Monday 14 July 1662

Annotations

• N dirk on Thu 14 Jul 2005, 11:27pm

  “10

• N Bradford on Thu 14 Jul 2005, 11:31pm

  Calling All Explicators:
  “This night I began to put on my waistcoat also. I found the pageant in Cornhill taken down, which was pretty strange.”

• N Leslie Katz on Thu 14 Jul 2005, 11:37pm

  From a definition of “last” in the OED:

  2. A commercial denomination of weight, capacity, or quantity, varying for different kinds of goods and in different localities. Cf. G. last.
  Originally the

• N dirk on Thu 14 Jul 2005, 11:40pm

  a “last”

  I can now answer my own question (I think):

  “A measure of volume, which was often used in the grain business, was the LAST. Depending on the region it varied between 2,800 liter and 3,000 liter. It was also used as an old measure of weight; one last of wheat was 2,400 kg, one last of rye was 2,100 kg and one last of linseed was 2,040 kg.”
  http://www.rabbel.info/Olddumes.html

  10

• N JWB on Fri 15 Jul 2005, 12:02am

  Stockholm Tar
  Worth your time.
  http://www.maritime.org/conf/conf-kaye-tar.htm

• N Terry Foreman on Fri 15 Jul 2005, 02:07am

• N Robert Gertz on Fri 15 Jul 2005, 02:39am

  So our Beth is sticking on to the very last moment before the great roof-raising, eh? I was beginning to think she’d scooted for Brampton already.

  Note to self: When and if time-traveling to Pepys’ London, avoid consultions with Dr. Tom Pepys.

• N A. De Araujo on Fri 15 Jul 2005, 03:45am

  “but my simple Dr.do talk so like a fool that I am weary of him”
  me thinks Dr. T. Pepys isn’t “simple”
  he graduated from Medical School in Padua,one of the best Medical Schools at the time; he probably spoke Italian and Latin and I am sure he knew his multiplication tables.

• N JWB on Fri 15 Jul 2005, 04:11am

  last
  It’s the “last” in ballast.

• N Terry Foreman on Fri 15 Jul 2005, 05:26am

  The “pageant in Cornhill”: an elevated moving display ad “in” the Street? a signature visual landmark, since Sam finds it “taken down [to be] pretty strange”? (Recalling reactions to changes in the same in Times Square in NYC. A change of ownership, or the “pageant” wasn’t cost-effective? Sam showing he’s not an entrepreneur?) Or…?
  

• N Clement on Fri 15 Jul 2005, 05:44am

  pageant
  c.1380, “play in a cycle of mystery plays,” from M.L. pagina, perhaps from L. pagina “page of a book” (see page (1)) on notion of “manuscript” of a play.
  But an early sense in M.E. also was “stage or scene of a play” (1392) and Klein says a sense of L. pagina was “moveable scaffold” (probably from the etymological sense of “stake”). With excrescent -t as in ancient (q.v.). Generalized sense of “showy parade, spectacle” is first attested 1805, though this notion is found in pageantry (1651).
  from http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=pageantry&searchmode=none

  Cornhill being a reknowned street of trade, Terry Foreman’s “signature visual landmark” seems quite likely.

• N Clement on Fri 15 Jul 2005, 06:06am

  Taken down
  As to why, I suspect nothing more than the merchants were tired of seeing it every day, and thought it stale and uninteresting. Same reason stores continue to change their window displays frequently. Sam may visit Cornhill as infrequently as some of us do an area shopping mall, and wonder at the changes since our last visit (12 months prior).

  JWB, thanks—an interesting link. Residents of North Carolina are known as “Tar Heels” to this day, as are their University’s champion basketball team members.

• N Miss Ann on Fri 15 Jul 2005, 06:35am

  “but my simple Dr.do talk so like a fool that I am weary of him” - those of us who work with highly educated professionals, in my case lawyers, know that academic brilliance has nothing to do with personality - sometimes personality completely by-passes those with a high education (present company excepted of course).

• N Xjy on Fri 15 Jul 2005, 09:32am

  “last” “Stockholm tar”
  The Baltic is rampant today :-)
  Great site, JWB! I’m a bit dubious about the bad reputation of Finnish tar. Have to look into that. As I’ve mentioned before, Oulu on the Gulf of Bothnia was a great tar metropolis, and Finland still produces tar pastilles and tar soap.
  The first novel written by great Swedish author Sara Lidman (from the north) was entitled “tar dale” (it’s available in German and French, but not in English) — “tj

• N A. Hamilton on Fri 15 Jul 2005, 02:11pm

  Residents of North Carolina are known as

• N Mary on Fri 15 Jul 2005, 03:17pm

  “my simple Dr.”

  Enlarging on Miss Ann’s note above, nor does academic success, in whatever field, necessarily accompany plain common sense.

• N language hat on Fri 15 Jul 2005, 06:06pm

  “It

• N andy on Fri 15 Jul 2005, 07:57pm

  Up by 4 o

• N Bradford on Fri 15 Jul 2005, 10:08pm

  The waistcoat’s all very well for October; but July in London, if the current one’s anything to go by?

• N Pauline on Sat 16 Jul 2005, 02:11am

  “This night I began to put on my waistcoat also.”
  Terry F., I think you have it. Experimenting with keeping his torso covered and warm against his “old troubles”. And now with the roof coming off, he takes it up even though it is July (but about to rain). OR it may actually be a truss-like garment; not only warmth, but firm support for his lower abdomen.
  

• N Wim van der Meij on Sat 16 Jul 2005, 01:22pm

  The Dutch word chirurgijn can be easily recognized in Sam’s chyrurgeon here. For the etymology see: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=surgeon .
  The word ‘last’ is the same in Dutch.

• N Glyn on Sun 17 Jul 2005, 04:51pm

  The Pageant in Cornhill

  I think that Terry and Clement have basically explained it. But when Charles II ceremonially rode through London on his return in 1661, a series of triumphal arches were especially erected for the occasion, some of which appear to have survived for several years, and I am wondering if this was one of them. Possibly it would have been decorated with images glorifying the king and his father (a bit like what is on the Monument today).

  Certainly, Cornhill could have been on the route that Charles took when he rode into London. As they were meant to be temporary structures, and doubtless impeded the traffic, I am surprised they lasted so long, but perhaps no-one wanted the responsibility of doing that, especially when the young king was highly popular. But now it’s a year later and maybe getting rickety and dirty, and the king has lost a bit of his popularity.

  This is all just a guess though, and I have no idea if “Pageant” would be used to describe such a thing.

• N Glyn on Sun 17 Jul 2005, 04:54pm

  Re Clement’s reference: “Klein says a sense of L. pagina was

• N Terry F. on Wed 17 Aug 2005, 12:36am

  Glyn’s suggestion is borne out by the entry of Monday 22 April 1661: KING