"Telling Time: Clocks, Diaries, and English Diurnal Form, 1660-1785," by Stuart Sherman (University of Chicago Press, 1997)
A striking exploration of the transition to modernity. Pepys's diary is the key text: Ch. 2: "'In The Fullness of Time': Pepys and His Prececessors" shows how Pepys expresses the new sense of the day, organized by each hour and minute, -- before he acquired a watch -- rather than a sprawling undated narrative such as the one we find in Cervantes in 1605: e.g. "One morning," etc.
Synopsis
"A revolution in clock technology in England during the 1600s allowed people to measure time more accurately, attend to it more minutely, and possess it more privately than previously imaginable. In "Telling Time," Stuart Sherman argues that innovations in prose emerged simultaneously with this technological breakthrough, enabling authors to recount the new kind of time by which England was learning to live and work.
"Through...readings of Samuel Pepys's diary, Joseph Addison and Richard Steele's daily "Spectator," the travel writings of Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, and the novels of Daniel Defoe and Frances Burney, Sherman traces the development of a new way of counting time in prose--the diurnal structure of consecutively dated installments--within the cultural context of the daily institutions which gave it form and motion."
L&M note: “There were 40 ships in the Royal Navy in 1588, out of a total of 197 in service during the campaign of that year: *Defeat of Span. Armada* (ed. Sir J.K. Laughton), vol. i, p.xli; J.S. Corbett, *Drake and Tudor navy*, ii. 146, 159. Another figure (34) given in HMC *Savile-Foljambe*, p. 122, is also the same figure given by Pepys himself in a memorandum on the subject written c. 1701: *Priv. Corr.*, ii. 244-7. For the shortage of ammunition, see *Naval tracts of Sir W. Monson* (ed.Oppenheim), i. 175-6.”
Australian Susan, thanks for calling on that note, which makes clear how important was the difference between what the *Queen* had (Navy) and what *England* had (Navy + “privateers”).
Could Sam be proud of the progress made enlarging the Navy?
"we treated, very dearly, I believe, the officers of the Ordnance"
Mr. Pepys repeats this later in other words -- Oy! -- a costly afternoon at the Trinity House, as well as a tedious one; so he "stole" away before the check came (did anyone else see that?).
After the sale by inch of candle - per Nix, a “demand note”
“Because there was no paper money, the only currency was metal coinage. This was highly inconvenient for transactions of any size, so a person purchasing something for, say, 20 l. would give a promissory note. The note could say "I will pay you this whenever you ask" - a demand note. The maker of the note was, at least theoretically, obliged to pay over in cash whenever the payee showed up at his home or place of business (they were quite often the same, particularly in the case of tradesmen). Or it could say "I will pay you this in 30 days" or 60 or six months or whatever.”
E.g. Thursday 1 August 1661: "I hear how nurse’s husband has spoken strangely of my Lady Batten how she was such a man’s whore" http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
One bids at auction with a max above the opening; so here. I assume each bidder here has a top, known to him, but not to his competitors; hence a good deal of the "bawl and dispute."
Would ££ change hands on the spot; or would each bidder be given a receipt/invoice for his “boss” who was known at the Exchange? Or is the bidder the final purchaser, and my prior broker scenario mistaken? Whould those known at the Exchange be involved in this conduct?
L&M note: "The sale had been advertised by poster at the Exchange: PRO, Adm. 106/3520, f.7v." [This sure wasn't Enron: no shredding paper!!!]
The wood was seasoned, and perhaps it has not only to do with the rarity of the goods, as with the method of the sale and the egos of the bidders, who, "when the candle is going out...bawl and dispute...who bid the most first." So that the man SP and he himself judged "cunninger than the rest" was just doing what he had been bid by him whose agent he was:
"Hey, boss, guess what? The competition at the Navy Office today from the lads of you-know-who was unbe-LIEV-able; but I got you all three that were on sale!"
Cumgranissalis is correct. Also on this day: 1189 Richard the Lionheart is crowned King of England at Westminster following the death of his father, Henry II. 1651 Battle of Worcester during the English Civil War. Defeat for the Royalist supporters of Charles II by the Parliamentary army commanded by Oliver Cromwell. 1752 What should have been September 3rd becomes September 14th with the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar - named after Pope Gregory XIII. In Britain crowds flock through the streets calling on Parliament to 'give us back our 11 days'. 1783 Britian finally recognises the United States of America by signing the Treaty of Paris which officially ends the American War of Independence. 1791 The French National Assembly passes the French Constitution - formerly making France a constitutional monarchy. 1826 In Moscow, Nicholas I is crowned Tsar of Russia. 1879 Afghan troops massacre the British legation in Kabul - leading to the British invasion of Afghanistan. [...] 1939 Great Britain, France, New Zealand, and Australia declare war on Germany after Adolf Hitler, refuses to withdraw his troops from Poland. 1939 British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain forms an all-party War Cabinet with Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty. [...] http://www.thehistorychannel.co.u…
Sun peeps up; Sam pulls covers over head; up after an hour's snooze.
The last few weeks Sam's been "Up betimes" -- except on the last two Sundays at seven.
Interesting that he always records "rising time," and "sleep time" (more or less), filling every hour of the day.
Time-accounting is a very important quadrant for measuring efficiency in a dockyard, which was the earliest factory and the only considerable one in the 17th century.
(Australian Susan, sounds like you are time-accounting also; would you like to supervise a few dockyards?)
L&M note: "A frigate; her pay (from 23 May 1662) amounted to c.£3000….”
“we…sold the Weymouth, Successe, and Fellowship hulk.”.
L&M note: “Valued at just over £485, they were sold at £685….The ‘Successe’ was the *Old Successe*.”
L&M note: “For sale ‘by inch of candle’, see [ Tuesday 6 November 1660 ]”
That date there was an interesting discussion among the Annotators of this method of selling ships: http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1… to which I add http://www.sizes.com/time/inch_of… and note from the former Colonies that the authorization by Parliament of selling goods “by way of auction, or by inch of candle” to fund annuities for the East India Company which was granted certain, ah, controversial monopolies were parts of The Tea Act of 1773 of cherished memory: http://ahp.gatech.edu/tea_act_bp_…
No mention today of yesterday's social vexations -- the meeting of the higher powers, and the vexations Elizabeth had written about -- she walks! she talks! reads and writes!
Though today San does not dine alone, he does not mention wine.
(Like others, I sometimes find what he does NOT mention of considerable curiosity.)
Mary, I not only think this possible, but actual (I have used this construction), and not inelegant, if not the most usual today, as language hat observes.
Re Questia: once entirely a subscription service, “Questia offers free access to the first page of every chapter in a book and the first paragraph of each article for your review.” then requires a subscription: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=r… There are various plans: http://www.questia.com/Registrati…
Questia’s free access is comparable to Amazon’s for many books, though not this one (either in yhe US or the UK).
"so much has my business of late taken me off from all my former delights. By and by by water home, and there dined alone"
Not quite? Perhaps he is dining with ambivalence and reflection, both regretting the long absence of certain of his former delights, but without other people, reaffiming his new sobriety.
Soothing the savage soul with a distraction, as Sam has furnished me these last few days (CNN on the telly in the background, its screen just to the left of the monitor on which I see these words I am typing; to the right a souvenir coffee mug from New Orleans' Café Du Monde — itself a symbol of a center of the world as a destination-point of many in-migrations, but now… Heart-in-mouth, grateful for the consolations du monde provided by many here.) Philosophical observations about today: Are we not each the center of the world, individually and collectively? Isn’t Sam’s distress after the music (not “musique”) his displacement from this sense at the office of late that all are coming to him, but now he is on the margin?!
"I removed all my goods out of Sir W. Pen's house into…my house, and so I am to be quit of any further obligation to him.”
This quittance has a bite to it. Cumgranissalis explains: “Penn before he was sidelined, or rusticated by Cromwell in 1656, for letting Venables [Col./Gen.] make a hash out of removing Hispanola from the Spanish crown, had a taste of Tower of London's hospitality suite, Venables appears to have been a disaster of the first order the epitomy of ineptness, and Penn received some of the backlash. S. Pepys may not understand some of Pens comments on fellow titled leftovers from the Cromwell period. “The story of how 2000 plus soldiers failed to capture Santa Domingo, defended by a few undernourished Islanders, is a good study of a combined ops.” http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
“Correspondence, 13 September, 1655, from Cromwell to Admiral Blake read:
‘It is too sad a truth, The Expedition to the West Indies has failed! Sea-General Penn and Land-General Venables have themselves come home, one after the other, with the disgraceful news; and are lodged in the Tower, a fortnight ago, for quitting their posts without orders.’
Comments
First Reading
About Non-fiction about Pepys' time
Terry F, • Link
"Telling Time: Clocks, Diaries, and English Diurnal Form, 1660-1785," by Stuart Sherman (University of Chicago Press, 1997)
A striking exploration of the transition to modernity. Pepys's diary is the key text: Ch. 2: "'In The Fullness of Time': Pepys and His Prececessors" shows how Pepys expresses the new sense of the day, organized by each hour and minute, -- before he acquired a watch -- rather than a sprawling undated narrative such as the one we find in Cervantes in 1605: e.g. "One morning," etc.
Synopsis
"A revolution in clock technology in England during the 1600s allowed people to measure time more accurately, attend to it more minutely, and possess it more privately than previously imaginable. In "Telling Time," Stuart Sherman argues that innovations in prose emerged simultaneously with this technological breakthrough, enabling authors to recount the new kind of time by which England was learning to live and work.
"Through...readings of Samuel Pepys's diary, Joseph Addison and Richard Steele's daily "Spectator," the travel writings of Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, and the novels of Daniel Defoe and Frances Burney, Sherman traces the development of a new way of counting time in prose--the diurnal structure of consecutively dated installments--within the cultural context of the daily institutions which gave it form and motion."
Paperback:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos…
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obid…
About Thursday 4 September 1662
Terry F, • Link
Sam's comments on the English fleet of 1588
L&M note: “There were 40 ships in the Royal Navy in 1588, out of a total of 197 in service during the campaign of that year: *Defeat of Span. Armada* (ed. Sir J.K. Laughton), vol. i, p.xli; J.S. Corbett, *Drake and Tudor navy*, ii. 146, 159. Another figure (34) given in HMC *Savile-Foljambe*, p. 122, is also the same figure given by Pepys himself in a memorandum on the subject written c. 1701: *Priv. Corr.*, ii. 244-7. For the shortage of ammunition, see *Naval tracts of Sir W. Monson* (ed.Oppenheim), i. 175-6.”
Australian Susan, thanks for calling on that note, which makes clear how important was the difference between what the *Queen* had (Navy) and what *England* had (Navy + “privateers”).
Could Sam be proud of the progress made enlarging the Navy?
About Thursday 4 September 1662
Terry F, • Link
"we treated, very dearly, I believe, the officers of the Ordnance"
Mr. Pepys repeats this later in other words -- Oy!
--
a costly afternoon at the Trinity House, as well as a tedious one; so he "stole" away before the check came (did anyone else see that?).
About Wednesday 3 September 1662
Terry F, • Link
After the sale by inch of candle - per Nix, a “demand note”
“Because there was no paper money, the only currency was metal coinage. This was highly inconvenient for transactions of any size, so a person purchasing something for, say, 20 l. would give a promissory note. The note could say "I will pay you this whenever you ask" - a demand note. The maker of the note was, at least theoretically, obliged to pay over in cash whenever the payee showed up at his home or place of business (they were quite often the same, particularly in the case of tradesmen). Or it could say "I will pay you this in 30 days" or 60 or six months or whatever.”
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
About Lady Elizabeth Batten
Terry F, • Link
Pepys had a low opinion of her fairly early.
E.g. Thursday 1 August 1661: "I hear how nurse’s husband has spoken strangely of my Lady Batten how she was such a man’s whore" http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
About Thursday 4 September 1662
Terry F, • Link
"I believe we shall pay size for it"
L&M note: "Sc. pay dearly."
About Wednesday 3 September 1662
Terry F, • Link
After the sale by inch of candle -- again I ask:
Would change hands on the spot; or would each bidder be given a receipt/invoice for his "boss" who was known at the Exchange?
Is the bidder the final purchaser, and my prior agent scenario mistaken?
Whould those known at the Exchange be involved in a "bawl and dispute"?
Any MBA’s or stockbrokers here?
About Wednesday 3 September 1662
Terry F, • Link
"the Breda"
Click on the name for the story: http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
About Wednesday 3 September 1662
Terry F, • Link
One bids at auction with a max above the opening; so here.
I assume each bidder here has a top, known to him, but not to his competitors; hence a good deal of the "bawl and dispute."
Would ££ change hands on the spot; or would each bidder be given a receipt/invoice for his “boss” who was known at the Exchange? Or is the bidder the final purchaser, and my prior broker scenario mistaken? Whould those known at the Exchange be involved in this conduct?
About Wednesday 3 September 1662
Terry F, • Link
Why is the sale of the hulks profitable?
L&M note: "The sale had been advertised by poster at the Exchange: PRO, Adm. 106/3520, f.7v." [This sure wasn't Enron: no shredding paper!!!]
The wood was seasoned, and perhaps it has not only to do with the rarity of the goods, as with the method of the sale and the egos of the bidders, who, "when the candle is going out...bawl and dispute...who bid the most first."
So that the man SP and he himself judged "cunninger than the rest" was just doing what he had been bid by him whose agent he was:
"Hey, boss, guess what? The competition at the Navy Office today from the lads of you-know-who was unbe-LIEV-able; but I got you all three that were on sale!"
About Wednesday 3 September 1662
Terry F, • Link
Cumgranissalis is correct. Also on this day:
1189
Richard the Lionheart is crowned King of England at Westminster following the death of his father, Henry II.
1651
Battle of Worcester during the English Civil War. Defeat for the Royalist supporters of Charles II by the Parliamentary army commanded by Oliver Cromwell.
1752
What should have been September 3rd becomes September 14th with the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar - named after Pope Gregory XIII. In Britain crowds flock through the streets calling on Parliament to 'give us back our 11 days'.
1783
Britian finally recognises the United States of America by signing the Treaty of Paris which officially ends the American War of Independence.
1791
The French National Assembly passes the French Constitution - formerly making France a constitutional monarchy.
1826
In Moscow, Nicholas I is crowned Tsar of Russia.
1879
Afghan troops massacre the British legation in Kabul - leading to the British invasion of Afghanistan.
[...]
1939
Great Britain, France, New Zealand, and Australia declare war on Germany after Adolf Hitler, refuses to withdraw his troops from Poland.
1939
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain forms an all-party War Cabinet with Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty.
[...]
http://www.thehistorychannel.co.u…
And a very good site say I.
About Wednesday 3 September 1662
Terry F, • Link
Sun peeps up; Sam pulls covers over head; up after an hour's snooze.
The last few weeks Sam's been "Up betimes" -- except on the last two Sundays at seven.
Interesting that he always records "rising time," and "sleep time" (more or less), filling every hour of the day.
Time-accounting is a very important quadrant for measuring efficiency in a dockyard, which was the earliest factory and the only considerable one in the 17th century.
(Australian Susan, sounds like you are time-accounting also; would you like to supervise a few dockyards?)
About Woolwich
Terry F, • Link
"A view of His Majesty's Dock Yard at Woolwich, by John Clevely the Younger"
http://www.portcities.org.uk/lond…
About Wednesday 3 September 1662
Terry F, • Link
"paid off the Breda"
L&M note: "A frigate; her pay (from 23 May 1662) amounted to c.£3000….”
“we…sold the Weymouth, Successe, and Fellowship hulk.”.
L&M note: “Valued at just over £485, they were sold at £685….The ‘Successe’ was the *Old Successe*.”
L&M note: “For sale ‘by inch of candle’, see [ Tuesday 6 November 1660 ]”
That date there was an interesting discussion among the Annotators of this method of selling ships: http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1… to which I add http://www.sizes.com/time/inch_of… and note from the former Colonies that the authorization by Parliament of selling goods “by way of auction, or by inch of candle” to fund annuities for the East India Company which was granted certain, ah, controversial monopolies were parts of The Tea Act of 1773 of cherished memory: http://ahp.gatech.edu/tea_act_bp_…
About Tuesday 2 September 1662
Terry F, • Link
No mention today of yesterday's social vexations -- the meeting of the higher powers, and the vexations Elizabeth had written about -- she walks! she talks! reads and writes!
Though today San does not dine alone, he does not mention wine.
(Like others, I sometimes find what he does NOT mention of considerable curiosity.)
About Monday 1 September 1662
Terry F, • Link
"where I have been very merry."
Mary, I not only think this possible, but actual (I have used this construction), and not inelegant, if not the most usual today, as language hat observes.
About Monday 1 September 1662
Terry F, • Link
Dirk, our resident internet whiz found the link to ["Samuel Pepys In the Diary"] online for free at
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=r…
Re Questia: once entirely a subscription service, “Questia offers free access to the first page of every chapter in a book and the first paragraph of each article for your review.” then requires a subscription: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=r…
There are various plans: http://www.questia.com/Registrati…
Questia’s free access is comparable to Amazon’s for many books, though not this one (either in yhe US or the UK).
About Monday 1 September 1662
Terry F, • Link
"so much has my business of late taken me off from all my former delights. By and by by water home, and there dined alone"
Not quite? Perhaps he is dining with ambivalence and reflection, both regretting the long absence of certain of his former delights, but without other people, reaffiming his new sobriety.
About Monday 1 September 1662
Terry F, • Link
"the first music I have heard [in] a great while"
Soothing the savage soul with a distraction, as Sam has furnished me these last few days (CNN on the telly in the background, its screen just to the left of the monitor on which I see these words I am typing; to the right a souvenir coffee mug from New Orleans' Café Du Monde — itself a symbol of a center of the world as a destination-point of many in-migrations, but now… Heart-in-mouth, grateful for the consolations du monde provided by many here.)
Philosophical observations about today: Are we not each the center of the world, individually and collectively? Isn’t Sam’s distress after the music (not “musique”) his displacement from this sense at the office of late that all are coming to him, but now he is on the margin?!
About Monday 1 September 1662
Terry F, • Link
"I removed all my goods out of Sir W. Pen's house into…my house, and so I am to be quit of any further obligation to him.”
This quittance has a bite to it. Cumgranissalis explains:
“Penn before he was sidelined, or rusticated by Cromwell in 1656, for letting Venables [Col./Gen.] make a hash out of removing Hispanola from the Spanish crown, had a taste of Tower of London's hospitality suite, Venables appears to have been a disaster of the first order the epitomy of ineptness, and Penn received some of the backlash. S. Pepys may not understand some of Pens comments on fellow titled leftovers from the Cromwell period.
“The story of how 2000 plus soldiers failed to capture Santa Domingo, defended by a few undernourished Islanders, is a good study of a combined ops.”
http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
“Correspondence, 13 September, 1655, from Cromwell to Admiral Blake read:
‘It is too sad a truth, The Expedition to the West Indies has failed!
Sea-General Penn and Land-General Venables have
themselves come home, one after the other,
with the disgraceful news; and are lodged in the Tower,
a fortnight ago, for quitting their posts without orders.’
Penn was dismissed and replaced by Montague.”
http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~rsteph…
And Penn had lately conspired to unseat SP’s kin and patron, Montague/Sandwich. Talk about office intrigue!