Sunday 15 July 1660

Annotations

• N Glyn on Tue 15 Jul 2003, 11:20pm

  The last two sentences: is he simply repeating himself (perhaps out of tiredness)? The sentences are very staccato - as if he can’t stop his mind jumping from topic-to-topic.

• N Paul Miller on Tue 15 Jul 2003, 11:31pm

  I stood before the entrance to Henry the Sevenths chapel. A flight of steps lead up to it, through a deep and gloomy, but magnificent arch. Great gates of brass, richly and delicately wrought, turn heavily upon their hinges, as if proudly reluctant to admit the feet of common mortals into this most gorgeous of sepulchres.On entering, the eye is astonished by the pomp of architecture, and the elaborate beauty of sculptured detail. The very walls are wrought into universal ornament, incrusted with tracery, and scooped into niches, crowded with the statues of saints and martyrs. Stone seems, by the cunning labor of the chisel, to have been robbed of its weight and density, suspended aloft, as if by magic, and the fretted roof achieved with the wonderful minuteness and airy security of a cobweb.Along the sides of the chapel are the lofty stalls of the Knights ofthe Bath, richly carved of oak, though with the grotesque decorations of Gothic architecture. On the pinnacles of the stalls are affixed the helmets and crests of the knights, with their scarfs and swords; and above them are suspended their banners, emblazoned with armorial bearings, and contrasting the splendor of gold and purple and crimson, with the cold gray fretwork of the roof. In the
  midst of this grand mausoleum stands the sepulchre of its founder,- his effigy, with that of his queen, extended on a sumptuous tomb, and the whole surrounded by a superbly-wrought brazen railing.

  —- Washington Irving Sketchbook 1820

• N vincent on Wed 16 Jul 2003, 01:29am

  Spending 40 Quid, a lifetime savings for us beneath the stairs 12+ years of not spending a dime. Just Image, at the modern minimum salary or OAP pension 40L/week times 12 years:( mental math don’t compute) ‘tis a lot of doe ray me, no wonder he’s tired out.

• N Paul Brewster on Wed 16 Jul 2003, 03:00am

  In the afternoon to Henry the Seventh

• N Paul Brewster on Wed 16 Jul 2003, 03:04am

  buying paper at the best[first] hand in my office
  L&M interpret the word as “best” and not “first” as Wheatley had done. I’m not sure that I understand either phrase.

• N vincent on Wed 16 Jul 2003, 03:10am

  “In the afternoon to Henry the Seventh’s chapel, where I heard a sermon and spent (God forgive me) most of my time in looking upon Mrs. Butler.” Oh! La La! The Power of Prayer, or was it the power of Beauty. Glyn, Yes, He doth repeat himself twice to the chapel, His cup doth runneth over, Beauty, his brain is near the wrong end of his spine, I do believe,She kept her little finger well covered, no come hither it so seems..
  

• N Paul Brewster on Wed 16 Jul 2003, 03:12am

  I was not at my father

• N Paul Brewster on Wed 16 Jul 2003, 03:22am

  Best hand — OED to the rescue:
  Hand n:
  10. Used of or in reference to a person as the source from which something is obtained
  …
  b. as the supplier of goods: in phrases denoting rate or price (with qualifying adj.), as at the best hand, most profitably or cheaply; so at the better hand, at the dear hand. Obs.

  1552 Huloet, Bye dearer, or at the last hande. 1582 N. Lichefield tr. Castanheda’s Conq. E. Ind. xxxiii. 82b, To the end our Merchaunts might buye theyr Spices at the better hande. 1599 Hakluyt Voy. II. ii. 3 For the procuring of which commodities at the best and first hand. 1696 J. F. Merchants’ Ware-ho. 11 The whole sute is generally sold at the best hand for three Pound ten. 1712 Steele Spect. No. 288 33 Buying and importing Linens, and Pictures, at the best hand. 1767 Cowper Let. to Hill 14 May Wks. 1837 XV. 16, I might serve your Honour with cauliflowers and broccoli at the best hand.
  

• N vincent on Wed 16 Jul 2003, 03:24am

  “…and so I fell into discourse of buying paper at the first hand in my office, and the Captain promised me to buy it for me in France…”.
  May be it refers to what we now name Wholesale, and The good Captain is want of making some extra cash by getting it from the Source i.e. France, as it could be less expensive, and some room for prophit and still less than getting it Through the official source. No facts to back this up, but ‘tis the kind of deals one makes when one has many connections in the right places.

• N chip on Wed 16 Jul 2003, 04:40am

  I think you hit it there Vincent. Pepys will assiduously learn that very system of sources and its rewards. Here again I see him using the diary somewhat like a confessional. Those poor Puritans, deprived of the sanctitiy of ‘reconciliation.’

• N helena murphy on Wed 16 Jul 2003, 02:34pm

  Pepys’choice of religious edifice this Sunday is telling. It is also politic in post Cromwellian London to attend services in Westminster Abbey where English and Scottish sovereigns lie buried.Charles I however is interred in Saint George’s Chapel, Windsor.

• N Paul Brewster on Wed 16 Jul 2003, 02:57pm

  to Westminster Abbey, and in Henry the 7ths chapel heard part of a sermon
  The L&M footnote to this passage: “Pepys’s own orthodoxy and his reference later in the entry to the ‘service’ make it clear that the Anglicans were now using the chapel, while the Independents (in possession of the abbey during the revolution) still worshipped elsewhere in the building.”
  

• N Brian McMullen on Wed 16 Jul 2003, 04:59pm

  SP has spent a considerable amount of money to obtain his patent. I remember awhile back that he was calculating his net worth. If memory serves he just used up almost 40 percent of his assests. This must have been very important.

• N Mary on Wed 16 Jul 2003, 06:08pm

  Sam’s

• N Roger Miller on Wed 16 Jul 2003, 10:40pm

  The Lady Chapel of Westminster Abbey or Henry VII’s chapel.

  This is a link to the page describing the chapel on the Westminster Abbey website: http://www.westminster-abbey.org/tour/lady_chapel/index.html (Unfortunately the site uses frames so it’s not easy to link to. Here’s a link to the main page: http://www.westminster-abbey.org )

• N Glyn on Wed 16 Jul 2003, 11:49pm

  “After dinner he (i.e. Montagu) and I alone fell to discourse, and I find him plainly to be a sceptic in all things of religion.”

  Pepys has known him and worked for him for many years - I’m surprised that it’s only now that Montagu is talking to him seriously about his religious beliefs. And that Pepys didn’t know about them before.

• N Nix on Thu 17 Jul 2003, 12:00am

  Talking candidly about religion —

  was not an altogether safe practice during the commonwealth, was it? My impression is that Samuel’s intimacy with Montague is quite recent — before the trip to Holland he he was more a junior clerk, a distant cousin used for errands, than a protege. Though that of course may be due to our foreshortened view — we know Samuel only since January.

  Also, I seem to recall some mention of Montague’s skeptical views earlier, perhaps when they were on ship (though I may be confusing it with someone else).