Wednesday 4 February 1662/63

Up early and to Mr. Moore, and thence to Mr. Lovell about my law business, and from him to Paul’s School, it being Apposition-day there. I heard some of their speeches, and they were just as schoolboys’ used to be, of the seven liberal sciences; but I think not so good as ours were in our time. Away thence and to Bow Church, to the Court of Arches, where a judge sits, and his proctors about him in their habits, and their pleadings all in Latin. Here I was sworn to give a true answer to my uncle’s libells, and so paid my fee for swearing, and back again to Paul’s School, and went up to see the head forms posed in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, but I think they did not answer in any so well as we did, only in geography they did pretty well: Dr. Wilkins and Outram were examiners. So down to the school, where Dr. Crumlum did me much honour by telling many what a present I had made to the school, shewing my Stephanus, in four volumes, cost me 4l. 10s. He also shewed us, upon my desire, an old edition of the the grammar of Colett’s, where his epistle to the children is very pretty; and in rehearsing the creed it is said “borne of the cleane Virgin Mary.” Thence with Mr. Elborough (he being all of my old acquaintance that I could meet with here) to a cook’s shop to dinner, but I found him a fool, as he ever was, or worse. Thence to my cozen Roger Pepys and Mr. Phillips about my law businesses, which stand very bad, and so home to the office, where after doing some business I went home, where I found our new mayde Mary, that is come in Jane’s place.


30 Annotations

First Reading

Bradford  •  Link

"I think not so good as ours were in our time. . . . I think they did not answer in any so well as we did."

As schoolboys during the reign of Elizabeth learned, Sam, "Everything beneath the moon decays."

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"...rehearsing the creed it is said “borne of the cleane Virgin Mary.”..."

Well, friend Samuel...One might ask how it is that they get "dirty".

Kiss Bess when you get home, you should have taken her with you.

Terry F  •  Link

“'borne of the cleane Virgin Mary.'”

L&M say "Pepys's spelling is slightly inaccurate."

Australian Susan  •  Link

Colet's or Sam's phrase "cleane Virgin Mary" is not from any authorised prayer book creed,(1549, 1552, 1560 or 1662) nor is it in the Latin Pre-Reformation Sarum Rite (most widespread form of worship in use in England in Catholic times - pre-1549), so I don't know how it has arisen other than from Dean Colet's own usage or maybe Sam's misunderstanding.

Australian Susan  •  Link

"I think not so good as ours were in our time."

They never are, Sam, they never are.

Joe  •  Link

"cleane Virgin"

Perhaps it has arisen from the way the current crop of students attempt to say the creed--and Pepys notes it for his own chagrinned amusement.

We have, of course, "blessed art thou, a monk swimming, and blessed is the fruit of the loom, Jesus."

Mary  •  Link

only in geography....

Geography would have featured in the quadrivium as a study allied to astronomy.

Trivium = rhetoric,grammar, logic
Quadrivium = astronomy, arithmetic, geometry, music.

Phil Gyford  •  Link

Mary

The link to the new servant, Mary, wasn't working but is now, sorry.

Terry: I don't think this Mary is Mary Ashwell, who has been talked about as a "companion" to Elizabeth. I don't think Ashwell would be described as a maid and a replacement for Jane, but correct me if I'm wrong...?

Mary  •  Link

Mary the maid.

Elizabeth's proposed waiting-woman would certainly not be described as a maid. The waiting-woman is a lady's companion; though she may undertake some of the personal duties of a ladies-maid, she will also be chaperone, confidante and sometimes secretary. (See Liza Picard, pp175-176 op.cit.) She would also be expected to sing and play a musical instrument. She would expect to be treated as of almost equal social status with her mistress and would usually sit at table as a member of the family.

The Mary who has come to replace Jane is not such a waiting-woman.

JohnT  •  Link

St Paul's school still have their "apposition day". It is the annual prize-giving but unlike many schools in which all pupils are invited/obliged to attend, now only those receiving form or subject prizes can go, together with their daunted and delighted parents. St Paul's, though now based in Hammersmith, is arguably still the most effective boys' school in England, no doubt through a combination of its scholarly excellence and strict entry requirements. http://www.stpaulsschool.org.uk

JWB  •  Link

Mary
Tomalin writes that Mary Ashwell was always called "Ashwell" & came into the household after considerable negotiations. This Mary could be the first appearance of Mary Mercer.

Mrs. Malaprop  •  Link

Mystery Mary (spoilers)

Mary is definitely not Ashwell, nor Mary Mercer (arrives Sept 1664, but not as a maid). Perhaps it is one of the "String" of fill-ins. There may be more shifting here to come.
(Patrick Delaforce's book on Elizabeth has a chapter about maids/companions etc. and this Mary isn't even named)

dirk  •  Link

Mystery Mary

This Mary is a completely different person -- as can be confirmed from the notes to the L&M edition. If I were to say much more here, this would probably be considered a apoiler by some... All I'll say is that I don't think she w'll need a separate entry in the background info.

Terry F  •  Link

I took the ID of "Mary Ashwell" from yesterday's entry.

Terry F  •  Link

(Confession is good for the soul.)(Sam agrees.)

in Aqua Scripto  •  Link

Pardon my ignorance, but dothe it not mean 'Borne of the Virgin Mary' for those that dothe believe, but satisfies others that are in doubt, therefore phrase it differently by trying to follow an older Greek/Hebrew text.
"...where his epistle to the children is very pretty; and in rehearsing the creed it is said “borne of the cleane Virgin Mary.”..."

jeannine  •  Link

Mystery Mary

Now, now, we have to keep in mind, this is Sam's house we're talking about...don't you remember when he had all of that work done to the house he had a revolving door put in the house for the stream of maids....one comes in, another goes out and on and on......

in Aqua Scripto  •  Link

Samuell, first it be for 5L then you offered thy Bookseller 4L and now you say it be 4L /10s. I guess it be the meeting of the minds and pocket -Halfway. Did you say how much to the Master, or did you leave him the impresion that thee paid 5L???
"...So down to the school, where Dr. Crumlum did me much honour by telling many what a present I had made to the school, shewing my Stephanus, in four volumes, cost me 4l. 10s. ..."
way back:
"...In the morning to my Bookseller’s to bespeak a Stephens’s Thesaurus, for which I offer 4l., to give to Paul’s School;..."

in Aqua Scripto  •  Link

Its been down hill ever since, now it be Amo amas I loved, alas; when it used to be Amo amas, I loved a lass.
"... and went up to see the head forms posed in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, but I think they did not answer in any so well as we did,..."

Terry F  •  Link

Actually, yesterday (3 February) Mr. Ashwell was being consulted by Sam about "his daughter [ http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo… Ashwell, Mary ] coming to live with us"; but this might indeed not be the "Mary" of today, whose link 23 hours ago went nowhere, but now goes to "Mary (Pepys’ maid)".

Miss Ann  •  Link

For no apparent reason other than John Colett and Shakespeare have now been mentioned - we have a very small independent school on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, Australia called the "John Colet School" and the littlies (5-6 year olds) all put on a Shakespeare show each year as part of their curriculum - always a great spectacle.

Australian Susan  •  Link

Amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant

The water scriber and I probably used the same Latin grammar. I was rote learning Latin in 1963 in a way Sam would probably have recognised. Not sure what that says about English education.

"cleane/borne of the Virgin Mary. The 16th century Latin from the Creed would have been "et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria virgine, et homo factus est;" (1546 - Nicene Creed as authorised by the Council of Trent.)

andy  •  Link

L&M say “Pepys’s spelling is slightly inaccurate."

Well! and he criticised Bess!

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"to Bow Church, to the Court of Arches, where a judge sits, and his proctors about him in their habits, and their pleadings all in Latin"

The Court of Arches is the provincial court for [the archiepiscopal See of] Canterbury. It has both appellate and original jurisdiction. It is presided over by the Dean of the Arches, who is styled The Right Honourable and Right Worshipful the Official Principal and Dean of the Arches. The dean must be a barrister of ten years' High Court standing or the holder or former holder of high judicial office. The appointment is made by the two archbishops jointly.

At various times the court has sat in the church of St Mary-le-Bow (Sancta Maria de arcubus, formerly the archbishop's principal peculiar in London), whose arches give the court its name; later in Doctors' Commons and also at 1 The Sanctuary, Westminster and St Paul's Cathedral. Its permanent home remains St Mary le Bow, where regular sittings include those to confirm the election of each new diocesan bishop in the province.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc…

The Court of Arches dealt, inter alia, with testamentary disputes like this between Pepys and his Uncle Thomas Pepys. (L&M note)

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

"I think not so good as ours were in our time"
Sam did praise the students' knowledge of geography, but the past often ages well in the bottle.
Memory plays tricks: one looks in the mirror and it's always the same person who looks back, but the people on one's old photographs look younger every year.

Sam has improved his own knowledge of Classical languages since his schooldays, by study at Cambridge and incrementally, by regular use. It is inevitable that the efforts of today's schoolboys will not sound as learned as his fellows' did in his own time.

MarkS  •  Link

"Sir, young men have more virtue than old men: they have more generous sentiments in every respect. I love the young dogs of this age: they have more wit and humour and knowledge of life than we had; but then the dogs are not so good scholars."
- Dr Samuel Johnson

Just as true today as 1663 or 1763.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"I heard some of their speeches, and they were just as schoolboys’ used to be, of the seven liberal sciences"

L&M: The trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy -- including geography); the traditional curriculum of medieval and early mpdern grammar schools and universities.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"back again to Paul’s School, and went up to see the head forms posed in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew,"

L&M: For the teaching of Hebrew in schools, see Foster Watson, Engl. grammar schools to 1660, ch. xxxii, esp. p. 529; W. A. L. Vincent, The state and school education, 1640-60, pp. 17-19. It had been taught at St Paul's in Pepys's time by John Langley. Pepys never uses it in the 'secret' passages of the diary, but he retained several Hebrew books in his library. The Posing Chamber, where this examination took place, was in yje High Master's house.

Third Reading

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

More about the Court of Arches, Terry gives a fine explanation, but it is an ecclesiastical court, which deals in morals!!!
It is therefore appropriate that a free talk will be hosted by Lambeth Palace on July 18, 2023 at 5:30 p.m. presented by Richard Palmer called:

"This August Tribunal

"The Court of Arches: sex, money and the church in the 17th and 18th centuries.

"This talk is about the Court of Arches, the ancient appeal court of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and its rich archive in Lambeth Palace Library.
It outlines court procedure and the tangled lives of those who came before it, caught up in disputes about inheritance, marriage, divorce, morals, slander, church buildings, pews, rates and tithes.

"All are welcome, but those wishing to attend should book a free ticket or email archives@churchofengland.org not later than Wednesday 26 July."

Should be an evening full of salacious gossip!

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