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RLB has posted 44 annotations/comments since 10 May 2023.

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Third Reading

About Saturday 16 March 1660/61

RLB  •  Link

The link given in the very first comment is broken, and if I substitute org for net, it still goes only to the introductory material of the collected works of Massinger and Fletcher (in which The Spanish Curate *is* mentioned, though). Here's a better (and more legible) link from the same project: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1…

About Sunday 3 March 1660/61

RLB  •  Link

Sam's lack of drunkenness may be partly explained by that sermon a week ago, but it's probably more to do with it being Lent. Even if he finds it hard to abstain from indulgence altogether, he does seem to make an effort for the season.

About Saturday 2 March 1660/61

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Sam may very well have seen this child actor later in life, but simply not have recognised him as the same person. He doesn't give his name and probably didn't know it; and who realises that that strapping lad of 20 with the stylish beard is the same guy as the round-faced boy of 11 you saw once, that many years ago? I saw Carice van Houten live on the stage at the very start of her career, and I knew right there right then that she'd be a star; but I thought she'd be a star of the stage, and if I hadn't remembered her name, I'd never have recognised Melisandre as that teen who stole a Greek tragedy.

About Thursday 31 January 1660/61

RLB  •  Link

@Stewart "This dramatically demonstrated how effective transportation of any heavy goods was by water rather than on the roads of the time":

It still is. That's why Rotterdam, Antwerp, Hamburg and London are so important. Bulk goods (like coal, oil and gravel, but also like, in this case, uncut wood) are still more efficiently shipped by, well, ship. Not everything needs to be Alibaba'd to your doorstep within three working days; the only difference between Pepys' days and ours is than some things can be, not that everything has to be.

About Tuesday 29 January 1660/61

RLB  •  Link

According to Wikipedia (citation a print book with no web link, so too much bother to verify), Pepys saw this play at the Apothecaries' hall, which is indeed in Black Friars Lane. Don't ask why the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries would put up a play like this, or indeed any play at all.

About Monday 7 January 1660/61

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For anybody wondering what a Trained Band looked like, look no further than Rembrandt's Night Watch, official, snappy title "The Company of captain Frans Banninck Cocq and lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburgh prepares to march out". It was painted not quite 20 years before this point in the diary, so these bands would still have looked similar.

About Friday 11 January 1660/61

RLB  •  Link

@Awanthi Vardaray: you're probably taking the word "slut" to mean "sexually easy woman". But when Pepys uses it, it's in the older meaning of "slovenly person, usually but not always woman".

About Tuesday 1 January 1660/61

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It is possible that Anthony is only keeping a brave face. Being, apparently, a man of not always mentally happy disposition in the first place, he may well have learnt to be quite good at that.

About Monday 31 December 1660

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As I have no cat (and have only ever been infested by a single mouse), all I can do is join the chorus and wish everybody a good new year, and Phil in particular!

About Sunday 30 December 1660

RLB  •  Link

@LKvM (are you Dutch, too?) - "I to the Abby and walked there" -- wouldn't it be wonderful today to be able to just walk in and mosey around?

Last time I was there, you actually could - and St. Paul's, too. After all, they may be monuments and major works of architecture, but their main function is still what it always was: a church! Poets' Corner in the Abbey is there because Chaucer was the first famous author buried there, but he wasn't buried there because he was a famous author; but because he was a regular member of the congregation.

All these churches, for all we may think of them as important works of architecture, were first and foremost *churches* in Chaucer's time; first and foremost churches in Samuel's time; and maybe not first and foremost, but very much still are churches in our time. And yes, you can attend service there.

About Thursday 27 December 1660

RLB  •  Link

@dirk (the very first entry!) - I'm not sure we can immediately spring to that lascivious conclusion. If it were only Samuel, maybe - though not necessarily quite yet - but we really have no hint of that in Elizabeth. I do want to believe that they were merely happy about the way she ran to her business.

About Tuesday 25 December 1660

RLB  •  Link

Gifts, in these days, if they were given at all, would be given a. not in England, but in the Low Countries and northern Germany; b. not lavish, but just a toy to a child or perhaps an orange or something like that, and most of all c. on Saint Nicholas' Eve, so three weeks ago. And make no mistake, Saint Nicholas was *not* Sanity Clause!

Father Christmas was another thing altogether. As far as I can tell (but I admit I'm not sure here) he was a tradition *before* Cromwell in England, and became one again a century later; and was, in some form or another, - maybe even in the St. Nick-form aforementioned - present in southern Germany and adjoining regions. He was reimported *in that form* into England in Victorian times, partly because Victoria was, well, German.

And then there is a whole lot of other traditions involving Odin, Yule lads, and so on, which it would take too much time to go into. But in any case, in Sam's time, the current tradition of Chrimbo stocking-filling was decidedly not the fashion. Neither - but that's probably no surprise to any reader - were tree-adorning or card-sending (if only for the lack of postage stamps).

About Thursday 13 December 1660

RLB  •  Link

Not only can vines withstand frost, for the production of ice wine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice…) it is essential that the grapes themselves are frozen. Modern ice wine production only started after Pepys' life, but producing good red wine in England was therefore quite possible in his days.

About Saturday 24 November 1660

RLB  •  Link

Vermouth was not banned as absinthe was because apparently, despite the name, wormwood is more easily replaced in vermouth than in absinthe. Also, absinthe was much, much more dangerous.

It is now known that in the amounts wormwood is present in either drink, it is not dangerous unless you drink litres of the stuff a day. The problem with absinthe was a. 70% (!) alcohol by volume - that is, 140 proof (again: !) - and b. bad quality control of the other ingredients and fusel oils. Vermouth suffered from neither of those, and modern absinthe only suffers from the ABV. In moderation, it's quite safe. (Disgustingly cloying, IMO, but safe.)

As for vermouth, it *is* a wormwood wine, or rather, a fortified wine aromatised with herbs traditionally including wormwood as a main aroma. These days, it doesn't usually contain wormwood any more, but I believe some brands still (or again) do. So, what Sam and pals drank today may well have been not dissimilar to our vermouth. Cheers!

About Thursday 15 November 1660

RLB  •  Link

Slashes for pounds are all the more confusing because historically, it was the normal sign for abbreviating shillings and pence, not pounds. See, for example, the Mad Hatter's label of "In this Style 10/6", meaning ten shillings sixpence. So I agree, let's not.

(For another illustration, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fil… ; that theatre was first built three years from the diary's now, and I would not be surprised if later on, Sam mentions seeing a play there.)

About Tuesday 13 November 1660

RLB  •  Link

@San Diego Sarah: there's nothing incongruous to me about a pie served in a dish of pie crust. After all, what else is the good old English pork pie?

About Tuesday 13 November 1660

RLB  •  Link

Back to the very first annotation for today...

In fact, thermometers had been around for nearly 50 years by now. However, they were scientific and/or experimental instruments. I;m sure in a few years Sam will handle a few at the Royal Society, along with Boyle.

It would indeed be a bit more than 50 years until Fahrenheit invented the first truly accurate thermometer, the first practical one (clinical, in that case) took a decade or two more, and a workable oven thermometer centuries more.

It turns out to be easy to measure temperature on an -ish scale, and much harder to do it well.

About Wednesday 7 November 1660

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As Terry Foreman hinted but did not state explicitly last year, "raised" in this context means raising in status, not raising as a child. In fact, Sir Sidney was older than Charles I, and Charles II was only 14 years old at his death. But the elder king turned him from a younger son in an important family with more important branches, to a proper mover and shaker.

About Tuesday 30 October 1660

RLB  •  Link

There is again, but not still, a pub in London (itself) called The Hercules Pillars. The modern one is nearby, also in Holborn, but not on Fleet Street. Also, from the looks of its website isn't very old at all. So not the one Sam visited.

However, there are still some famous pubs on Fleet Street which date back, if not to 1660, to the later 17th century. Ye Olde Cock has been relocated, but is the same venture. Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese was rebuilt after the Fire of London. Sam may well have frequented the originals.