the dons whom Pepys came to know well.

    Sankey, [Clement] (?1633-1707). A Cambridge graduate (B.A. 1652); elected Fellow 1652, re-elected 1660.

    Burton, [Hezekiah] (d. 1681). Fellow of Magdalene College 1651-60, 1660-67.

    Hollins, [John] (d. 1712). Physician and Fellow of Magdalene 1656-c.65.

  • And how about Widdrington l.h. ?

  • Widdrington
    Somehow I thought he’d been covered, but I guess not. (He was mentioned in the Feb. 4 entry — http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1660/02/04/index.php — and roundly ignored by all commentators.) So here’s what the Companion has to say:

    Widdrington. Ralph Widdrington (d. 1688) was John Pepys’s tutor at Christ’s College, Cambridge; Public Orator 1650-73; Regius Professor of Greek 1654-60; Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity 1673-88.

    Incidentally, I find it curious that the term “Regius [=’royal’] Professor” was kept during the republican period, but I guess that’s English conservatism for you.

  • An “Ordinary” is now a “Special” as in “Today’s Special”!

  • Widdrington:

    From Sam’s Feb. 21 entry:

    “This morning I met in the Hall with Mr. Fuller, of Christ

  • Response to l.h.:

    Widdrington will have plenty of stuff on him, albeit not necessarily much on the internet…

    We must be resourceful and/or ‘proactive’ and go to Cambridge web site(s) and solicit or prod/pry info. contributions from likely sources via e-mail outreach.

    After all, why we don’t have a 17th century scholar or two plus Pepys experts aboard yet is a Q for our Phil to ponder; maybe Phil could set up some ‘chat’ appearances by Pepysians and others for E-mail Q ‘n A sessions?

    I’m not sure whether there are any 17th century chat fora…

  • Cor blimey me old china’s. We are getting rather parliamentary about these different views. For we hoi poloi I find this so edifying.

  • Joseph Hill and Christopher Hill
    (1625-1707 and 1912-2003)

    The first was know well by Sam, the second wrote extensively of Sam’s era—limning the revolutionary nature of these years that culminate in the Restoration. Because the monarchy is restored (is this really a “spoiler”?), the revolutionary changes can be minimized, but we are seeing them in our daily readings and discussions of Sam’s diary.

  • I’ve just deleted some irrelevant annotations from this page. See here for more info: http://www.pepysdiary.com/about/archive/2003/02/28/434.php

  • Discourse:
    It might be worth pointing out (if not already, I’m playing catch up) that Cambridge students of the time were expected to converse in Greek or Latin. Pepys had an excellent grasp of Latin (he could read it quite easily) — there stands a good chance that at least some of his dinner talk was also in Latin, not English.

  • Time for a new round of annotations? I started reading the diaries daily in 2003, but lapsed (because i was trying to read them at work…) Now I’m trying again, with better home Internet access, keeping exactly 350 years behind - anyone else doing the same? I suspect so..

    Anyway, I was going to suggest that we could link “precise” with the modern “prissy” or even “precious” rather than the modern “precise”: is this helpful?

  • Linda: Ditto and ditto to your comment about lapsing and now catching up again. I am also attemtping to read but a single entry a day so I can read the diary on the same day as the current day. So I’m reading the Friday Feb 24 1659/60 entry on Friday Feb.25 2011. I am jumping a few days ahead right now as I probably won’t be on my home computer much this weekend.

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