Monday 11 February 1660/61

Annotations

• N Emilio on Wed 11 Feb 2004, 11:19pm

  “with young Mr. Reeve home”

  L&M identify this young man as “John, son of Richard Reeves, optical instrument maker, Long Acre”.
  

• N Emilio on Wed 11 Feb 2004, 11:30pm

  “to the Exchange”

  In L&M Sam goes to the Exchange rather than the Exchequer, which is a shorter trip and a much more likely place for him to meet Warren the timber merchant. For a little more info on the Royal Exchange, go here:

  http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/189.php
  

• N Bradford on Thu 12 Feb 2004, 01:51am

  “agreed about getting some of my Lord

• N Susan on Thu 12 Feb 2004, 04:00am

  “Deal” was used as a term for cheap timber until recently. Presumably Pepys was arranging (in his capacity as general family helper) to have cut timber sent by sea round from the Thames to a port in Essex, or possibly up the River Ouse, towards Hinchinbrooke?? Was there no supply of timber on the estate? Or had it been overcropped for shipbulding??

• N vincent on Thu 12 Feb 2004, 04:45am

  Around the Ouse from Lyne to Huntington, I would believe there would be very little timber wood. It being Fen country,[ although the Dutch did drain the areas ( unfortunate for the stilt men) to turn marshes[fens] into great vegetable farming land which came latter] exception being small copses[woods] on the ‘pimples’ fighting with the locals for dry land.

• N Nix on Thu 12 Feb 2004, 03:40pm

  “Perspective” — from OED:

  “2. An optical instrument for looking through or viewing objects with; a spy-glass, magnifying-glass, telescope, etc. Also fig., esp. in such phrases as to look through the wrong end of the perspective = to look upon something as smaller or of less consequence than it is. Obs.

  “In early use applied to various optical devices, as arrangements of mirrors etc. for producing some special or fantastic effect, e.g. by distortion of images. (Cf. also 4b.)

  “[In the Chaucer quotation, the word in all the ancient MSS. has the prefix contracted, the Hengwrt, Corpus, and Lansdowne having (according to the Six-text ed.) the contraction p for per, the Ellesmere, Cambridge, Petworth, and Harleian 7334, having that for pro-, which is also the form in the 16th c. printed edd. Notwithstanding this preponderance of MS. testimony, there can be little doubt that the correct reading is perspective, as shown by the history of the two words; prospective, as a genuine word, having arisen only c1590.]
  
  “c1386 CHAUCER Sqr.’s T. 226 (Hengwrt MS.) They speke of Alocen and Vitulon Of Aristotle at writen in hir lyues Of queynte Mirours and of perspectyues. a1529 SKELTON Wks. (1843) I. 25 Encleryd myrroure and perspectyue most bryght. c1532 G. DU WES Introd. Fr. in Palsgr. 1045 The perspectif or glasse in the whiche the kindes [printed kindnes] and symilitudes of thynges ben shewed. 1601 SHAKES. All’s Well V. iii. 48 Contempt his scornefull Perspectiue did lend me, Which warpt the line of euerie other fauour. 1634 SIR T. HERBERT Trav. Ded. Aijb, Like an ill-sighted man, who sees with Spectacles or Perspectives. 1634-5 BRERETON Trav. (1844) 60 Wm. Daviseon offered to furnish me with a couple of these perspectives, which shew the new-found motion of the stars about Jupiter. 1646 BUCK Rich. III Ded., To looke at other mens actions and memory by the wrong end of the perspective. 1668 PEPYS Diary 13 July, To Reeves’s; and there saw some [books], and bespoke a little perspective, and was mightily pleased with seeing objects in a dark room. 1692 DRYDEN St. Euremont’s Ess. 280 By the means of Great Perspectives, which Invention becomes more perfect every Day, they discover new Planets. 1709 STEELE & ADDISON Tatler No. 103 13, I..refused him a Licence for a Perspective, but allowed him a Pair of Spectacles. 1716 CIBBER Love’s Last Shift I. i, If we look thro’ Reason’s never-erring Perspective. 1748 Anson’s Voy. II. vi. 195 By means of our perspectives..we saw an English flag hoisted. 1789 BURNS Let. to Mrs. Dunlop 4 Mar., As a snail pushes out his horns, or as we draw out a perspective.”

• N Wim van der Meij on Thu 12 Feb 2004, 06:52pm

  Was all timber for ships home grown in those days? British oakwoods almost disappeared during the days of wooden ships, but for masts they uses “spars”.
  Holland fetched those from the countries around the Baltic; did the British do that as well?
  Further to another discussion a few days ago: the Dutch also used a lingua franca on their travels in Scandinavia and Poland etc. There was a Dutch settlement in Danzig (Gdansk) and you can still see quite a few Dutch houses there.

• N Susan on Thu 12 Feb 2004, 10:54pm

  Organising supplies for the Navy and ensuring continuity and adequacy was one of Pepys’ commendable obsessions. At Chatham, one can see the long troughs used to soak masts. Not sure if these are Pepsian or later. Getting good wood for masts seems to have been a problem for years. When Lt Cook surveyed the eastern coast of Australia in 1770, one of the places he noted was what became Norfolk Island. Cook thought the pines which grew there would make good masts (they didn’t, they snapped) and that flax for sailcloth could be grown there, turning Norfolk Island into a southern supply station. The flax idea didn’t work either, but one can appreciate how the practical Navy man’s mind was working.I’m sure Pepys would have approved.

• N Jesse on Fri 13 Feb 2004, 02:38am

  “pretty pleasures in perspectives”
  Could be a kaleidoscope? Not too expensive and used “for producing some special or fantastic effect, e.g. by distortion of images”

• N john lauer on Fri 13 Feb 2004, 03:00am

  Sam bought another perspective glass from him for 8s on 23 Mar last year; we discussed extensively whether that was a sailor’s spyglass (not an astronomical telescope, which inverts), a hand magnifier, or even a handheld reducing lens. So these might be “various devices”.

• N vincent on Fri 13 Feb 2004, 03:06am

  follow on”…Young Reeve also brought me a little perspective glass which I bought for my Lord, it cost me 8s….”
  http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1660/03/23/index.php

• N Harry on Fri 13 Feb 2004, 09:59am

• N Susanna on Fri 13 Feb 2004, 10:28pm

  It’s probably a microscope, although Richard Reeves also made telescope lenses; later in 1661 (on Charles II’s coronation day, actually), the famous astronomer Christian Huygens, on a visit to London, will observe the transit of Mercury with one of Reeves’ telescopes, at Reeves’ shop. But Reeves’ microscopes were also famous; Christopher Wren in 1655 called them “the best of any microscopes to be had.” There’s more information on Reeves, Pepys, and the science of the day in “Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution”, by Lisa Jardine.

  It is exceptionally unlikely to have been a kaleidoscope, as it wasn’t invented until 1816.

• N vincent on Sat 14 Feb 2004, 05:04am

  Want to be bugged, take a a gander at this: {Robert Hooke and Micrographia}
  http://college.hmco.com/history/west/mosaic/chapter11/image155.html
  

• N Nigel Pond on Wed 17 Mar 2004, 07:12pm

  Deal

  Isn’t/wasn’t deal actually a species of wood rather than a generic term? Rick’s Wood Species Search lists eight different deal species:

  http://www.rickswoodshopcreations.com/species/wood_species_search.asp