Friday 25 January 1660/61

Annotations

• N Emilio on Mon 26 Jan 2004, 02:27am

  “the instructions of my Lord Northumberland’s”

  These set out the job descriptions of the officers of the Navy Board, per an L&M footnote. They date from 14 November 1640, and will be replaced next year by the Duke of York’s Instructions.
  

• N vincent on Mon 26 Jan 2004, 02:40am

  That ‘darn’ cat has to go, Still mice, needed 2 traps, now another temptation for the cat.”..This night comes two cages, which I bought this evening for my canary birds, which Captain Rooth this day sent me….” Any one keeping tabs on the collection of pets ?
  At least they are not a meal ticket. Just an audience for the musical interludes.

• N Wim van der Meij on Mon 26 Jan 2004, 12:45pm

  Does “My lord’s portrait in little” mean that it was a miniature? This ‘art-form’ became especially popular in the 18th century. Tiny portraits painted on ivory or copper etc.

• N vincent on Mon 26 Jan 2004, 07:35pm

  Well observed comment by Wim van der Meij on Mon 26 Jan 2004,
  Does

• N Chauncey on Mon 26 Jan 2004, 08:33pm

  “My lord’s portrait in little” - could mean he was posing in his bikini shorts

• N David Ross McIrvine on Mon 26 Jan 2004, 08:34pm

  Yes, i think we can be pretty sure what
  Mr. Salisbury has is a miniature: a
  “picture in little” was the standard term for a miniature.

  Is it perhaps a miniature of this
  portrait by Lely, which is assumed to
  have been done “around 1660”?

  http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/portrait.asp?LinkID=mp03968&rNo=1&role=sit

  Thus, Mr. Salisbury works as a “limner,”
  producing miniature versions of
  portraits of the great, which are
  purchased by dependents or flatterers
  who are (like Pepys) “high enough up the
  trough” (to use an American phrase)
  to afford them.

  Shakespeare uses the phrase “picture in
  little” in exactly this way (Hamlet II,
  2, 268-272):

  “It is not very strange; for mine uncle
  is king of Denmark, and those that would
  make mows at him while my father lived,
  give twenty, forty, fifty, an hundred
  ducats a-piece for his picture in
  little. ‘Sblood, there is something in
  this more than natural, if philosophy
  could find it out.”

• N Ruben on Mon 26 Jan 2004, 08:47pm

  Miniatures:
  

• N David Ross McIrvine on Mon 26 Jan 2004, 09:20pm

  Pepys will, next year (2 Jan 1662), hope
  to meet Samuel (Peter Oliver Samuel)
  Cooper, and will use the phrase “in
  little” to describe Cooper’s trade:

  “I went forth, by appointment, to meet
  with Mr. Grant, who promised to meet me
  at the Coffee-house to bring me
  acquainted with Cooper the great limner
  in little… .”

  Horace Walpole referred to Samuel
  Cooper, who was one of the most
  celebrated limners/miniaturists
  in Europe, as a “Van Dyck in little.”

  Samuel Cooper, by the way, also
  did a miniature portrait of Oliver
  Cromwell. “A Connoisseur Examining a Cooper” is a hilarious 1792 caricature by James Gilray, of George
  III examining Oliver’s picture in little

  http://www.npg.org.uk/live/images/display/D8566.JPG

  with some discussion on this page:
  http://www.richmond.gov.uk/depts/opps/eal/leisure/arts/orleanshouse/Boro_Art_Catalogue.htm

• N Carolina on Wed 28 Jan 2004, 10:30pm

  Vincent,love your Latin, I never learned it, wished I had.
  I also blame you for my lack of sleep in pointing us to all these different sites, alway something interesting to read !
  But can I pick you up on something ? Cambridge has Magdalene and Oxford has Magdalen. The Oxford one is pronounced maudlin and, listening to Jeremy Paxman on University Challenge, Cambridge’s is pronounced Magdalen - mag-dah-lin.
  

• N Grahamt on Thu 29 Jan 2004, 08:20am

  Re: Magdelen
  Carolina, There is a good discussion of this at http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/419.php#c2254
  In Pepys time it was almost certainly pronounce “maudlin” and is starting to be again.

• N David Quidnunc on Fri 30 Jan 2004, 06:34am

  Birds in Little: 17th Century Canaries

  Excerpts from “Canaries, Hybrids and British Birds,” edited by John Robson and S.H. Lewer, London 1900, “History of the Canary” (apparently a chapter) by A. Rudolf Galloway (unquoted words below are by Galloway; I changed the order of some paragraphs):

  “The Epitome of the Art of Husbandry” London, 1675. By Joseph Blagrove. (P. 106.):
  
  “The first I shall begin withal is the Bird called the Canary Bird, because the original of that Bird came from thence (I hold this to be the best Song Bird) ; but now with industry they breed them very plentifully in Germany, and in Italy also and they have bred some few here in England though as yet not anything to the purpose as they do in other Countries.”

  At this date in England, Canaries were green, and variegation had evidently not yet appeared, for the author, Joseph Blagrove, who is particularly well informed with regard to singing birds, says (p. 107):

  “Many Country-People cannot distinguish a Canary from our common Green Birds, etc.”

  The above reference would seem to indicate that, in spite of a probable early importation of the Canary into England, little progress had been made in its domestication, and it also lends colour to the legend that the initial varieties (including even the London Fancy) were introduced by immigrant Huguenots.

  In Ray’s translation (1678) of Willughby’s “Ornithology” (1676), the following quotation from a late English writer (probably modified from Blagrove) is given:
  
  “Canary birds of late years have been brought abundantly out of Germany, and are therefore now called German birds, and these German birds in handsomeness and song excel those brought out of the Canaries… . They are fed with Canary seed, wherein they take great pleasure …”
  http://members.madasafish.com/~grahamwhite/download/history.html

• N dirk on Fri 30 Jan 2004, 11:46pm

  Canary birds

  The life of a Canary was not an easy one… In those days small birds - originally finches, later also Canaries - weren’t only kept for their singing. They also served as a sort of primitive alarm system against what we now know as carbon monoxyde poisoning: “foul air”. This practice was still common in the 1800s, and even in the early 1900s when Canaries were used to detect mine gases…

  A funny “fait divers” in the following (brief) extract:
  “Narkover College’s … original mascot was a live canary bird, which acted as a biological indicator of the conditions in the first school-room (a Gothic monstrosity built in 1859). During one rote Scripture lesson, a year later, this feathered beastie keeled over and died. Though, doubtless, from opposite perspectives, both students and staff attributed the canary’s demise to a broken spirit, resulting from the monotony of observing pearls being cast before swine (plus

• N dirk on Sat 31 Jan 2004, 08:38pm

  “Coal mine canaries”

  Apparently I was wrong when I said that canaries remained in use up to the *early* 1900s…

  “Dec 30th 1986: Coal mine canaries made redundant”
  http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/30/newsid_2547000/2547587.stm
  

• N carolina on Sat 31 Jan 2004, 09:24pm

  Dirk,
  Wonderful link!
  Only the BBC / British could be so matter of fact - reminds me of the one: Fog in Channel, Continent cut off.