Monday 19 February 1665/66

Up, and by coach to my Lord Sandwich’s, but he was gone out. So I to White Hall, and there waited on the Duke of Yorke with some of the rest of our brethren, and thence back again to my Lord’s, to see my Lord Hinchingbroke, which I did, and I am mightily out of countenance in my great expectation of him by others’ report, though he is indeed a pretty gentleman, yet nothing what I took him for, methinks, either as to person or discourse discovered to me, but I must try him more before I go too far in censuring. Hence to the Exchequer from office to office, to set my business of my tallys in doing, and there all the morning. So at noon by coach to St. Paul’s Church-yarde to my Bookseller’s, and there bespoke a few more books to bring all I have lately bought to 10l.. Here I am told for certain, what I have heard once or twice already, of a Jew in town, that in the name of the rest do offer to give any man 10l. to be paid 100l., if a certain person now at Smyrna be within these two years owned by all the Princes of the East, and particularly the grand Signor as the King of the world, in the same manner we do the King of England here, and that this man is the true Messiah. One named a friend of his that had received ten pieces in gold upon this score, and says that the Jew hath disposed of 1100l. in this manner, which is very strange; and certainly this year of 1666 will be a year of great action; but what the consequences of it will be, God knows!

Thence to the ’Change, and from my stationer’s thereabouts carried home by coach two books of Ogilby’s, his AEsop and Coronation, which fell to my lot at his lottery. Cost me 4l. besides the binding. So home.

I find my wife gone out to Hales, her paynter’s, and I after a little dinner do follow her, and there do find him at worke, and with great content I do see it will be a very brave picture. Left her there, and I to my Lord Treasurer’s, where Sir G. Carteret and Sir J. Minnes met me, and before my Lord Treasurer and Duke of Albemarle the state of our Navy debts were laid open, being very great, and their want of money to answer them openly professed, there being but 1,500,000l. to answer a certaine expense and debt of 2,300,000l..

Thence walked with Fenn down to White Hall, and there saw the Queene at cards with many ladies, but none of our beauties were there. But glad I was to see the Queene so well, who looks prettily; and methinks hath more life than before, since it is confessed of all that she miscarryed lately; Dr. Clerke telling me yesterday at White Hall that he had the membranes and other vessels in his hands which she voided, and were perfect as ever woman’s was that bore a child.

Thence hoping to find my Lord Sandwich, away by coach to my Lord Chancellor’s, but missed him, and so home and to office, and then to supper and my Journall, and to bed.


15 Annotations

First Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"to my Lord's, to see my Lord Hinchingbroke, which I did, and I am mightily out of countenance in my great expectation of him by others' report, though he is indeed a pretty gentleman, yet nothing what I took him for, methinks, either as to person or discourse discovered to me"

Nearly two years ago, Lord Sandwich and we (but not Pepys) had evidence that Eddie (Lord H) has not been, ah, either diligent or a quick study.

http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

and the same with Eddie's little bro Sid

http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

There is a Jew in London laying bets "that this man is the true Messiah"

"this man"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabb…

"certainly this year of 1666 will be a year of great action; but what the consequences of it will be, God knows! "

Indeed!!

Terry Foreman  •  Link

The 17th cent. was a period of millenarianism in England, as we have seen in the 5th Monarchy Men. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fift…

“During the first half of the 17th century, millenarian ideas of the approach of the Messianic time, and more especially of the redemption of the Jews and their return to the land of Israel, with their own independent sovereignty, were popular. The apocalyptic year was identified by Christian authors as 1666. This belief was so dominant that Manasseh ben Israel, in his letter to Oliver Cromwell and the Rump Parliament, did not hesitate to use it as a motive for his plea for the readmission of the Jews into England, remarking “the opinions of many Christians and mine do concur herein, that we both believe that the restoring time of our Nation into their native country is very near at hand”.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabb…

cape henry  •  Link

Thanks for those reminders, TF. There must have been many like Eddie, all in all. It occurs to me, however, that most people today would think Xenophon to be a wireless device.

cgs  •  Link

Not much debt, just 2.2 billion farthings.

Maurie Beck  •  Link

The rumors of Sabbatai Zevi as the new messiah swept through Europe. As mentioned in the link above, the large Jewish community in Amsterdam, which was composed of refugees from the Spanish Inquisition, was inflamed by this rumor. I recently read Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity, in which Zevi was prominently mentioned. By this time Spinoza had been excommunicated from the Jewish community.

Sabbatai Zevi was clearly bipolar. He swung between catatonia and ecstatic delusions.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"...if a certain person now at Smyrna be within these two years owned by all the Princes of the East, and particularly the grand Signor as the King of the world, in the same manner we do the King of England here..."

"I'm King of the World, Jamie! King of the World!!"

"Certainly Charlie...Uh, I believe the King has had enough wine for this evening."

I'm reminded of that sensible Byzantine emperor the kindly Romanus I who told his advisors that his Bulgarian opponent Simeon who had claimed for himself the title of Emperor of the Romans and Bulgarians was welcome to call himself anything he liked so long as he remained in Bulgaria.

Andrew Hamilton  •  Link

Sam, "out of countenance" from his disappointment in Hinchingbroke, discovers that it takes only one generation for the "common greenness" to set in:

From Meditations in time of Civil War
William Butler Yeats

I. Ancestral Houses

Surely among a rich man's flowering lawns,
Amid the rustle of his planted hills,
Life overflows without ambitious pains;
And rains down life until the basin spills,
And mounts more dizzy high the more it rains
As though to choose whatever shape it wills
And never stoop to a mechanical
Or servile shape, at others' beck and call.

Mere dreams, mere dreams! Yet Homer had not Sung
Had he not found it certain beyond dreams
That out of life's own self-delight had sprung
The abounding glittering jet; though now it seems
As if some marvellous empty sea-shell flung
Out of the obscure dark of the rich streams,
And not a fountain, were the symbol which
Shadows the inherited glory of the rich.

Some violent bitter man, some powerful man
Called architect and artist in, that they,
Bitter and violent men, might rear in stone
The sweetness that all longed for night and day,
The gentleness none there had ever known;
But when the master's buried mice can play.
And maybe the great-grandson of that house,
For all its bronze and marble, 's but a mouse.

...

V. My Descendants

Having inherited a vigorous mind
From my old fathers, I must nourish dreams
And leave a woman and a man behind
As vigorous of mind, and yet it seems
Life scarce can cast a fragrance on the wind,
Scarce spread a glory to the morning beams,
But the torn petals strew the garden plot;
And there's but common greenness after that.

...

language hat  •  Link

From the Wikipedia article on Sabbatai Zevi:

"The readiness of the Jews of the time to believe the messianic claims of Sabbatai Zevi may be largely explained by the desperate state of European Jewry in the mid-1600s. The bloody pogroms of Bohdan Khmelnytsky had wiped out one third of the Jewish population and destroyed many centers of Jewish learning and communal life. There is no doubt that for most of the Jews of Europe there could never have seemed a more propitious moment for the messiah to deliver salvation than the moment at which Sabbetai Zevi made his appearance."

Lawrence  •  Link

Not much debt, just 2.2 billion farthings.

At this time, Charles was having test (pattern) farthings (Fourthings) done, one I find amusing is the one with the insciption on the reverse;
"QVATVOR.MARIA.VINDICO.
Which I think translates as I Claim the four sea's, his French friends weren't happy with this, and after (Spoiler Alert) the Dutch attacked his principal Naval base, He abandoned that one, but He didn't issue His first Farthing till 1672, and that was the first time Britania apeared on a British coin, There is apparently no real evidence that Frances Stuart was the model for Britania, but I like to believe She was...

Albatross  •  Link

"So home. I find my wife gone out to Hales, her paynter’s, and I after a little dinner do follow her, and there do find him at worke"

Why do I picture some street urchin racing into Hales' studio and rapping at the rear door.

"Sir! Sir! The man is coming, the one you said to watch for, a round-faced gentleman with no belt?"

From within the sound of frantic scrambling, and a voice,

"You've earned your shilling, lad, and there's a another in it if you can waylay him in the lane!"

Minutes later

"Ah, Hales, very good, very good, what a brave portrait that shall be!"

"Ah, thankee m'lord"

"Strange lad hereabouts, do you know him? Ginger, missing his front tooth? Insisted on showing me the gap for a full five minutes. Had to pay him a shilling to get him to move along..."

Michael Robinosn  •  Link

"Thence to the ‘Change, and from my stationer’s thereabouts carried home by coach two books of Ogilby’s, his AEsop and Coronation, which fell to my lot at his lottery."

The broadside / prospectus for Ogilby's Lottery:

Ogilby, John, 1600-1676.
Mr. Ogilby’s lottery, licensed by His Royal Highness the Duke of York, and assistants of the Corporation of the Royal Fishing, for the vending of certain volumes of his own books.
London : s.n., 1665?]
1 sheet ([1] p.) ; 1⁰.
Listing results of one lottery (1664) and proposing another; the prize lots consist of his books, listed here with his valuations. Wing (CD-ROM, 1996), O177bA

SP had been appointed to the 'Corporation of the Royal Fishery' March 10th. 1664( http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1… ) His notes of their discussions that year include many reference to the lottery as a method of fund raising, particularly, http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1… .

Ogilby used a lottery as one method of retailing his lavishly illustrated publications from circa 1664 to 1668.

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"the state of our Navy debts were laid open, being very great, and their want of money to answer them openly professed, there being but 1,500,000l. to answer a certaine expense and debt of 2,300,000l.."

The meeting is reported and the figures set out in detail in a letter from Pepys to Coventry of this date: printed in Further Corr., pp. 120-2. Credit consisted mostly of a parliamentary grant of £1 1/4 m. made in October 1665; the debts (running from 24 June 1660) did not include expenses of the ordinance, the charge for the sick and wounded, or wages from 1 August to 31 December 1665. Current needs were estimated at £25,000 a week. (Per L&M footnote)

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"There is a Jew in London laying bets "that this man is the true Messiah""

L&M: The fame of Sabbatai Zevi, the false Messiah of Smyrna, was now at its height, and had made some impression in England. He died in obscurity in 1676, a Mosem. Evelyn wrote about him in The history of the three late, famous impostors, viz. Padre Ottomano, Mahomed Bei and Sabatai Sevi the one, pretended son and heir to the late Grand Signior, the other, a prince of the Ottoman family, but in truth, a Valachian counterfeit, and the last, the suppos'd Messiah of the Jews, in the year of the true Messiah, 1666 : with a brief account of the ground and occasion of the present war between the Turk and the Venetian : together with the cause of the final extirpation, destruction and exile of the Jews out of the Empire of Persia.
Evelyn, John, 1620-1706.
In the Savoy: Printed for Henry Herringman ..., 1669.
Early English Books Online [full text]
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo…

Log in to post an annotation.

If you don't have an account, then register here.