Wednesday 1 March 1664/65

Up, and this day being the day that, by a promise, a great while ago, made to my wife, I was to give her 20l. to lay out in clothes against Easter, she did, notwithstanding last night’s falling out, come to peace with me and I with her, but did boggle mightily at the parting with my money, but at last did give it her, and then she abroad to buy her things, and I to my office, where busy all the morning. At noon I to dinner at Trinity House, and thence to Gresham College, where Mr. Hooke read a second very curious lecture about the late Comett; among other things proving very probably that this is the very same Comett that appeared before in the year 1618, and that in such a time probably it will appear again, which is a very new opinion; but all will be in print.

Then to the meeting, where Sir G. Carteret’s two sons, his owne, and Sir N. Slaning, were admitted of the society: and this day I did pay my admission money, 40s. to the society.

Here was very fine discourses and experiments, but I do lacke philosophy enough to understand them, and so cannot remember them. Among others, a very particular account of the making of the several sorts of bread in France, which is accounted the best place for bread in the world.

So home, where very busy getting an answer to some question of Sir Philip Warwicke touching the expense of the navy, and that being done I by coach at 8 at night with my wife and Mercer to Sir Philip’s and discoursed with him (leaving them in the coach), and then back with them home and to supper and to bed.

39 Annotations

First Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"boggle"

boggle
1598, "to start with fright" (as a startled horse does), from M.E. bugge "specter" (among other things, supposed to scare horses at night); see bug. The meaning "to raise scruples, hesitate" is from 1638.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.p…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

From the Carte Calendar regarding Sir Nicholas Armorer and of Gabriel de Sylvius with rewarding friends in very high places:

An attachment to their Petition of yesterday to the King that they be granted the half "or of so much thereof as to his Majesty shall seem befitting" of the value of the ship ‘Bishop of Flushing’, taken by Lord Sandwich, that was not given to Lord Sandwich: http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

[Report of the Duke of Ormond to the King thereupon]
Written from: [Whitehall]

Date: 1 March 1665

Is of opinion that if the forfeiture in the Petition mentioned be legally at his Majesty's disposal, it may be graciously granted to Petitioners in regard of their equitable pretensions thereto.

http://www.rsl.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwm…

jeannine  •  Link

Royal Society

I’ve no philosophy to understand them
That Society of scientific men
Bread from France I can forebear
But am truly unaware
Of the science of comets
Or biology of vomit

Dissections of animals will make me queasy
Knowledge of science isn’t always so easy
But when I open Sam’s book
And read of Newton and Hooke
Will this new institution
Cause a science revolution?

Excuse me if I don’t make a fuss when
We read of Hooke’s ideas of combustion
But for sure I will delight
When those scientists all fight
Will this be a talent show?
Or the study of ego?

CGS  •  Link

expanding on boggle, Sam be 2?
n. 1. The act of boggling as a horse.to take boggle: to shy with fright, to take alarm.
1660 G. FLEMING Stemma Sacr. 30 They had taken boggle
at some State overtures.

2. Demur, scruple, objection, difficulty, fuss; chiefly in to make boggle. Obs. or arch.
peeps gets another entree for using this popular word 1667.
3. A bungle. boggle-de-botch, boggledy botch (colloq.): a complete bungle, a ‘mess’. See BOTCH v. and n.

verbe:

[app. f. boggle, var. of BOGLE a spectre, (such as horses are reputed to see). In later times there has been a tendency to associate the word with bungle, which appears in sense 4, and in the derivatives.]

1. intr. To start with fright, to shy as a startled horse; to take alarm, be startled, scared at.1598
2. To raise scruples, hesitate, demur, stickle (at, occas. about, over, etc., or to do a thing).1638
3. ‘To play fast or loose’ J.; to palter, quibble, equivocate. 1613
4. To fumble, bungle, make a clumsy attempt.1536

5. trans. To cause to hesitate, to scare. rare.1663

1663 Flagellum or O. Cromwell (1672) 155 This bogled at first three quarters of them.

boggler
One who boggles or hesitates; a stickler.
1606 SHAKES. Ant. & Cl. III. xiii. 110 You haue beene a boggeler euer.

bog a (n3)

[Derivation unknown. In Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, etc. the dialectal form is bug, pronounced (bug).]

A. adj. Blustering, bold, proud, saucy. 1592

slang. = BOG-HOUSE, latrina.
a1789

CGS  •  Link

Not every one had the cash to pay those dues.
"...I did pay my admission money, 40s. to the society. ..."
As for the 20 Quid' that was still a lot of mulah even in 1940, a months salary for a country teacher.
For Eliza, she be ready for the 21st C. stars of glitter.
1660's that be 40 % of a carriage and pair .
Would keep Papa Pepys and household in fine living for 4 months.

Carl in Boston  •  Link

This has nothing to do with you. It's all about the money.
Elizabeth remembered Sam's promise to pay 20 pounds toward a new Easter bonnet and such, and she nailed him on the point. He boggled and he bucked, but she had him by the truck. Every doggy has his day, boggled Samuel has to pay. That's keeping your eye on the ball. So much for seven shillings. She has her eye on higher prizes and she bagged him.

Ralph Berry  •  Link

"its all about money"
I suggest its all about power! Sam has the power to make Beth suffer and he uses it but it is becoming more and more obvious Beth has her ways of getting back at him. Not a happy household but I guess in those days when there was really no way out you sank or swam. Keep swimming Beth, I am enjoying it!!

French Bread.
The french had pigeon lofts and used a small amount of the pigeon dung in the bread to improve it. Perhaps that is what made it so good. Did the English do the same?

Boggle
Wonderful word, thanks Terry & CGS for the explanations. There is a great game on the market called "Boggle" which requires players to make up words from a limited amount of letters that fall into adjoining slots. Great fun to play with adults and children of all ages. (Sorry PG if this strays too much)

Ruben  •  Link

The Royal Society
and what was it that was lectured by Mr. Hooke (from the original):
"march. 2d. 1663/4. The expt. wth Birds put in comon rarifyd & compressed air being
made againe & found that the Bird in the comon air was well that in the rarifyd
panting and that in the compressed air Dead. the Last was opend but noe water
found wthin, which since some of the company thought an argument of the Birds
being drowned, It was ordered the Expt. wth the Bird in the compressing Engine should be
tryd the 3d time putting the bird in a Little cage at the next meeting.
mr. Hooke produced his Bellows to be vsed vnder the water for taking air, but
proposed wthall another way conceiued by him better & safer then that wth bellows
vizt wth two cylinders open at one end and hauing two pipes by which the
air is taken out of the one & putt into the other. orderd that two such cylinders
be made & when Ready a waterman hired to try the expt.
(About the Last dissiction. Prince Ruperts way of making shot. Dr. Pell hinted that the suns
meridian altitude might be obserued the 10 & 11 of this months. Vleg Beg to be translated]."
For more see:
http://webapps.qmul.ac.uk/cell/Ho…
with a facsimilia of the original text.
Our Samuel is making a big lap today! The Society's members were the cream of Science in his day and they still are influencing today our lives.

Ruben  •  Link

Those interested in more info about the "experiment of the week" at the Royal Society, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_E…
those interested only in how it looked, see:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikip…
The painting is 100 years apart from Pepys, but in those times, science trickled very very slowly.
There is a mistake in the text of the wiki: "one of Robert Boyle's air pump experiments, in which a bird is deprived of oxygen,".
In 1768, oxygen was yet to be discovered.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

The Hooke MS transcribed that Michael Robinson linked us to:

"march. 1 Sulphur vpon Red hot niter burnt in the Exhausted Rr. Zulichems Letter of Feb: 27. 65. of Printed Dutch instructions
for the vse of his watches at sea. 2 of sympathy of watches suspended together 3 of his agreemt wth Dr. wren about the place
of the comet. 4 of Desons Chariot & of his own. RH to extract out of his Lecture of the comet wt he thought fit to print
wth necessary schemes. Reeues glasses tryd campanys way. -"

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Sorry that was Ruben, not M.R. (Apologies, Ruben: it's too late for clear thinking where I am. Thanks very much for the link to the famous MS.)

Mary  •  Link

Elizabeth's New Year vow

that she wouldn't go out until Easter (when she might expect to have a new outfit). I can't help thinking that this vow carried the rider, "because I haven't got a thing to wear." If she had entertained hopes of Sam disbursing her clothing allowance a little early, they clearly went unfulfilled.

Carl in Boston  •  Link

The Royal Society
Fellow Pepysians, when we last met on the subject of air, the Society was putting lighted wooden splints into jars of fresh air and exhausted air. The flame would stay alight or go out depending on the air. Now a month has passed and they are doing the same thing, but with birds, and the birds live or die according to the air being fresh or compressed. That's Science.
Now they are thinking about having air or not having air in a chamber, and are making vacuum pumps and hiring a beefy waterman to man the pumps.
This is getting confusing, about finding something in the air or not in the air versus having air or not having air or having lots of compressed air.
All this is zipped through in the first two weeks of high school chemistry these days. Alas for these degenerate times, these hardwon gems of Science should be delivered by candlelight and in a powdered wig, and with great deliberation.

A. De Araujo  •  Link

"that she wouldn't go out until Easter"
Weren't they visiting the Battens a few days ago?

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"...where Mr. Hooke read a second very curious lecture about the late Comett; among other things proving very probably that this is the very same Comett that appeared before in the year 1618, and that in such a time probably it will appear again, which is a very new opinion; but all will be in print."

The Universe changes on such simple statements.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"So home, where very busy getting an answer to some question of Sir Philip Warwicke touching the expense of the navy, and that being done I by coach at 8 at night with my wife and Mercer to Sir Philip’s and discoursed with him (leaving them in the coach), and then back with them home and to supper and to bed."

Curious...Sam usually gives the impression he goes to all these strictly business affairs alone. Did we miss out on a pleasant side outing? Maybe they were picking up all the Easter clothing goodies?

"Psst...Bess?"

"Sam'l?"

"Quick, girl. I only have a moment. Sir Philip wants to know about the two thousand pounds on tar for August last year."

"Tell him you added it to make up the shortfall in July. And that July was owing thanks to slow payments from the storekeepers."

"What do I do about the storekeepers if he wants to ask them?"

"You already told them to keep the accounts ahead. Just send Will to tell them this is for the next year's payments."

"Love, what would I do without you?"

"You could give me another five pounds."

"Sorry, what was that? Must go, back in a few..."

JWB  •  Link

"...gems of Science should be delivered by candlelight and in a powdered wig, and with great deliberation."

Today any such experiment, powdered wig or no, would get you arrested and forcibly subjected to psychiatric treatment. The anti-vivisectionists have won. Once done is done enough. And, on a further related note, the great sin of the politicalization of such institutions as the Royal Society, is that now once done is not enough since the doer is not trusted to honestly report results (Lancet/Soros to mind).

Martin  •  Link

The comet
As noted in comments back on December 15, Mr. Hooke turns out to be incorrect about his theory that the late comet is the same as that of 1618:
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

language hat  •  Link

"There is a mistake in the text of the wiki: 'one of Robert Boyle’s air pump experiments, in which a bird is deprived of oxygen'
In 1768, oxygen was yet to be discovered."

I don't understand where the mistake lies. The fact that they had not yet discovered oxygen does not mean that it did not exist, and the bird was in fact deprived of oxygen.

Ruben  •  Link

1) If you never heard of Oxygen you cannot reach any conclusion about it. The bird was deprived of air, and the conclusion that it was the lack of Oxygen that killed it is an anachronic one.

2) No powdered wigs yet, just wigs...

Andrew Hamilton  •  Link

Jeannine, you boggle my mind with your quick wit. I sympathized with Sam's bewilderment in hearing about the various projects being pursued by members of the society. Your verse put me in mind of Gulliver's visit to the society of projectors on the island of Laputa:

The first Man I saw was of a meager Aspect, with sooty Hands and Face, his Hair and Beard long, ragged and singed in several Places. His Cloathes, Shirt, and Skin were all of the same Colour. He had been Eight Years upon a Project for extracting Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers, which were to be put into Vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the Air in raw inclement Summers. He told me he did not doubt in Eight Years more he should be able to supply the Governors Gardens with Sun-shine at a reasonable Rate; but he complained that his stock was low, and intreated me to give him something as an Encouragement to Ingenuity, especially since this had been a very dear Season for Cucumbers. I made him a small Present, for my Lord had furnished me with Money on Purpose, because he knew their Practice of begging from all who go to see them.

I went into another Chamber, but was ready to hasten back, being almost overcome with a horrible Stink. My Conductor pressed me forward, conjuring me in a Whisper to give no Offence, which would be highly resented; and therefore I durst not so much as stop my Nose. The Projector of this Cell was the most ancient Student of the Academy. His Face and Beard were of a pale Yellow; his Hands and Clothes daubed over with Filth. When I was presented to him, he gave me a close Embrace (a Compliment I could well have excused.) His Employment from his first coming into the Academy, was an Operation to reduce human Excrement to its original Food, by separating the several Parts, removing the Tincture which it receives from the Gall, making the Odour exhale, and scumming off the Saliva. He had a weekly Allowance from the Society, of a Vessel filled with human Ordure about the Bigness of a Bristol Barrel.

I saw another at work to calcine Ice into Gunpowder; who likewise shewed me a Treatise he had written concerning the Malleability of Fire, which he intended to publish.

There was a most ingenious Architect who had contrived a new Method for building Houses, by beginning at the Roof, and working downwards to the Foundation; which he justified to me by the like Practice of those two prudent Insects, the Bee and the Spider.

etc. etc

Mary  •  Link

Francis Bacon's 'New Atlantis.'

This is a similar, but earlier text (first published 1627) that delineates in detail a Utopian society that depends for its progress on collective scientific research. I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who hasn't come across it before.

CGS  •  Link

aire be life giving; it be until named phlogiston then named Oxygen:

Oxygen : OED first mention 1788

Aire air
1651 HOBBES Leviathan III. xxxiv. 207 Aire, and aeriall substances, use not to be taken for Bodies, but..are called Wind, or Breath.
1660 JER. TAYLOR Worthy Commun. i. §2. 43 Truth is the aire they breath. 1674 PETTY Disc. bef. Royal Soc. 117 The Vnder-water-Air within the Vessels of Water-Divers, who the lower they go, do find their stock of Air more and more to shrink.

Oxygen was first discovered by Michał Sędziwój, Polish alchemist and philosopher in late 16th century. Sędziwój assumed the existence of oxygen by warming nitre (saltpeter). He thought of the gas given off as "the elixir of life". Oxygen was again discovered by the Swedish pharmacist Carl Wilhelm Scheele sometime before 1773, but the discovery was not published until after the independent discovery by Joseph Priestley on August 1, 1774, who called the gas dephlogisticated air (see phlogiston theory). Priestley published hi ...
See also:OED
phlogiston A hypothetical substance formerly supposed to exist in combination in all combustible bodies, and to be released in the process of combustion (by some identified with the element fire, conceived as being fixed in flammable substances). Now his
The use of the term in sense 1 and the theory connected with it were introduced by Stahl in 1702, in his edition of Beccher's Physica Subterranea of 1669:

Pedro  •  Link

Oxygen.

You get too much you get too high!

Terry Foreman  •  Link

The Royal Society today at Gresham College ­ from the Hooke Folio Online

March. 1. 1664/5 [ The correct year ]. There was an expt. made to try whether sulphur cast vpon heated niter would Burn without air. by putting niter into an Iron crucible Red hot and inclosing it in the rarifying engine whence the air being well exhausted which appeard by the suckers going down almost to the bottom. The sulphur which therevpon by turning the stopcock was Let fall vpon the Niter, and was seen to flame as freely as if it had been in the open air.

mr. Hook was orderd to diuise more expts. to Elucidate the nature of fire and burning.

A Letter of Hugens. feb. 65. about vse of pend watch at Sea. Sympathy of pend: agreemt wth Sr Ch wrens hyp of Comet
opinion of Desons chariot. directions for sea watches to be printed in English)

That mr. Hooke should extract out of his Lecture a Discourse ^ /vpon/ of the Late comet & fit it for the presse together wth. the necessary.

(Col Blunt to bring modul of chariot) mr. Euelyns paper about french bread) kiflers ouen) furs bushes rould in east makes it keep all the year.) Salt white of Egg & flower beaten & ferment togeth and serue for yest) of macassar poison
[ http://www.bartleby.com/81/16994.… ] way of trying campanys glasses.

Orderd that the Prest. Sr. R mory Col Long & mr Hooke and as many els should meet thurs/day/ night next at westminster hall & try seuerall Engl: glasses of mr. Reeues making of the same Length vpon the same character obseruing the circumstances prescribed in the paper concerning Distance Light &c.

http://webapps.qmul.ac.uk/cell/Ho…

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"a very particular account of the making of the several sorts of bread in France, which is accounted the best place for bread in the world."

This was John Evelyn's paper on the subject ('Pantificium, or the several manners of making bread in France, etc., where by general consent the best bread is eaten'), which was ordered to be entered in the Society's register: Birch, ii, 19. (L&M footnote)

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"...where Mr. Hooke read a second very curious lecture about the late Comett; among other things proving very probably that this is the very same Comett that appeared before in the year 1618, and that in such a time probably it will appear again, which is a very new opinion; but all will be in print."

See Birch, ii. 19; the lecture was printed in Philos. Trans., i (for 1665-6), pp. 3-4. His earlier lecture had been given in 1664; both were later printed, incompletely, in Hooke's Lectures and Collections (1678), which also appeared as part of Lectiones Cutlerianae (1679). The latter is reprinted in Gunther, viii. 209+. For the comet, see https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/… and https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

I'm surprised no one caught this one:

"CGS on 2 Mar 2008 -- Not everyone had the cash to pay those dues.
"... I did pay my admission money, 40s. to the society. ..."
"As for the 20 Quid that was still a lot of mulah even in 1940, a months salary for a country teacher."

40 shillings are two pounds, not twenty. Still a lot of money back then, but not as much as CGS was claiming.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Terry, I'm confused, and before I (and others) spend hours sorting them out, can you tell me if we have one or two years' worth of Royal Society reports here. The first one is dated March 2, 1663/64, and others dated today March 1, 1664/65.

Interesting that both years seem to have dealt with oxygen.

mountebank  •  Link

A fine use of "boggle" in today's entry. It's still used in England in much the same sense.

Charles Taylor  •  Link

According to one inflation calculator, 20 pounds in 1665 is roughly 5,000 pounds in today's money. Sam has been such a creep lately. Consider the money restitution.

LKvM  •  Link

San Diego Sarah:
The forty shillings were only for Sam's admission into the society.
They were not to be confused with the twenty pounds that Sam gave Elizabeth for Easter clothes.
Apples and oranges.
Btw, CGS, when I was a teacher in Louisiana in 1962 I made $300/mo.

Nate Lockwood  •  Link

"townsend 18th century cooking" has videos on 18th century American cooking and living on YouTube and that's only roughly 50 to 100 years after these diaries.

"French" bread is described. It's made with extra ingredients (oil and egg? Can't remember) that results in a thick hard flakey crust, it looks as if one could tap it with a spoon and get a drum sound.

The interesting part is that the brown crust is removed by cutting and reserved for other cooking leaving a sorry looking but apparently really tasty loaf of bread.
I mention this because the recipe quite possibly came from England and might have been used in Pepys time.

Do we have any bread recipes from this era?

Robert Harneis  •  Link

@ Ruben Royal Society 'mr. Hooke produced his Bellows to be vsed vnder the water for taking air, but proposed wthall another way conceiued by him better & safer then that wth bellows
vizt wth two cylinders open at one end and hauing two pipes by which the
air is taken out of the one & putt into the other. orderd that two such cylinders
be made & when Ready a waterman hired to try the expt.'

This sounds awfully like an episode from Blackadder with Baldric as the waterman trying out the patent new diving gear.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

San Diego Sarah and Robert Harneis ask about the Hooke Folio posted here

Hooke Folio Online (Google that)

The Hooke Folio contains extracts from the Royal Society's Journal Books, followed by the rough minutes for the period of Hooke's secretaryship. This on-line edition also includes a number of supplementary papers, which were found with the manuscript and include contemporary indexes. You may start your scroll through the manuscript at any of these points.

Posted here are Extracts from Journal Books 1661-16
http://www.livesandletters.ac.uk/…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

The Duke of York's Laws, 1665-75.

The Duke of York's Laws for the government of the Colony of New York were compiled from the statutes for the government of the other English colonies in America, under the direction of Governor Richard Nicolls, the first English Governor. They were promulgated at Hempstead, on Long Island, March 1, 1665, and copies were transmitted to the several ridings, constituting the shire of Yorkshire. A copy of these laws, known as the "East Hampton copy," is filed in the clerk's office of the town of East Hampton, in the County of Suffolk.

Yorkshire New York included Long Island, Staten Island, Manhattan Island, and the east side of the Hudson River coterminous with Westchester. The Duke's Laws covered nearly every facet of life in the colony and were published in alphabetical order—from how arrests were to be carried out, how juries were to be picked, to the amount of the bounty paid for dead wolves.

Although directed to English and Dutch colonists, the laws also covered what Indians could and could not do. For example, Indians were required to fence in their corn fields and were specifically barred from practicing their own religion. "No Indian whatsoever shall at any time be suffered to powaw or performe outward worship to the Devil in any Towne within this Government," one section of the laws said. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The…

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"Here was very fine discourses and experiments, but I do lacke philosophy enough to understand them, and so cannot remember them."

Clearly the meaning of the word "philosophy" has changed since 1665.

This is one of the uses which caught the attention of a Pepys Diary reader, Jacky Colliss Harvey, who posted this article in PSYCHE today:

https://psyche.co/ideas/so-far-an…

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