Thursday 11 April 1661

At 2 o’clock, with very great mirth, we went to our lodging and to bed, and lay till 7, and then called up by Sir W. Batten, so I arose and we did some business, and then came Captn. Allen, and he and I withdrew and sang a song or two, and among others took pleasure in “Goe and bee hanged, that’s good-bye.” The young ladies come too, and so I did again please myself with Mrs. Rebecca, and about 9 o’clock, after we had breakfasted, we sett forth for London, and indeed I was a little troubled to part with Mrs. Rebecca, for which God forgive me. Thus we went away through Rochester, calling and taking leave of Mr. Alcock at the door, Capt. Cuttance going with us. We baited at Dartford, and thence to London, but of all the journeys that ever I made this was the merriest, and I was in a strange mood for mirth.

Among other things, I got my Lady to let her maid, Mrs. Anne, to ride all the way on horseback, and she rides exceeding well; and so I called her my clerk, that she went to wait upon me. I met two little schoolboys going with pitchers of ale to their schoolmaster to break up against Easter, and I did drink of some of one of them and give him two pence. By and by we come to two little girls keeping cows, and I saw one of them very pretty, so I had a mind to make her ask my blessing, and telling her that I was her godfather, she asked me innocently whether I was not Ned Wooding, and I said that I was, so she kneeled down and very simply called, “Pray, godfather, pray to God to bless me,” which made us very merry, and I gave her twopence. In several places, I asked women whether they would sell me their children, but they denied me all, but said they would give me one to keep for them, if I would. Mrs. Anne and I rode under the man that hangs upon Shooter’s Hill, and a filthy sight it was to see how his flesh is shrunk to his bones. So home and I found all well, and a deal of work done since I went. I sent to see how my wife do, who is well, and my brother John come from Cambridge. To Sir W. Batten’s and there supped, and very merry with the young ladles. So to bed very sleepy for last night’s work, concluding that it is the pleasantest journey in all respects that ever I had in my life.

Friday 12 April 1661Wednesday 10 April 1661

Also on this day

Temperature: 8°C / 46°F

(Average for April 1661)

In Earls Colne, Essex

Diary of Ralph Josselin

(About this data)

Annotations

N Judy on Sun 11 Apr 2004, 11:35pm. Flag this

After all the fun Sam had on his business journey, it’s kind of a relief that Sam checked on his wife afterward.
N daniel on Mon 12 Apr 2004, 12:03am. Flag this

indeed, Judy.

not to be too moralistic, but I wonder how much of his tom-foolery Sam related to his wife after this journey.
N Josh on Mon 12 Apr 2004, 12:19am. Flagged

Tuppence and a godfather’s blessing for whoever comes up with the text for “Goe and bee hanged, that
N Peter on Mon 12 Apr 2004, 12:27am. Flag this

I have relatives in Cumbria who use the word “bait” for a packed lunch. Interesting to see Sam using the expression “we baited at Dartford”….Can it be that he means the same thing here?
N Paul Brewster on Mon 12 Apr 2004, 12:45am. Flagged

among others, took great pleasure in [italics] Goe and bee hanged, that
N Susan on Mon 12 Apr 2004, 01:10am. Flag this

Baiting usually refers at this time (and until much later) to resting and refreshing the horses. The regular routes had recognised Bait-stops. I too know the word “bait” as a North West England term for a snack, but I wonder if that dervies from the dialect and it is actually “bite” (as in “a bite to eat”), but the “i” vowel is lengthened into a “ai”??
N dirk on Mon 12 Apr 2004, 01:34am. Flag this

“godfather”…”sell me their children”

Does this refer to some forgotten Easter custom I’m not aware of? Or is this merely Sam being “full of mirth”?
N vincent on Mon 12 Apr 2004, 01:35am. Flagged

“…So to bed very sleepy for last night
N dirk on Mon 12 Apr 2004, 01:42am. Flag this

bait & bite

“ai” and “i” are largely equivalent in 17th century English. Cfr. “I prithee” for “I pray thee” in Paul Brewster’s annotation. I even suspect that “bait” in its modern meaning derives from “to bite”. I’m not sure about the pronunciation at the time, but “ai” pronounced phonetically is almost indistinguishable from “i” (as in bite).
N vincent on Mon 12 Apr 2004, 02:49am. Flag this

Break fast, he so far, has done so eleven times, broke his fast rather than having a wet one.
N Alan Bedford on Mon 12 Apr 2004, 04:09am. Flagged

“Go and be hanged…” Evidently L&M have as much knowledge as (if not more than) Google. There’s not much to be found using that engine. Here’s what little there was:

The version beginning
N Mary on Mon 12 Apr 2004, 08:41am. Flag this

bait & bite

Bite comes from OE ‘bitan’.
Bait (OED) derives partly [sic] from Old Norse ‘beit’, cognate with OE ‘bat’ and is commonly used, from 16th century, to refer specifically to a halt for refreshment on a journey, whether for horses or for men.

Probably both words have a common ancestor in the Indo-European family of languages, but seem to have developed separately in English, with ‘bait’ looking like a later introduction than ‘bite’.

As for pronunciation, in a chapter too long to reproduce here Dobson’s ‘English Pronuciation 1500 - 1700’,p 659 ff makes a clear distinction in the 17th century between the development of ME long ‘i’ and the ME diphthongs ai/ei, so that it seems unlikely that Pepys pronounced both ‘bite’ and ‘bait identically.
N Xjy on Mon 12 Apr 2004, 11:16am. Flag this

“his flesh is shrunk to his bones”
Flesh everywhere today, living and dead — Mrs Rebecca, selling children, godfather, the hanging song, the hanging man, seeing the wife’s OK then very merry with the young ladies… Sam is feeling very much alive.
N Ernst Dinkla on Mon 12 Apr 2004, 11:56am. Flag this

bait & bite

Which reminds me of the joke that the Dutch artist Wim Schippers used to practice after a night painting the town. The early anglers along the Amstel were asked whether they would like it if their wives put hooks in the sandwiches they had with them.

Ernst
N M.Stolzenbach on Mon 12 Apr 2004, 03:35pm. Flag this

Various comments:

In answer to Dirk’s question, I take asking for a godfather’s blessing to be a good, if perhaps somewhat country, custom; Sam is just being playful (in a rather bad way seems to me) by pretending to be this child’s godfather. The “selling of children” is again a tease; neither has any relation to Easter that I am aware of. Easter hasn’t come yet in 1661, if I recall.

It will be interesting to see what churchgoing, if any, marks Holy Week and Easter for Sam.

He does enjoy kissing and flirting with Mrs Rebecca, but we note a twinge of conscience here when he fails to put it right behind him.

I seem to recall, in the Southern US in my youth, people saying “we ate a bait of [e.g.] shrimp” - meaning, not a snack, but a sizeable amount of whatever it was.
N Michael on Mon 12 Apr 2004, 03:42pm. Flag this

“lay till 7” - so, after five hours of sleep (at most) he is up and at it, first some business, than a few songs (at this hour and nothing to eat yet!), than a bit of flirting, only then breakfast - and after all of this is done, it is still before 9 a.m. What a way to begin the day.
N Brian Barr on Mon 12 Apr 2004, 06:37pm. Flagged

A BALLAD of Old PROVERBS
The song, from the 1719 collection mentioned previously. The book has been scanned and in the U.S. is available in “Eighteenth Century Collections Online” from Thomson-Gale. The music for the song is also given!

I Prithee Sweet-heart grant me my desire,
For I am thrown as the old Proverb goes.
Out of the Frying-pan, into the Fire,
And there is none that pities my Woes.
Then hang or drown thy self, my Muse,
For there is not a T—d to chuse.

Most Maids prove Coy of late, tho
N Another Judy! on Mon 12 Apr 2004, 08:21pm. Flag this

Susan I’ve heard bait used in SW Herefordshire/NW Gloucestershire to mean a workmans mid morning break.
N Paul Brewster on Mon 12 Apr 2004, 09:31pm. Flag this

very merry with the young ladies
The Gutenberg scan error (young ladles) certainly sends the minds off in several different directions.
N Bullus Hutton on Mon 12 Apr 2004, 09:32pm. Flag this

We baited at Dartford..
I was at school in Cumbria and worked in construction on vacation. We also stopped for “bait” at lunchtime. I remember the foreman was called “Slape Eared” which apparently referred to his “Slippery Head” since the fellow was quite bald.
So I would certainly go along with the theory of bait being a corruption of bite!
N Paul Brewster on Mon 12 Apr 2004, 09:38pm. Flagged

Mrs. Anne and I rode under the man that hangs upon Shooter
N Susan on Mon 12 Apr 2004, 11:18pm. Flag this

Here in Queensland, horses used to be “spelled” to give them a break from work and some food. I had never heard of that being used in England. Is it Irish? (Queensland was extensively settled by Irish - also Scots & Germans too).
N Louis on Tue 13 Apr 2004, 01:39am. Flag this

L&M Companion, Large Glossary:
bait, bayte: refreshment on journey for horses and travellers (implying a rest as well as food); also as verb.
N Glynn on Tue 13 Apr 2004, 01:49am. Flag this

Bait.
In the North East of England bait is still common usage for food.
Hence “Put up your bait” — prepare your lunch
“Bait Box” - Lunch box
N Mary on Tue 13 Apr 2004, 11:51am. Flag this

Bait/spell

The ‘spell’ cited by Susan in Queensland is a late development of a verb derived from OE spellian, ME spele; earlier meaning ‘to take the place of someone else at work’, it came to mean ‘to relieve by an interval of rest (esp horses).’ This sense first recorded by OED in 1848.
N Susan on Tue 13 Apr 2004, 01:02pm. Flag this

Thank you, Mary! How interesting. Sam here in this diary uses “bait”, which I have also read extensively in literary works, Jane Austen for example, but I had never heard of “spell” in this context nor seen it written till I came here, where it is the universal word - not “bait”. Wonder which part of England/Scotland/Ireland it came from?
N Andrew Hamilton on Tue 13 Apr 2004, 02:49pm. Flag this

Spell

In the 1950s in North and South Carolina,
“spell” was used colloquially both in the sense of taking the place of someone else at work (“come spell me at this”) and in the sense of a person taking a rest (“come sit a spell”). Both seem to me to involve the underlying concept of respite.
N Ernst Dinkla on Tue 13 Apr 2004, 04:38pm. Flag this

spell

“spele” Is that again related to the Dutch word “spelen”, the German “spielen” used for children’s playing or in sports ? In short an activity that used to be recreative and not for earning your bread and butter.
N John Carr on Tue 13 Apr 2004, 06:00pm. Flag this

I can easily imagine, during my childhood in the north east of England by the River Tyne, someone saying,”I’ll take a spell at that while you have your bait”
N Susan on Tue 13 Apr 2004, 11:53pm. Flag this

In Queensland, the large teams of horses hauling timber were stopped by their driver calling “Spello” with the “o” very prolonged, instead of “whoa”. A mid-morning break is now called a “smoko”, even if you don’t smoke (as in “I’m on smoko now, go ask someone else”). Now, we haven’t had much reference to smoking pipes as a recreation by Sam, have we?
N Rich Merne on Wed 14 Apr 2004, 09:08am. Flag this

“Baited”, extract from an 18th cent. (possibly earlier) Dublin ballad of anonymous authorship. It can still be frequently heard sung.
THE night before Larry was stretched,
The boys they all paid him a visit;
A bait in their sacks, too, they fetched;
They sweated their duds till they riz it:
I don’t know what the “squeezer” is, maybe the jail, though I know the other archie-slangs in the song.
For Larry was ever the lad, 5
When a boy was condemned to the squeezer,
Would fence all the duds that he had
To help a poor friend to a sneezer,
N Rich Merne on Wed 14 Apr 2004, 12:53pm. Flag this

Dirk
“godfather, sell me their children”, I think this is simply a slightly sad insight into a ‘broody’, Sam. Around this time and also plentifully elsewhere, Sam expresses a fondness for children, ‘the ones he never had’, and is frequently tender to the point of ‘broodyness’ about them.
N Pedro on Fri 4 May 2007, 08:06pm. Flag this

Regulation of Ports between England and Holland. April 11 1661.

Agreement for post between England and the United Provinces.

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k93746s/f104.table
N Pedro on Wed 6 Feb 2008, 09:51am. Flag this

11th April 1661

Allin on his way home from Constantinople meets a French ship and sends his Lieutenant aboard to hear news of Cyprus…

“…who talks of great want of provisions there, next to famine, and so it is from where we have come, both in Turkey and the Islands.”