Tuesday 3 September 1661

Annotations

• N Todd Bernhardt on Fri 3 Sep 2004, 11:20pm

  A couple of questions:

  1) Their turner (which my dictionary defines as “one who forms articles with a lathe”), sends them “two things to file papers on very handsome.” Not quite sure what this means, but it could give us some good insight into the previous discussion about what it is exactly that Sam does when he gets his papers in order. Ideas/info, anyone?

  2) How can Lady Montagu be “my Lord’s mother-in-law”? Wouldn’t that be Lady Crew?

  I’m getting more convinced that Sam’s POV about his mother’s simplemindedness has more to do with her unwillingness to heed his (or his father’s) counsel in all things than with her actual mental acuity. Ya know?

• N A. De Araujo on Fri 3 Sep 2004, 11:26pm

  “had a great deal of noise and wrangling about it” his mother is not at all impressed with his success in life; for her he is still a child;I know some mothers like that.

• N Josh on Fri 3 Sep 2004, 11:56pm

  Sam’s “two things to file papers on”—-maybe just more table-space? Of course, once you have something the size of a dining-room table, even that winds up not being big enough.
  My suspicion is that “file” here means “sort.” We file papers IN things nowadays, but it seems an unlikely preposition shift (unless it’s a slip of the pen).

• N Lorry on Sat 4 Sep 2004, 12:19am

  When Sam took the liberty to advise his mother, it might’ve sounded like an order to his mother which is why she put up an argument with him.

• N Pauline on Sat 4 Sep 2004, 12:33am

  “…a great deal of noise and wrangling about it.”
  Sam is clearly saying, again and again, that she “has become” different than she was before these reports began early this year. No doubt in my mind that she is suffering a mental deterioration. Well, actually she probably feels fine, those around her are suffering in trying to deal with her irrationality and frustrated outbursts.

• N Pauline on Sat 4 Sep 2004, 01:03am

  “…Lady Montagu, my Lord

• N Pauline on Sat 4 Sep 2004, 01:06am

  actually, in 1664

  No mention of the King as godfather….

• N vicente on Sat 4 Sep 2004, 02:50am

  “…This day some of us Commissioners went down to Deptford to pay off some ships…”
  ‘I say ol chap, I’m not a B***** nobby clerk ye know. Let me say…….’
  I may be a majority of one, but his garters are cutting deep. Then high about dear ol mum.
  “…and she (being become now-a-days very simple) took it very ill, and we had a great deal of noise and wrangling about it….”

• N vicente on Sat 4 Sep 2004, 02:57am

  A guess by one not knowing: “… our turner, sent me two things to file papers on very handsome….” I doth think they be weigh bills [bills of laden] that have been extremely well written, itemised, clear of all imperfections like blots of ink and erasures and other unseemly unpolished work done by one whose brainwashing is not by Granta or Isis , but an artesian who is proud of ‘wot ‘e do’..

• N vicente on Sat 4 Sep 2004, 02:59am

  P.S. An artesian that would shame a quill pen pusher , [ one whose 3R’s be well done, readin’ ritin’ and reckonin’.

• N vicente on Sat 4 Sep 2004, 03:28am

  re: Failing Mum: another angle:I remember one of the local families daughter’s went off to the big U [the first in the modern times] and up to leaving, was so compatible with her Mum, after two years, Mum IQ’s drop 50% in the daughter mind, only years later, did mum get smarter again. ‘Tis a failing of those whose ladder has up rungs only and fails to keep an even keel.[ failing to remember that what goes up, can come down , and the ‘ead don’t ‘alf ‘urt if one does slide down and failed to be nice on the way up]

• N vicente on Sat 4 Sep 2004, 03:33am

  qu?:”…Parson of the parish christened her, and did not sign the child with the sign of the cross…” which level of C of E. show Catholic symbols?.

• N dirk on Sat 4 Sep 2004, 03:42am

  “two things to file papers on”

  Possibly small tables (with raised edges?), or small cabinets on turned legs with lots of small drawers (I’ve seen cabinets like this, but couldn’t find a picture on the internet). “on” might be a misread for “in” (vowels in Sam’s shorthand are not always clearly distinguishable).
  

• N vicente on Sat 4 Sep 2004, 05:04am

  I do not think he was a cabinet maker, but I do think that he did work for the Navy and was submitting 2 bills. Sam was setting up his work sheets for keeping his debits and payments straight.[setting to rights, an expression of balancing the books, making appropiate adjustments.]
  There are many expressions that taken without detail, do lead to false conclusions, i.e. cooking the books, not well I done I trust, just medium rare.

• N vicente on Sat 4 Sep 2004, 05:09am

  To file can mean presenting to or submit to, to arrange or classify. Sam being the Clerk not the file clark, not to store away.

• N Pauline on Sat 4 Sep 2004, 07:12am

  “…two things to file papers on very handsome.”
  Perhaps desktop cases with pigeon holes?

• N Mary on Sat 4 Sep 2004, 08:35am

  “Lady Montagu, my Lord’s mother in law”

  L&M footnote states that this was Lady (Ann) Montagu, Sandwich’s step-mother. Thus, not his natural mother but his mother in point of law.

• N Todd Bernhardt on Sat 4 Sep 2004, 01:09pm

  Thanks, Mary. And Vincent, interesting POV (as always!) about the “two things.”

• N Bob T on Sat 4 Sep 2004, 02:00pm

  Mother-in-law
  The meaning of this word(s) has changed since Sam’s time. In Dickens’ Pickwick Papers, Sam Weller often refers to his “Mother-in-law”, where we would use the words Step-Mother.

  A “turner” in Sam’s time might well have been what we would now call a cabinet maker.

  We can’t simply take all the words that Sam uses, and translate them into modern usage. The English language is in a constant state of flux, where words come and go, and change their meaning too. When Sam “files” papers, he could be simply putting them in order, and not putting them in neatly labelled folders. And he certainly isn’t putting them in folders, and then saving them to “My Documents” :-)

• N Stolzi on Sat 4 Sep 2004, 03:20pm

  Catholic symbols in C. of E.?

  The sign of the cross is actually commanded, and mentioned in one of the prayers for Baptism. So it would be done even in “low-church” places where the sign of the cross would not be used generally.

  I think Sam is offended by the Puritanism of this parson. Still a lot of Puritanism around, I am sure.

  Here is the text from 1559 (a new Book would be established next year, 1662):

  “Then the Priest shall make a Crosse upon the Childes forehead, saying:

  “WE receive this Childe into the congregacion of Christes flocke, and do sygne him with the signe of the crosse, in token that hereafter he shal not be ashamed to confesse the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under his banner against sinne, the worlde, and the devyll, and to continue Christes faithful souldiour and servaunt unto his lives ende. Amen.”

  In this case of course it would have been “she” and “her.”

  By the way, the Book also enjoins that the Baptism be held in the church on Sunday, if at all possible. I suspect this particular home christening is a case of “rank hath its privileges.”

• N A. amilton on Sat 4 Sep 2004, 03:44pm

  One of the charms of the diary, to me, is puzzling out Sam’s cryptic comments. What does he mean by setting papers to rights? Is it double entry bookkeeping, as suggested by Vincent, or organizing recent submissions into different categories for decision or further disposition by the board, or pretty much the whole range of his responsibilities as Clerk? Can the “two things to file papers on” refer (because of “things”) to physical objects or, as Vincent suggests, more work for the Clerk? Why was the christening priest’s failure to make the sign of the cross over the baby an ill omen? What is the root of the conflict between mother and son( and father and mother)? Each riddle draws me further into the inner and outer life of Sam in his times, especially because of the stimulus provided by the imaginative and scholarly work of the annotators.

• N Pedro. on Sat 4 Sep 2004, 04:22pm

  “failure to make the sign of the cross over the baby an ill omen?”

  Maybe the lack of the sign of the cross would cast doubt that the baby had actually been baptised? Would this in turn mean, given the high mortality rate, that if the baby died, some would fear that it could not actually reach the kingdom of heaven?

• N A. De Araujo on Sat 4 Sep 2004, 05:39pm

  “sign of the cross”
  we dont know if she went to Heaven,but we do know (spoiler) that she enjoyed this world for 97 years!!!!!

• N dirk on Sat 4 Sep 2004, 10:30pm

  “two things to file papers on very handsome”

  I don’t share Vicente’s point of view here: the use of the adjective “handsome” seems to refer to something physical. I don’t think anybody (nowadays or in the 17th c) would refer to bills or documents, or eve the act of filing, as being handsome.

  For the sake of completeness:

  turner: a lathe operator
  From: Gendocs guide to “Ranks, Professions, Occupations and Trades”

  turner: a person who turns wood on a lathe into spindles or similar items
  From:
  Dictionary of Ancient Occupations and Trades, Ranks, Offices, and Titles

  See background info for the links: http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/329.php#c9600
  http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/329.php#c12494
  

• N vicente on Sun 5 Sep 2004, 03:44am

  ‘the use of the adjective

• N Mary on Sun 5 Sep 2004, 09:04am

  Sam would have appreciated the GIFT?

  What gift? At this point Howell is the officially appointed Turner to the Navy. I bet that these two, handsome ‘things’ have been commissioned by Pepys on Navy account, possibly made to his own design.

  The fact that they have been delivered to his living quarters rather than to the office may represent simple precaution. Had Howell delivered them to the office at a time when Pepys was away from his desk, then one of the other clerks, or even one of the Sir Williams, might have thought, “Now, there’s a handy article” and taken either or both for his own use.

• N George on Mon 6 Sep 2004, 08:14am

  As a wood turner I have given this much thought and conclude that these were the bars that the papers or parchments were rolled on to.Rather like thin pastry pins with fancy finials turned on the ends.

• N George on Mon 6 Sep 2004, 08:34am

  “this morning Mr. Howell, our turner, sent me two things to file papers on very handsome.” I have visions of documents rolled up and stacked on shelves with their ends showing, tied in ribbons with tags and tassels to identify them. The lesser documents would have been just rolled around a pin and the pin removed but important ones with a seal would require something fancy (hansome) to be permanantly attached to.

• N vicente on Mon 6 Sep 2004, 06:44pm

  ‘bars that the papers or parchments were rolled on’.Makes eminent sense: thanks a niffty device