Thursday 5 February 1662/63

Up and to the office, where we sat all the morning, and then home to dinner, and found it so well done, above what I did expect from my mayde Susan, now Jane is gone, that I did call her in and give her sixpence. Thence walked to the Temple, and there at my cozen Roger Pepys’s chamber met by appointment with my uncle Thomas and his son Thomas, and there I shewing them a true state of my uncle’s estate as he has left it with the debts, &c., lying upon it, we did come to some quiett talk and fair offers against an agreement on both sides, though I do offer quite to the losing of the profit of the whole estate for 8 or 10 years together, yet if we can gain peace, and set my mind at a little liberty, I shall be glad of it. I did give them a copy of this state, and we are to meet tomorrow with their answer.

So walked home, it being a very great frost still, and to my office, there late writing letters of office business, and so home to supper and to bed.

21 Annotations

First Reading

dirk  •  Link

John Evelyn today

"I saw The Wild Gallant, a comedy; and was at the great ball at Court, where his Majesty, the Queen, &c., danced."

("The Wild Gallant" by Dryden. Unsucccessful on the first representation, but more successful in a new, altered version later on.)

in Aqua Scripto  •  Link

"...give her[Susan] sixpence..." ne'er before , I wonder really why??????

Bradford  •  Link

"if we can gain peace, and set my mind at a little liberty, I shall be glad of it."

Better than money.
Well---almost.
No, really, it IS better.
"What profiteth it a man," &c.&c.

in Aqua Scripto  •  Link

"...So walked home, it being a very great frost still, and to my office..."
crunch, then a whiff of condensation of the aire that be shoved into the night lit by street's flamming rags, [thanks to those that obey the orders of lit streets until 4 bells before midnight] when all may be not well, then Crunch again,puff, His thoughts be on the final conversation at the Inns court..

Australian Susan  •  Link

The inheritance business has dragged on and on. I have now become hazy about it all and would need to consult the back notes. It grows more and more like a Dickensian description of Chancery: "some score of members of the High Court of Chancery mistily engaged in one of the ten thousand stages of an endless cause, tripping one another up on slippery precedents, groping knee deep in technicalities, running their goat hair and horse-hair warded heads against walls of words and making a pretence of serious equity." (Bleak House, Ch. 1)

Incidently, everyone knows *all* Susans are excellent cooks. (all sixpences gratefully received. Thank 'ee, kind sir. Receives sixpence with bobbed curtsey and artless smile, kisses it and slips it into capacious cleavage. Sam watches with glazed eyes)

Clement  •  Link

The tables turned

Thanks, dirk, but what a topsy-turvy time we have come to when Sam is working late in the office and Rev. John Evelyn is attending plays and grand balls at court!

Still, Evelyn doesn't seem to have the same appreciation (lust) for narrative detail (women) that Sam does.

Aus. Susan, I'm sure you've re-animated the scene perfectly.

A. Hamilton  •  Link

He's towardly, and will come on apace

Words that seem applicable to Sam in Aus. Susan's little domestic drama above. They are a line from the prologue of The Wild Gallant, first staged in Feb. 1663. The central figure, Mr Loveby, seems to prefigure John Wilmost, Lord Rochester, who is only 16 at the time, but also only two years from his first celebrated attempt at abduction. Dryden, two years older than Pepys, attended Westminster School (v. Pepys at St. Paul's) and Trinity (v.Magdalene) Cambridge; he also got his start as a private secretary, but during the protectorate. Despite a Puritan background he became a court poet at the Restoration. He was admitted to the Royal Society ahead of Pepys.

A. Hamilton  •  Link

though I do offer quite to the losing of the profit of the whole estate for 8 or 10 years together, yet if we can gain peace, and set my mind at a little liberty, I shall be glad of it.

Sam is making a settlement offer because he can't fully document his claim to legal ownership of properties left to him by Uncle Robert's will that would otherwise go to Uncle John.

jeannine  •  Link

"all* Susans are excellent cooks"...Okay Susan, what time is dinner?? We'll all be there. Hope you don't mind but I've invited the rest of the readers/annotators too, plan on about 10,000 or so.
How many sixpence do we think Sam can get away with giving his Susan before Elizabeth raises her eyebrow in concern (in case she didn't already do that today)!

Roger  •  Link

...it being a very great frost still,..
...After the great snows and frosts of late November/early December of this winter the weather turned 'normal' until this new cold snap. In December Sam remarked upon the 'skeating' in the park which was, apparently, introduced this winter to England, and the're at it again. The Thames froze over this winter.
Refs, London Weather, JH Brazell HMSO 1968.
EJ Lowe, Natural phenomena and chronology of the seasons. 1870.
W Andrews, Famous frosts and frost fairs in Great Britain. 1887.

Pedro  •  Link

Okay Susan, what time is dinner??

And if you are not there, we know your key is in the garden! Better find a new hiding place.

jeannine  •  Link

"we know your key is in the garden".. Pedro, no key needed! Sam is bringing Wayneman, he'll just climb in the window. Why change any standard operating procedures now....Wayneman is a proven and most effective method of the keyless entry ...(and this fact is why he's still employed by Sam no doubt!)

dirk  •  Link

"I do offer quite to the losing of the profit of the whole estate for 8 or 10 years together"

It would have been interesting if Samuel had told us the amount he had in mind. Now we're left to guess. It must have been a huge sum -- does anybody have an approximate idea, or a way to calculate/estimate this?

dirk  •  Link

"Wayneman is a proven and most effective method of the keyless entry"

In many ways Wayneman, and scenes like this, remind me of some Dickens characters...

chris  •  Link

Dear Susan,the Oz contingent are on their way; especially now we know where the key is.

in Aqua Scripto  •  Link

How opinions change;....nice legs? , toast burnt, then worth a tanner. 3 entry's:
"...Thence home, and there I found our new cook-mayde Susan come, who is recommended to us by my wife’s brother, for which I like her never the better, but being a good well-looked lass, I am willing to try, and Jane begins to take upon her as a chamber-mayde..."
"...which troubles me; Susan, our cook-mayde, a pretty willing wench, but no good cook; ..."
"...and then home to dinner, and found it so well done, above what I did expect from my mayde Susan, now Jane is gone..."
lifted from Susan of Seething..or was it Susan that be seething..
She hath learnt to boil an egg?

Australian Susan  •  Link

Keyless entry

Although Sam always uses Wayneman to effect entry as if he couldn't do it (dignity?), it seems quite easy, which concerns me as he often has large sums of money around the house. (but always has servants inside)We know that the Navy office complex as a whole employed a watchman (maybe he should hold keys to all the houses like a French concierge), but is that good enough protection? Do they have a dog? People distinguished then between spaniels and other pet dogs and the yard dogs which were guard dogs. So there must have been some concerns about burglary.
Back to the 21st century, I don't know about the USA or UK, but here you can't get house insurance without having a completely Wayneman proof house. Had house insurance been developed in those days? I know fire insurance developed shortly after this time. (wonder why???) My insurance company probably wouldn't like the idea of a hidden key (though I do have a *large* garden).

Clement  •  Link

17th C. insurance

Indeed, it seems that Fire (building) Insurance originated in London c. 1680, and is largely credited to If-Jesus-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned "Nicholas" Barbon.

Barbon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nich…

History of insurance (not surprisingly begun for sailing merchants, in the time of Hammurabi): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insu…

Brian  •  Link

"though I do offer quite to the losing of the profit of the whole estate for 8 or 10 years together..."

It appears that Our Man, Samuel, is performing a very shrewed negotiation. Given that he can not summarily dismiss their complaints he offers short term reward in the hope they forget the long term potential. Samuel is thinking long term and what the property value will be to him later in life and to his off-spring (we all know better).

Many land developers in the colonies (oops - the "States") leave their properties fallow awaiting the convenient change in property zoning or a booming demand in new housing.

Second Reading

Chris Squire UK  •  Link

Samuel is offering to give up 10 years' income now, when he is prospering and doesn't need it, for the certainty of a useful income for their old age, when he and then Elizabeth as his widow (7 years younger than him) may be poor. No doubt he was looking forward to his allotted 'three score years and ten' which turned out to be exactly what he got.

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