Tuesday 28 March 1665

Annotations

• - Nix on Fri 28 Mar 2008, 11:27pm. Flag this

  Just another damn day at the office, God wot. Where’s Betty Lane when you need her?

• - Eric Walla on Sat 29 Mar 2008, 01:37am. Flag this

  What exactly does “God wot” mean, BTW? (Or am I just too much of a Yank?)

• - Robert Gertz on Sat 29 Mar 2008, 01:45am. Flag this

  So “dinner” is now in use for “supper”?

  Geesh, what a cheapskate is Sir Will W. A titan of English industry and no offer of dinner/supper…Not even pub pretzels…to our boy? I’m actually a little surprised Sam didn’t show a little resentment.

  Late suppers these folks threw considering the lack of electric or gas lighting. Sam couldn’t have gotten home before 9:30 or 10 at the earliest and I sure would find giving a 10 pm supper party daunting.

  Nice of Sam and presumably, Batten, to dine with Penn at his expense after spending a happy afternoon the other day stabbing him in the back… But hey, welcome to The (Naval) Office.

• - cgs on Sat 29 Mar 2008, 02:04am. Flag this

  not the the modern wot of h dropping but a version to wit:
  should be a LH special

  to wot
  [var. of WIT v.1, due to the carrying over of the preterite-present stem w{ohookmac}t (earlier and northern w{amac}t) into other parts of the verb. The substitution occurs first in the 2nd pers. sing. (w{amac}t, w{ohookmac}t for w{amac}st, w{ohookmac}st) and the plur. (for w{ibreve}ten) of the present tense, and appears in northern texts from the end of the 13th century. In the 14th cent. the new forms wotest and woteth (wotis) appear. The infin. woten occurs early in the 15th cent., and wotte, wote, wot in the 16th, together with the pres. pple. wotting. The pa. tense wotted is an archaism of the 19th cent.]

  
  1. 2nd sing. pres. ind. {alpha}north. and Sc. 4-5 wat, 4-6 wate, (4 whate, quat, vat), 6 wait, (vait). {beta}4 whote, 5 woot, wot.
  {alpha} a1300 Cursor M. 766 Wat {th}ou [Gött. quat. Fairf. wate] quarfor?

• - Bryan M on Sat 29 Mar 2008, 03:01am. Flag this

  God wot = God knows

  From the Online Etymology Dictionary (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php)

  Wot:
  “to know” (archaic), from O.E. wat, first and third person singular present indicative of witan “to know,” from P.Gmc. *wait (see wit (v.)).
  

• - Bryan M on Sat 29 Mar 2008, 03:26am. Flag this

  Is “9 o’clock” an error by Wheatley?
  The context seems to indicate that Sam had dinner at home later than usual in the afternoon and supper at night with Sir W. Pen. Looking back over the last month, it was Sam’s habit to visit the ‘Change at noon or just before dinner if the time was not noted. Eight or so hours at the coffee house with Sir W. Warren makes for a lot of coffee.

• - Gus Spier on Sat 29 Mar 2008, 04:03am. Flag this

  Does anybody have any information on why Adm Penn is back in town? And why was anybody impugning his courage? (25 Mar 1665 “Sir W. Batten being, I perceive, quite out of love with him, thinking him too great and too high, and began to talk that the world do question his courage …”)

• - dirk on Sat 29 Mar 2008, 04:14am. Flag this

  “and thence to the Coffee-house … where much good discourse”

  And if you hear it in a Coffee-house, it cannot but be true…

  
  You that delight in wit and mirth,
  And long to hear such news
  As come from all parts of the earth,
  Dutch, Danes, and Turks, and Jews,
  I’ll send you to a rendezvous,
  Where it is smoking new;
  Go hear it at a coffee-house,
  It cannot but be true?

  There battles and sea-fights are fought,
  And bloody plots displayed;
  They know more things than ere was thought,
  Or ever was betrayed:
  No money in the Minting-house
  Is half so bright and new;
  And, coming from the coffee-house,
  It cannot but be true.

  Before the navies fall to work,
  They know who shall be winner;
  They there can tell you what the Turk
  Last Sunday had to dinner;
  Who last did cut De Ruyter’s corns,
  Amongst his jovial crew;
  Or who first gave the devil horns,
  Which cannot but be true.

  From a broadside song, 1667
  http://www.library.wisc.edu/etext/BookofDays/01830172.html
  

• - Paul Chapin on Sat 29 Mar 2008, 04:20am. Flag this

  9 o’clock
  If this isn’t an error, either in editing or scanning, then I think it has to mean 9 AM. Remember he was up betimes, which by this time of year probably means before 5 AM, so he had time to put in a good piece of work (although we wouldn’t call it “all the morning”) before going out for coffee with Sir WW. Then he has dinner at home, then back to the office, then sups at the Penns with Elizabeth. Then back to the office until midnight. So no, I don’t think it’s a 9 PM dinner and then a later supper, nor was it 8 hours at the Change.

• - Michael Robinson on Sat 29 Mar 2008, 05:20am. Flag this

  ” … good discourse for us both till 9 o’clock …”

  L&M read ” … till 4 a-clock, …”

• - Phil on Sat 29 Mar 2008, 01:12pm. Flag this

  The Coffee-House. Any chance this is the famous Edward Lloyd’s coffee house, birth place of Lloyd’s Insurance?

• - Robert Gertz on Sat 29 Mar 2008, 02:36pm. Flag this

  4pm, eh? Kind of a disappointment after imagining a wild late night affair at chez Penn.

  11:30 pm…Chez Penn.

  “Penn-hic-William P-hic…Jr.”

  “Yes…It’s me, Mr. Penn. Mrs. Pepys.”

  “Of-hic-course. Enchante, madam-hic.”

  “Pepys! What’s this I’ve heard from Batten about you spreading stories about my cowardice?” Admiral Sir Will eyeing our hero, currently engaged in his favorite leisure activity tonight centering on young Ms. Penn.

  “What, Sir Will?” glance to a non-committal Batten…How do you think I earned my nickname “Turncoat Will”?…Who seems lost in fascination in viewing the opposing blank wall.

• - Rex Gordon on Sat 29 Mar 2008, 03:16pm. Flag this

  Lloyd’s Coffee-house

  Lloyd’s coffee-house was in Tower Street. It catered to sailors, merchants and shipowners. The Royal Exchange was located where Cornhill and Threadneedle streets converged. Londoners may be able to enlighten us on whether Lloyd’s was close enough to the Exchange to have been Sam’s destination on this day.

  A more likely destination was the predecessor to the famous coffee-house called Garraway’s, which was opposite the Exchange, in Exchange Alley, and lasted from circa 1668 until the late 19th century. Its predecessor was in Sweeting’s Rents by the Royal Exchange, where Thomas Garraway and his wife Elizabeth were living by 1658. Thomas is believed to be the first retailer of leaf tea in England, from an advertisement in Mercurius Politicus offering that novel commodity at “the Sultannes-head, a Cophee-house.”

• - Mary on Sun 30 Mar 2008, 07:39am. Flag this

  Lloyd’s Coffee House established 1688.

  Pepys will have to wait for another 23 years before he can get his morning refreshment and gossip there.