Saturday 8 June 1661

To Whitehall to my Lord, who did tell me that he would have me go to Mr. Townsend, whom he had ordered to discover to me the whole mystery of the Wardrobe, and none else but me, and that he will make me deputy with him for fear that he should die in my Lord’s absence, of which I was glad.

Then to the Cook’s with Mr. Shepley and Mr. Creed, and dined together, and then I went to the Theatre and there saw Bartholomew Faire, the first time it was acted now a-days. It is a most admirable play and well acted, but too much prophane and abusive.

From thence, meeting Mr. Creed at the door, he and I went to the tobacco shop under Temple Bar gate, and there went up to the top of the house and there sat drinking Lambeth ale a good while. Then away home, and in my way called upon Mr. Rawlinson (my uncle Wight being out of town), for his advice to answer a letter of my uncle Robert, wherein he do offer me a purchase to lay some money upon, that joynes upon some of his own lands, and plainly telling me that the reason of his advice is the convenience that it will give me as to his estate, of which I am exceeding glad, and am advised to give up wholly the disposal of my money to him, let him do what he will with it, which I shall do. So home and to bed.

31 Annotations

First Reading

A. De Araujo  •  Link

"Bartholomew Faire" "Bartholomew faire ,or Variety of fancies where you may find a faire of wares and all to please your mind with the severall enormities and misdemeanors which are seene and acted" definetelly not puritanical

john lauer  •  Link

"...that he should die in my Lord's absence, of which I was glad." Surely that antecedent/modifier ambiguity was unintentional!

A. De Araujo  •  Link

but too much prophane and abusive" "For your mother,you Rascall,out you Rogue,you hedge bird,you Pimpe,you pannier-mans bastard,you." I hink that is what turned SP off. Thanks for the site, A. Hamilton.

vicente  •  Link

Some nice jobs for the unemployable ? from the above : "...conceale, nor suffer by them to be concealed any State-decipherer,
or politique Picklocke of the Scene, so solemnly
ridiculous, as to search out, who was meant by the
Ginger-bread-woman, who by the Hobby-horse-man, who
by the Costard-monger, nay, who by their Wares. Or that
will pretend to affirme (on his owne inspired ignorance)
what Mirror of Magistrates is meant by the Iustice,
what great Lady by the Pigge-woman, what conceal'd States-man,
by the Seller of Mouse-trappes, and so ..." words enough to drive spell checker bonkers.

vicente  •  Link

Investment time, money hanging loose in his pockets, best invest before it dribbles out on Lace at 4L to 5L at a time.
"...for his advice to answer a letter of my uncle Robert, wherein he do offer me a purchase to lay some money upon, that joynes upon some of his own lands, and plainly telling me that the reason of his advice is the convenience that it will give me as to his estate, of which I am exceeding glad, and am advised to give up wholly the disposal of my money to him, let him do what he will with it, which I shall do..." he does not say how much 200L? maybe.

Australian Susan  •  Link

"of which I am exceeding glad"
Sam now seems to have had unequivocal proof of being his uncle's heir (had he before?) and is pleased at the care his uncle is taking of the estate, ready for the next owner. Life gets better and better for our Sam!
"too much prophane and abusive"
Batholomew Fair was strong fare: no bread-and-milk confection for the stage, but vintage cheddar satire. The Puritan strain of the faith is one target: I wonder if that is what has made Sam uneasy at viewing it?

Wim van der Meij  •  Link

- and went to the tobacco shop -
If I remember correctly this is the first time Sam is mentioning tobacco. Do we know if he smoked at occasions?
In Holland smoking from long white 'Gouda' pipes was very fashionable as is seen on many Dutch paintings from that time (Jan Steen).

Rich Merne  •  Link

'and went to the tobacco shop', did S. smoke at occasions? We shall find out!

Australian Susan  •  Link

Tobacco Shop
Was this somewhere you went to smoke tobacco as well as buy it?(c.f. 'coffee shop')Does Sam pop in here because it serves good Lambeth ale rather than to just buy tobacco?

JWB  •  Link

"...whom he had ordered to discover to me the whole mystery of the Wardrobe..." Wouldn't we all like to discover the whole mystery. Sounds like my fraternity initiation. Curious place. Tobacco Shop another. Tobacco trade to become major source of wealth for the clique forming around Chas.II,e.g.,Berkeley brothers(John, intimate of King and Wm., Gov. of Virginia), Carteret etc. They will use Navigation Acts and other mercantilist policies to impoverish England, drive out a goodly portion of its population, and generate war with Holland. Clark,"The Later Stuarts" - out of a Population of 5.5 million 1.4 had incomes less than 6 pounds and nearly 1 million were essentially unemployed, except in war. Least we forget, these were scoundrel times-"tobacco shop" would not be an in-apt trope for its cancerous effects on body politic.

Sjoerd  •  Link

The History Net site has some interesting information on tobacco history, including :

- 1614: ENGLAND: “[T]here be 7000 shops, in and about London, that doth vent Tobacco”

- 1624: Pope threatens excommunication for snuff users; sneezing is thought too close to sexual ecstasy

and that in Restoration England smoking and taking snuff would have been a very Royalist activity: following the royal fashion and filling the royal tax coffers at the same time.
http://www.historian.org/bysubjec…

If Australian Susan is ever to visit Amsterdam she will be very surprised to find out what goes on in “Coffee Shops” there.

Michiel van der Leeuw  •  Link

Coffee shops

Sam wouldn't be surprised, he'd just go in and have a smoke....

vicente  •  Link

King James wrote an epistle on smoking then he found out about that he could run a kingdom on the profits, then there is J Evelyn and his fumifugium[or the inconvience of the aer and smoke if london dissipated} 14 sept 1661

vicente  •  Link

[Smoking is] hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, and dangerous to the lungs.
King James I
anno 1604 a counter blaste to tobacco
"...The king warned his subjects in this tract that smoking led to depravity and stated that it is "a custom loathsome to the eye--hateful to the nose--harmful to the brain--dangerous to the lungs--and, in the black stinking fumes therof, nearest resembling the horrid Stygian fumes of the pit that is bottomless." ..."

http://www.vahistorical.org/exhib…

A. De Araujo  •  Link

"horrid Stygian fumes of the pit that is bottomless" he must have picked the wrong joint and had a bad Trip!...

vicente  •  Link

So they ship beer from one area to another, not all beer was home brewed ?
"..there sat drinking Lambeth ale a good while...." The start of wholesale selling, I wonder how long that was going on?

dirk  •  Link

"So they ship beer..."

On the continent trade in beer - on both regional and international level - had been very lively from the 1500's onwards. E.g. there used to be a considerable import of German beer into the Low Countries in the second half of the 16th c. I don't know about the "mobility" of the beer trade in Britain, but probably the situation was similar to the continent. Britain imported sizeable quantities of sweet German wines - does anybody know about beer imports?

vicente  •  Link

English beer, even now is very hard to ship to other locations, it can go off quickly vs the Larger technique that is transportable over wider areas.

dirk  •  Link

"Lambeth ale"

You may be right, Vicente. Certainly if this is indeed "ale" and not "beer" - as we all know beer preserves better than ale.

vicente  •  Link

"...where we drank several bottles of Hull ale..." http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
was another mention of out of town beers along with a Kentish one too.
beer vs ale,I easily get confused about the differences. Stout as in Guiness has a wider audience. There is now Local variations of beer making coming from Mum and Pop operations,which seems to be coming back into vogue along with different varieties of breads rather than the factory ******.

Grahamt  •  Link

RE: "So they ship beer from one area to another"
Lambeth is less than an hour by brewers dray from Fleet street. Hardly shipping beer from one area to another.
Lambeth is next to Wandsworth where Youngs, London's oldest brewery, is situated, so it seems South London has a long brewing tradition.

Pedro.  •  Link

For info on the good old English pint and how it travels see..

http://www.camra.org.uk/SHWebClas…
Dutch brewers introduced hops to Britain in the 16th century
CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) has no objection to the high quality traditional lager beers of the Continent. (Continental Drift).
(Can anyone explain why Dubliners say Guiness does not travel well?)

Jim  •  Link

Vincente is quite right about the popularity of various brews these days -- imported beers, regional beers, micro-breweries, mom & pop shops, brew pubs (brewed right on the premises).

I'm getting thirsty just thinking about it. I think Sam would be quite pleased at the wide variety of high quality adult beverages available today.

GrahamT  •  Link

Real Ales don't travel well.
This includes bottled, but not keg Guinness. When the beer is put in the barrel or bottle it continues to ferment, and produces lees which taint the beer if it is disturbed. The beer has a finite life (about 10 days for Dublin bottled Guinness) after which it "goes off" so the bumpy roads and slow journey times of Pepys' time were not condusive to transporting beer any distance. This doesn't include a delivery of 3 miles from Lambeth to the next parish.
Stronger beers last longer, so maybe Hull and Kentish ales were strong ales, compared to the small beer that Pepys has for his morning draft.
Modern keg ales are filtered and heat treated to destroy the yeast (and the flavour!) so that they can be shipped anywhere in the world where petroleum derived carbon dioxide is forced into them to replace the natural gas of fermentation. I don't think Sam would recognise them as ale - or beer.

Nigel Pond  •  Link

To Pedro: In answer to "Can anyone explain why Dubliners say Guiness does not travel well?"

Because they have to have an explantion for why Guiness in Dublin tastes so much better than the stuff that they export. The real reason is that they keep all the good stuff for themselves!!

Second Reading

Chris Squire UK  •  Link

2014 update: 'keg ale' is virtually defunct in Britain; instead there is a profusion of microbrews which jostle with each other for the custom of a new generation of real ale drinkers. Here in Twickenham we like to drink the excellent local 'Naked Lady' from http://twickenham-fine-ales.co.uk…

Pandora  •  Link

Temple Bar gate is now moved to Paternoster square by St Pauls instead of Middle Temple lane. Glad it still exists though!

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"I went to the Theatre and there saw Bartholomew Faire, the first time it was acted now a-days."

L&M note: A comedy by Ben Jonson, first actec on 1614, and published in 1631; now performed at the TR, Vere st. This is the first record of a post-Restoration performance; according to Roscius Anglicanus, or, An historical review of the stage from 1660 to 1706 by Downes, John, fl. 1661-1719; p. 17 https://archive.org/stream/rosciu…
the role of Cokes was one of Wintersel's best interpretations. On this occasion the puppet-show in Act V was omitted. Much of the satire in the play was directed against Puritans, hence its popularity now.

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