Saturday 1 September 1660

Annotations

• N M.Stolzenbach on Tue 2 Sep 2003, 01:25am

  “Much to our admiration”

  meaning just that they “wondered at it” (older sense) not that they “admired” it as praiseworthy.

  Pepys is learning now that to rise in the world means not to rest as tranquilly as before.

  But I wish I had a taste of that venison pasty.

• N Valerie McKnight on Tue 2 Sep 2003, 01:36am

  I’m sure the pasty was good on Saturday, but the unrefrigerated leftovers for Tuesday - oh, dear! These were men of iron digestions, indeed.

  It’s interesting that even after that unsettling business news, Sam can still enjoy dining and conversing as much as ever.

• N Paul Brewster on Tue 2 Sep 2003, 01:48am

  for any Imbassador
  L&M substitute the word “any” for “their” thus making Mr. Townsend

• N Paul Brewster on Tue 2 Sep 2003, 01:56am

  Prince de Ligne
  per Wheatley(Braybrooke): “Charles Lamoral, Prince de Ligne, had commanded the cavalry in the Low Countries, was afterwards Viceroy of Sicily and Governor of Milan. He died at Madrid in 1679. He had married, by dispensation, his cousin Maria Clara of Nassau, widow of his brother Albert Henry, who had died without issue. In our own time his descendant, the Prince de Ligne was Ambassador Extraordinary from Belgium at the coronation of Queen Victoria.)

• N Paul Brewster on Tue 2 Sep 2003, 02:03am

  essential to a tragedy to have the argument of it true
  L&M explain this “At this time there was an increasing desire in some quarters for verisimilitude in drama. Ben Jonson had professed ‘truth of Argument’ and ‘integrity of Story’ as principles of tragic composition in his address ‘To the reader’ in Sejanus(1605). Most Restoration critics, however, were in general agreement with Thomas Rymers’s assertion in ‘The tragedies of the last age’ (1678) that history cannot illustrate truths ‘universal and eternal’ as well as fiction can.”
  

• N Paul Brewster on Tue 2 Sep 2003, 02:06am

  Bickerstaffe will not be out in the cold for too long.
  As a minor plot spoiler, he gets his clerkship in June 1662.

• N Paul Brewster on Tue 2 Sep 2003, 02:50am

  ! — DW sure loves them!
  as before a Gutenberg editorial comment
  

• N chip on Tue 2 Sep 2003, 03:47am

  How would they keep that venison for 3 days without refrigeration? The only thing I can think of is keeping it warmer than 138 degrees farenheit so no bacteria could develop. Did the ovens have holding areas? I always assumed that before freon, they just kept a large stock pot on the back burner and threw anything in there. I have kept veal and beef stocks simmering for days and throw just about anything in there (ends of tomatoes, celery leaves, onion skins, etc.). And is Pepys saying that save one dish, this was the best meal he ever ate? If so, I wonder what that was? Surely some desert…

• N Mary on Tue 2 Sep 2003, 07:23am

  The venison pasty

  If The Bullhead had a really cool larder (say, on the north side of the building, equipped with a marble slab or two) and if the pasty contained enough spice, then it’s by no means impossible that it should have remained edible for several days. Or perhaps there was a cool-room in the cellar? 3 days is not really so very long to keep a dish without benefit of refrigeration, provided that it is covered and kept reasonably cool. We are speaking of London, remember, not somewhere with a balmy late summer/early autumn continental climate.

• N Firenze on Tue 2 Sep 2003, 08:26am

  I can remember a pre-refrigeration society, and I don’t recall any greater level of digestive upsets. Rather the contrary. I think people were inured to coping with naturally occuring organisms which we, in our controlled-atmosphere, preservative-drenched, chill cabineted culture, can’t.

• N Sam Sampson on Tue 2 Sep 2003, 10:45am

  Yet Another Pasty Thought

  Firenze, I’m still unchilled, and go along with what you say (every day). Sam’s “pasty” would have been a haunch of venison doused in flour, or maybe pastry - certainly bigger than a modern pie (pasty). Three days in somewhere half-cool would be no problem.

  Awww… Shucks… I’ll have to break the rules and shoot another deer. A month of eating the tucker is my best record with no gut problems - or refrigeration..

  Cheers - Sam
  

• N David A. Smith on Tue 2 Sep 2003, 02:29pm

  “with business and my boy

• N Paul Brewster on Tue 2 Sep 2003, 04:18pm

  the Duke

• N Glyn on Tue 2 Sep 2003, 04:23pm

  from his brother Bickerstaffe,

  Of course, Brer Bickerstaffe isn’t his actual brother - it means ‘colleague’.

  Larders or pantries with marble floors would have kept food cool for a few days, but just because these people didn’t have electricity doesn’t mean that they weren’t ingenious enough to have refrigeration.

  It’s probably too expensive for Pepys’ private use, but aristocrats such as Montagu and large organizations such as the Admiralty Office would all have had “Ice Houses”. Basically, they were small underground buildings in the shade, where winter ice was put down in between layers of straw. It was surprisingly effective, you could have your chilled wine and fruit sorbets right through the summer (if you were rich enough), as well as chilled meat (but probably too sophisticated for working city folk).

• N Brad W on Tue 2 Sep 2003, 07:49pm

  just because these people didn

• N Erna D'haenen on Tue 2 Sep 2003, 08:25pm

  Prince de Ligne is still a name in Belgium. An eighteenth century descendant, Charles-Joseph, of the Pepys de Ligne was known as “the charmer of Europe”. Of one of his numerous illegitimate children he said “Ce n’est peut-

• N Glyn on Tue 2 Sep 2003, 10:02pm

  Why is a Belgian a Spanish Ambassador? Is he ambassador for Belgium or for Spain? Lots of Catholics and Papists seem to be rushing to congratulate the new King, but where are the messengers from Germany, the Netherlands and Scandinavia?

• N Glyn on Tue 2 Sep 2003, 10:10pm

  And aren’t we technically still at war with Spain? I think we were in Cromwell’s time.

• N Frans on Wed 3 Sep 2003, 02:28am

  Seeing that Charlie arrived from the Netherlands to claim his throne in England, I would think he got all his congrats before he left.

• N john lauer on Wed 3 Sep 2003, 02:48am

  food preservation by chilling —
  (in summary) we think was not done because of lack of knowledge of germ theory, and therefore no demand for commercial ice houses and daily delivery to consumers with ‘ice boxes’. And very low demand would have correlated with very high cost.

  But ice cream and sorbets and chilled wine were known and used at that time.

  Humans survived for another 220 years without that understanding?! Amazing.

• N Mary on Wed 3 Sep 2003, 07:15am

  The Prince de Ligne and Spain

  At this date Flanders and the southern provinces of today’s Netherlands were still ruled by Spain (the Spanish Netherlands), though during the 1660s the young Louis XIV of France was beginning to nibble away at these Spanish possessions and by the end of the century had extended his power to the southern borders of The Netherlands. Orange resistance to his expansionist plans was fortified from 1688 onwards by the accession to the English throne of William (of Orange) and Mary.

• N Nix on Wed 3 Sep 2003, 06:34pm

  ! -

  I doubt it is a Gutenberg “editorial” addition — more likely a scanning error due to a spot on the page.

• N Paul Brewster on Thu 4 Sep 2003, 02:58pm

  !
  I stand corrected. On a second reading of the material, it is more likely that the scan mistook a footnote superscript for an exclamation point. A quick review shows that this happens quite frequently. It seems that Wheatley for the most part only inserts exclamation points in religious exclamatory expressions (ex. God forgive me!). The rest of the occurrences in the electronic text would seem to be footnote-related scan errors. In most cases the text associated with the mistaken footnote is not inserted in the Gutenberg version. This particular “!” and the one I noted previously represent instances where the footnote was inserted and the scan error allowed to stand.