Sunday 26 April 1663

(Lord’s-day). Lay pretty long in bed talking with my wife, and then up and set to the making up of my monthly accounts, but Tom coming, with whom I was angry for botching my camlott coat, to tell me that my father and he would dine with me, and that my father was at our church, I got me ready and had a very good sermon of a country minister upon “How blessed a thing it is for brethren to live together in unity!” So home and all to dinner, and then would have gone by coach to have seen my Lord Sandwich at Chelsey if the man would have taken us, but he denying it we staid at home, and I all the afternoon upon my accounts, and find myself worth full 700l., for which I bless God, it being the most I was ever yet worth in money.

In the evening (my father being gone to my brother’s to lie to-night) my wife, Ashwell, and the boy and I, and the dogg, over the water and walked to Half-way house, and beyond into the fields, gathering of cowslipps, and so to Half-way house, with some cold lamb we carried with us, and there supped, and had a most pleasant walk back again, Ashwell all along telling us some parts of their mask at Chelsey School, which was very pretty, and I find she hath a most prodigious memory, remembering so much of things acted six or seven years ago.

So home, and after reading my vows, being sleepy, without prayers to bed, for which God forgive me!


29 Annotations

First Reading

TerryF  •  Link

"How blessed a thing it is for brethren to live together in unity!"

L&M note that Pepys, as he did on some other Sundays, wrote this paraphrase of a key part of the Lectionary text VERY LARGE.
Today's text is Psalm 133 Ecce, quam bonum! [here it is entire]:

"1 Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!
2 It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments;
3 As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the LORD commanded the blessing, even life for evermore." http://www.ccel.org/ccel/bible/kj…

TerryF  •  Link

“How blessed a thing it is for brethren to live together in unity!”

Do you suppose SP thought of politics - civic, mayhap domestic, familial, even Navy Office - even if the good sermon didn't?

Bradford  •  Link

"Tom coming, with whom I was angry for botching my camlott coat, to tell me . . . that my father was at our church, I got me ready and had a very good sermon of a country minister upon 'How blessed a thing it is for brethren to live together in unity!'"

Exemplary metatextuality: an auto-criticizing diary entry.

Australian Susan  •  Link

The present day Common Lectionary has Ps 133 for Low Sunday (Sunday after Easter Day)this year. It is more usual to have a sermon on the Gospel. Maybe the preacher feels the times are troubled between men of different views on their faith and need reminding of their commonalty and the importance of it.

jeannine  •  Link

"In the evening (my father being gone to my brother’s to lie to-night) my wife, Ashwell, and the boy and I, and the dogg, over the water and walked to Half-way house, and beyond into the fields, gathering of cowslipps, and so to Half-way house, with some cold lamb we carried with us, and there supped, and had a most pleasant walk back again, Ashwell all along telling us some parts of their mask at Chelsey School, which was very pretty, and I find she hath a most prodigious memory, remembering so much of things acted six or seven years ago."
My first thought upon reading this is just how sad it is that Sam and Elizabeth didn't have children of their own. This is exactly the type of laid back day that families spend together, walking, having a meal, etc. and just "hanging out".
For now, Sam seems to be appreciating Ashwell in a "fatherly" way...hopefully that will continue and not turn into something else. Also, interesting that he even mentions that Wayneman is with them --the surrogate son and daughter????

in Aqua Scripto  •  Link

As usual I will botch up this annot:
" but Tom coming, with whom I was angry for botching my camlott coat,"
Tom be a botcher: a word for a taylor
OED: Botcher;
b. A tailor who does repairs.
1663 BAXTER Div. Life 31 A sorry Taylor may make a Botcher, or a bad Shoomaker may make a Cobler.
3. One who does a thing bunglingly; a clumsy maker up of; an unskilful workman, a bungler.
Of course Sam would like to lance him,he be a boil :
OED:}"1. A hump; a swelling; a tumour, wen, or goître; = BOSS n.1 1. Obs.

2. A boil, ulcer, or pimple. Also fig. as ‘spiritual botch’. Obs. exc. dial.
1667 MILTON P.L. XII. 180 Botches and blaines must all his flesh emboss.
More:
3. a. A bungled piece of work. So botch-work.
1648 HERRICK Hesper. I. 104 Learne of me what woman is, Something made of thred and thrumme; A mere botch of all and some
1. trans. To make good or repair (a defect, damage, damaged article); to patch, mend. Now only: to repair clumsily or imperfectly. Often with up.
Botcher; ;b. A tailor who does repairs.

1654 TRAPP Comm. Job xiii. 4 Ye are not onely..forgers, but..botchers
also both=chers be known as young salmon; a grilse.

1661 S. PARTRIDGE Double Scale Proportion To Rdr., The fault is in the botching Taylor, not in the stuffe
And botched up sounds so modern:

pauline  •  Link

"As usual I will botch up this annot: "
Very interesting stuff, indeed. From the Botcher and Cobbler as lesser Tailors and Shoemakers to the botched job of cobbling together something. Michael, you are invaluable!

TerryF  •  Link

"Michael, you are invaluable!"

I'll second that - 'tis an awesome tour de force!! (aussi tour de farce!)

adam w  •  Link

botcher or bodger?
two very similar words with the same colloquial meaning.
Botcher = rough-and-ready tailor.
Bodger = wood turner, hence a clumsy craftsman.
Are they really the same word?
http://www.worldwidewords.org/wei… suggests they are.

Wim van der Meij  •  Link

It strikes me that Sam does not comment on Ashwell's looks; he often does that on other occasions. Maybe Ashwell is a nice and accomplished but plain girl, and for that reason Jeannine's hope may be fulfilled.
I do like Sam's description here of a 'day in the country'.

Ivo  •  Link

"...Ashwell all along telling us some parts of their mask at Chelsey School, which was very pretty, and I find she hath a most prodigious memory, remembering so much of things acted six or seven years ago."

Mask or masque:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masq…

BTW, would Ashwell's "Chelsey School" be the same as Josias Priest's "Boarding School for Young Gentlewomen", where Henry Purcell's opera 'Dido and Aeneas' was first performed in 1689?

Australian Susan  •  Link

A bodger is not necessarily a clumsy workman at all! They were woodmen who lived in the woods making chair legs, usually solitary, taciturn men. Associating the word with poor workmanship is modern. It's a SE English word as it was in those woods that the right type of timbercould be found for making chair legs with a hand turning implement. there is a lovely description of such a workman in Elizabeth Goudge's The Scent of Water. http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obid… (amazon link)

Martha_R  •  Link

my camlott coat

According to this webpage, http://www.plexoft.com/SBF/C01.ht… (which is so eccentric as to appear perfectly reliable) camelot refers to a
"beautiful and expensive fabric originally (13th century) imported to Europe from``the East.'' The word has had a variety of spellings (chamlyt, camblet, camlott, etc.). Regarding the etymology, OED2 says ``[t]he ultimate origin is obscure; at the earliest
known date the word was associated (by Europeans) with camel, as if stuff made of camel's hair; but there is reason to think it was originally the Arabic khamlat, from khaml....''
It's not clear what was in the original material, but over the course of centuries silk, Angora goat, wool, cotton, and linen have all been used in (or claimed to be in) the imported material or the domestic (European) imitation."

Rex Gordon  •  Link

Bodgers ...

Australian Susan is right! Just the other night on the Turner Classic Movies channel I saw a short subject from 1946 or 47, a tour of rural England. The moviemakers came across two "bodgers" working in a forest, making chair legs by hand, hundreds of them, all perfect and identical, from trees right there on the spot. The skill and artistry of these guys was absolutely amazing. They might as well have been magicians.

in Aqua Scripto  •  Link

another bodged job: [modern 1911?] Bodger = wood turner, hence a clumsy craftsman. after taking a butchers at The OED;
OED cites this as: " In full chair bodger. A local name in Buckinghamshire for a chair-leg turner. Hence (chair-)bodgering, the action or process of chair-leg turning.
1911 G. ELAND Chilterns & Vale vi. 136 The men who thus work in the woods are called ‘chair-bodgers’. Ibid. 137 The purchaser then employs the ‘bodger’ to turn it [sc. a ‘fall’ of beech] into chair-legs."
old citations be :
Bodger : One who ‘bodges’; a botcher.
[An altered form of BOTCH v.; cf. grudge from grutch.]

1552 HULOET, Bodger, botcher, mender, or patcher of olde garmentes. 1567 HARDING in Jewell Def. Apol. (1611) 500 Be they..Tinkers or Tapsters, coblers or Bodgers. [In modern dialects.]

a bodge be a clumsey patch or A measure used in selling oats, etc.; app. about half a peck.

then as usual :2. Botching, bungling.
1612 BRINSLEY Lud. Lit. 107 To turne the prose of the Poets into the Poets owne verse, without any bodging.

then there be a word [bunger] that be modern in some dialects:
1589 Pappe w. Hatchet (1844) 20 You shall blush at your owne bodges.
1598 FLORIO, Sbozzi, bodges, or bunger-like workes. 1877 PEACOCK North Lincolnsh. Gl., Bodge, a botch, a clumsy patch.

A. Hamilton  •  Link

You shall blush at your owne bodges.

I can just hear the voice of Alfonso Bedoya as the bandido in Treasure of Sierra Madre, saying, "Bodges? We ain't got no bodges. We don't need no bodges. I don't have to show you any stinking bodges," in answer to the question by Humphrey Bogart (I think), "If you are the federales, where are your badges?"

matthew newton  •  Link

with whom I was angry for botching my camlott coat
so..... what was wrong with the coat?
did i miss something in all of the above?

TerryF  •  Link

"I...find myself worth full 700l., for which I bless God, it being the most I was ever yet worth in money."

- From what we know about the extended family's current assets, outlays and prospective needs, this is a very good thing indeed;
- Sam'l nicely distinguishes between what he's worth "in money" and what he's worth otherwise -- in accounts receivable? in moral terms?

Jacqueline Gore  •  Link

Wim I think you and Robert Gertz may be right as to Ashwell's appearance.

Bradford  •  Link

“camelot, camlet(t), comlott: robust ribbed cloth made of wool or, more rarely, goat hair”---Companion, Large Glossary

“Camlet” makes its first appearance on Sunday 1 and Friday 13 July 1660.

"This night my new camelott riding coat to my coloured cloth suit came home."
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
Extensive discussion follows there. (Note the mystery-“coloured” suit.)

That coat reappears here:
" . . . put on my riding cloth suit, and a camelott coat new, which pleases me well enough."
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

In today's entry it sounds as if Tom the tailor’s son has been entrusted with a length of this valuable stuff and has had no success in making it up.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"On second thought, lets not go to Camelot, tis a silly place..." and named after goat hair.
***

"Tom, Tom..." Sam sighs, eyeing his once beautiful length of camelot.

"For one brief shining moment, it was...Camelot."

For God's sake, Sam...Just a lousy piece of fancy wool cloth, Tom thinks.

***

"Mr. Pepys. The rain will never penetrate at sundown. By 9am this cloth'll be dry as bone. Oh, don't let it be forgot. Ignore that one bad spot. For one brief shining moment, you can afford...This...Cam..e...lot."

"I can?"

"Oh, absolutely, sir."

"And the snow will never slush upon my coatside? And by 9am it will be dry as bone?"

"Sir...Don't let this piece be forgot. Ignore the one bad spot. For while this sale should last...You can afford...This...Camelot."

"Boy!" Sam turns to Wayneman.

"Run to my brother and tell him...I have bought...Some...Cam...E...Lot!"

"Run, boy...!"

Dan Jenkins  •  Link

Mr. Gertz, you are an unending source of joy. Thank you!

Australian Susan  •  Link

Lovely melding of Richard Harris and Graham Chapman! Thank you, Mr Gertz!

TerryF  •  Link

"I find [Ashwell] hath a most prodigious memory, remembering so much of things acted six or seven years ago."

Ah! but Mr. Pepys has never acted or directed, doing which - through many rehearsals, and the performances themselves - etches the parts and the blocking details in the memory for decades, to which I attest from personal experience as a former Thespian among others.

Pedro  •  Link

“prodigious memories”

Ah! Those lucky soles that are never vexed, always remembering where they have put their keys!


in Aqua Scripto  •  Link

if thy want to lie,
then thou must remember why
tis forgetting that lie
that thee be entangled
in thy net of deceit.
Better the memory better the lie.
or once said by Quintilian in Institutio Oratoria, IV, 2, 91
Mendacem memorem esse oportere

Robert Gertz  •  Link

Actually, Sam did or nearly did act once and the part he played or was to play, that of Arethusa, a beautious lady, in "Philaster, or Love Lies a-Bleeding" (Beaumont and Fletcher) for Sir Robert Coke and wife, (employers of his father's third cousin John Pepys of Ashstead and Salisbury Court and father of Jane Turner), he never forgot.

A fact he probably put to good use this evening with Ashwell...Shame if he did start reciting lines and didn't bother to note it for us.

dirk  •  Link

The Rev. Josselin's weather report for today...

God good in manifold mercies, dry after much wet. we prayed for a fit season, the lord in mercy command it, god good in the sabbath, his word sweet and cheering.

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