MartinVT
Annotations and comments
MartinVT has posted 218 annotations/comments since 10 January 2016.
The most recent first…
Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
MartinVT has posted 218 annotations/comments since 10 January 2016.
The most recent first…
Comments
Third Reading
About Thursday 10 October 1661
MartinVT • Link
hanky panky (Matt Newton 2019)
That's a euphemism, as well. For the same thing.
About Wednesday 9 October 1661
MartinVT • Link
The stop of 1672
Very interesting history at Bryan's Wikipedia link. If you follow the various wranglings over this debt, it means that the debts being incurred during the 1660s are still today part of the general debt of the UK.
About Wednesday 9 October 1661
MartinVT • Link
Grannie Annie: We don't actually know whether Beth came along on today's frolic. Sam often doesn't mention her presence, but (a) these ladies came to the house for dinner, where Beth is presumed to be present, and (b) he promised Beth not to go to the theatre without her, so departing with these beauties while leaving Beth at home would not sit well. At all.
Also: "at home I found Mrs. Pierce, la belle, and Madam Clifford, with whom I was forced to stay". Forced, eh? I perceive a tongue firmly in cheek here.
About Thursday 3 October 1661
MartinVT • Link
Desembarcadero is translated today as a landing place (starting with des rather than dis), while disembark means to leave a ship. Probably Sandwich means one or more of those ships have departed for Tangier
About Monday 16 September 1661
MartinVT • Link
"I afterwards found that it was a rogue that did use to play such tricks to get money of people, but he got none of me"
Today we call this hacking or phishing. Sam is probably more tuned into the practice than some folks are today who readily give up their passwords or banking info to con artists.
About Saturday 14 September 1661
MartinVT • Link
"to take my wife and I out by barge"
Prescriptivists (who would call for "my wife and me") may cringe, but here's an indication that this usage was common 400 years ago by a well-educated writer.
About Wednesday 11 September 1661
MartinVT • Link
Here's a possible source for Sam's addition of "trepan" to his vocabulary — an essay published 1656 called The Trepan by Samuel Vernon: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo…
About Sunday 8 September 1661
MartinVT • Link
Last week in the rain the roof leaked. Another very rainy day today, but no mention of leaks. Maybe the roof got fixed quickly?
About Friday 6 September 1661
MartinVT • Link
"being for my wife’s going abroad much troubled and unfit for business, I went to the Theatre"
It doesn't take much of an excuse for Sam to be off to the theater. So what does he do today, just text the Navy Board that he's not coming in because he thinks his wife could be cheating on him? In any event, not being able (in his mind) to attend to business is an indication of how much Elizabeth's independent streak is bothering him.
About Tuesday 3 September 1661
MartinVT • Link
I think back there we achieved general agreement that the turner brought a gadget that was useful in the process of "filing" or organizing papers. Perhaps it was something like this: https://jeffpeachey.com/2018/09/2… -- described there as possibly a bookbinding press but possibly something else. It would be possible, for example, to clamp a small sheaf of related papers in that press, and then roughly sew them together.
About Thursday 29 August 1661
MartinVT • Link
SDS, regarding the encounter with de Ruyter, see England in the Mediterranean, Vol. II (https://www.cristoraul.org/ENGLIS…)
On page 25 (of the book, not the PDF): "About the Straits he encountered De Ruyter and politely returned his salute, though without lowering his flag. He even gave him a full account of his failure at Algiers, and then passed on his way." The date of this encounter is unclear from this source but seems to be about at this time. The source of the information on the salute etc. is given as a French biography, Vie de De Ruyter.
About Saturday 17 August 1661
MartinVT • Link
Twenty years on from the original discussion, I remain unconvinced that Sam intended "beggary" rather than "buggery." Both Wheatley and L&M were probably inclined to select the less offensive option here. But nowhere else in the diary does Sam mention beggary in any context, while he does (spoiler) a few years down the road mention buggery, twice in one entry, as being publicly acted out among several prominent individuals. While it is true the court was impecunious, buggery just makes more sense paired with lewdness. The court's money troubles were well-known to Sam and would not have been worth noting; buggery was news to him.
About Wednesday 7 August 1661
MartinVT • Link
"which troubled me"
Things often trouble Sam, I think more often in the sense of remorse than frustration. It troubled him that he considered stealing a dog, not that he couldn't catch it or figure out how to transport it. By using "stolen" he recognizes that the pooch probably belongs to somebody else; he covets it; which is kind of a sin. That troubles him. (Although various other sins don't particularly both him.)
About Tuesday 6 August 1661
MartinVT • Link
"then went and took horse for London, and with much ado, the ways being very bad" — Um, Sam, maybe it's you that's wobbly, not the road...
About Tuesday 6 August 1661
MartinVT • Link
Dirk, 2004, wrote: "Less than a century ago the old form "dorst" of the verb "durven" (to dare) was still in use in Dutch - with exactly the same meaning and syntax as sam's usage here."
I can attest to that usage in Dutch as late as the 1960s in not very elderly folks. My great-aunt found herself seated a row or two in front of Queen Juliana one Sunday at church in Utrecht (or maybe it was Soest), and dropped her eyeglass-case. Telling the story, she said she needed a new case because she "dorst niet" bend down to retrieve it in front of Her Majesty.
"Dorst" appears to survive even today especially in Dutch dialectical usage: https://web.archive.org/web/20201…
About Tuesday 30 July 1661
MartinVT • Link
Other than Pepys mentioning him a few times, and despite his apparent success, nothing else seems to be known about Mr. Salisbury the limner (presumably, portrait painter). Even in these days of worldwide Googling, nothing comes up about him.
About Saturday 27 July 1661
MartinVT • Link
Yesterday, we heard Sam's remorse about breaking his vow to abstain from wine for a week, which week has not ended yet. Today, he doesn't mention wine, but does mention merriment during dinner at the Wardrobe, then a visit to "a tavern hard by", and finally more merriment at home. So, either the vow has been forgotten entirely, or "merriment" can in fact be had in the absence of alcohol.
About Friday 26 July 1661
MartinVT • Link
"a vow to myself to drink no wine this week (finding it to unfit me to look after business)"
I wonder if this vow dates from Tuesday, when he mentioned similarly that "in the afternoon, [I found] myself unfit for business" and went to the theatre. There is no mention of drinking that day, but there was a pretty big gap in his timeline. A dry week is not a high hurdle, easier than a dry January, no vino just for one week, and he has failed already.
About Tuesday 23 July 1661
MartinVT • Link
Right, Sarah. "What does Pepys have in mind [for Pall]?" Why, marry her off, of course, as one does.
About Tuesday 23 July 1661
MartinVT • Link
The theatre in question (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gib…) was built as a tennis court. There were benches facing the stage, surrounded by one or two levels of U-shaped galleries. So when Sam "sat before" Mrs. Palmer, it is likely that he was in the gallery on one side, she was on the other side, not very distant (the building was only 30 feet wide), and he could gawk and goggle all he wanted without any unseemly twisting around in his seat.