Annotations and comments

john has posted 347 annotations/comments since 14 March 2013.

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Comments

Third Reading

About Thursday 7 March 1660/61

john  •  Link

@SDS -- Indeed. My safeguard is to delete all the response recipients and place them at the start of the body of the reply, so that accidental sending will fail.

About Monday 21 January 1660/61

john  •  Link

@SDS -- You make a valid point often missed here: The business with hats was not one of social status.

About Monday 3 December 1660

john  •  Link

As long as we are confessing our past Latin sins, I confess that I took Latin in high school. Back then, we learned from "Latin for Canadian Schools". Alas, the book is long out of print and the courses no longer taught.

About Friday 30 November 1660

john  •  Link

"I having two barrels of oysters at home, I caused one of them and some wine to be brought to the inner room in the office, and there the Principal Officers did go and eat them."

Today, one brings in bagels or doughnuts or somesuch for one's colleagues.

About Friday 9 November 1660

john  •  Link

A worthy addition to any personal library, 3Lamps. Congratulations. (Paperback versions, which I have, were published in the US by U. Cal. P. and Harper-Collins elsewhere.)

About Thursday 1 November 1660

john  •  Link

@Martin. I suspect that you are quite correct. Renting "day-horses" in urban areas persisted for some time. I know of no UK or EU references for that time period but, for example, "The Horse in the City" by McShane and Tarr covers this history in 19th-century US.

About Saturday 13 October 1660

john  •  Link

The cruelty of executioners: At that time, executioners believed that they carried out "God's will" and the cruelty was ordained. See "The Faithful Executioner" by Harrington or "A Hangman's Diary" by Schmidt for more of the matter. (Note that I was unable to read most of it.)

About Saturday 6 October 1660

john  •  Link

"After him comes Mr. Creed, who brought me some books from Holland with him, well bound and good books, which I thought he did intend to give me, but I found that I must pay him."

And how many people nowadays purchase books based solely on appearance? But there is a conjunction there. I wonder if Creed put them on his desk and then gave him a bill?

About Thursday 27 September 1660

john  •  Link

I concur with all of today's comments. At that time, for such alterations, experienced workers and their assistants/apprentices would show up, Pepys would point and say that he wanted this-and-that, and they would do their work. We also know how curious Pepys was and may have enjoyed seeing how the work was done. (Having carried out many an alteration to houses and out-buildings, I wish he had recorded more of the actual mechanics.)

About Tuesday 25 September 1660

john  •  Link

"[...] where the plasterers being at work in all the rooms in my house, my wife was fain to make a bed upon the ground for her and me, and so there we lay all night."

The odour of wet plaster would have permeated the entire house, making sleep difficult. Does "ground" mean a floor or actually outside?

About Wednesday 19 September 1660

john  •  Link

@Carol, similar to a wake to me.

When a child, I was taken to a wake of a family friend. Not knowing that he had died and as the entire wake seemed like a party to me, I innocently asked where he was. Someone pointed to the casket at the end of the hall and calmly said: He's over there.

About Monday 20 August 1660

john  •  Link

"Before he would begin any business, he took my papers of the state of the debts of the Fleet, and there viewed them before all the people, and did give me his advice privately [...]"

To me, this seems a significant display of acknowledgement of Pepys' new status.

About Thursday 9 August 1660

john  •  Link

"Thence to my office of Privy Seal, [...]"

Written with a bit of well-deserved pride, methinks.

About Saturday 4 August 1660

john  •  Link

Vincent wrote of Royal Mail finding him with his house's name. About 15y ago, Canada Post officially abandoned Rural-Route numbers for Fire-Code numbers. The former included dozens of places but the latter is unique to a single residence.

About Tuesday 31 July 1660

john  •  Link

"[...] and had a great discourse about raising of money for the Navy, which is in very sad condition, and money must be raised for it."

Is this when P. realises how bad things are and the enormous task in front of him?

About Thursday 19 July 1660

john  •  Link

"[...] I took Mr. Michell and his wife, and Mrs. Murford we sent for afterwards, to the Dog Tavern, [...] and did talk of our old discourse when we did use to talk of the King, in the time of the Rump, privately; "

Pepys writes of being a closet royalist and admitting to dangerous private talk.

About Sunday 17 June 1660

john  •  Link

I beg to differ with Sasha's remark a decade past. There were many activities forbidden by the Puritans that the average people would care more about than his characterization of authoritarian rule.

About Saturday 26 May 1660

john  •  Link

Sorry, I write corrected on my assumption of rope ladders. Here is a Getty image titled "Cornelis De Wael (1592-1667), Troops Embarking on a Galley in the Port of Genoa. Genoa Pegli, Civico Museo Navale (Boat Museum)": https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail…

The troops are embarking via wooden ladders between boat and galley. So the question of means of ingress remains.