Annotations and comments

Paul Chapin has posted 849 annotations/comments since 17 January 2003.

Comments

First Reading

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About Wednesday 16 December 1663

Paul Chapin  •  Link

Easy go, easy come
Sounds like Captain Taylor's fiddle just about covered Sam's outlays in the Field affair.

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About Saturday 12 December 1663

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Mr. Deering
The link is to Richard Dering, a musician who died in 1630, but it should presumably be to Edward Dering, a merchant who is the subject of Wheatley's footnote.

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About Friday 11 December 1663

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New wonders from abroad
Today Sam learns that one can preserve food (fish and fowl) by freezing it. Not surprising that this was unknown in England, but I do find it surprising that beekeeping and commercial honey harvesting were apparently also unknown.

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About Monday 7 December 1663

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Time to play the link-the-pronouns game again.
Here's my guess:
"But here I met Dr. Clerke, and did tell him my story of my health; how my pain comes to me now-a-days. He did write something for me which I shall take when there is occasion. I then fell to other discourse of Dr. Knapp, who tells me he [Knapp] is the King's physician, and is become a solicitor for places for people, and I am mightily troubled with him [Knapp]. He [Clerke] tells me he [Knapp] is the most impudent fellow in the world, that gives himself [Knapp] out to be the King's physician, but it is not so, but is cast out of the Court."

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About Tuesday 1 December 1663

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"every man has a right of passage in, but not a title to, any highway"
Sounds a little like the End User License Agreement that we all have to accept when we install a new piece of software.

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About Thursday 26 November 1663

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Dinner with Mr. Cutler
I'm a little surprised that the official garbler of spices would serve a "plain" dinner. Sounds like going to a Thai restaurant and being served meatloaf.

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About Monday 23 November 1663

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oversoon
Or maybe not. As I reread the passage, it sounds more like Sam is mad at himself for not having grasped the possibility before running "like an asse" to tell others that the ship is in.

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About Monday 23 November 1663

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Insurance fraud?
Not exactly, as I understand the term. What Sam is saying is that he could pretend to have purchased insurance for the ship, gotten reimbursed from the Treasury for the purchase, and with the ship safe in port no claim would be made that would show that no insurance had been bought. However, I get the sense that Sam is expressing his amazement at how easy it would be to pull off such a trick, not expressing his intention or his wish to do so himself.

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About Sunday 22 November 1663

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"nobody could say they knew of the thing itself what I writ"
Sam is being less than honest with my Lord here, and with his diary as well, in saying that well, maybe Will Howe knew something about the letter, but nobody else. Recall 17 November: "I home and with Mr. Moore to my office, and there I read to him the letter I have wrote to send to my Lord."

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About Tuesday 17 November 1663

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Mr. Moore and Sam's letter to Sandwich
Bradford, I read the passage pretty much the same way you did, except there is that pesky "I am not unwilling", which would seem to suggest that Sam was willing for Moore to act as author. But then Sam makes himself a file copy, and seals his letter for delivery tomorrow, so he's taking it on himself.

The whole thread about the admonitory letter to Sandwich over the past week or two has reminded me of the old story of "Who will bell the cat?"

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About Tuesday 17 November 1663

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"rye bread if I can endure it"
Wonder what was so hard to endure about rye bread at that time. Maybe it was like today's Rye-Krisp?

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About Thursday 12 November 1663

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"sacrificing his conscience ... and giving himself up to folly and despair"
Or maybe my Lord is just having his mid-life crisis.

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About Friday 6 November 1663

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"Wouldn't we have known so much more about 17th century child-raising if he had been a parent!"
Or maybe there wouldn't have been a diary at all. Children can occupy an amazing amount of one's time.

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About Thursday 5 November 1663

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November 4
Robert, Pedro wasn't implying anything about politics. He meant that your posting responded to a thread in the November 4 annotations.

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About Thursday 5 November 1663

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great company/sorry company

The "great" here means in numbers, not quality, which Sam goes on to call "sorry."

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About Monday 2 November 1663

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Premature graying from distress
This has also been said of Barbara Bush, the wife of the first President Bush. In 1953, when she was 28, her 3-year-old daughter, Robin, died of leukemia. During the months-long battle to save the child, Mrs. Bush's hair became white.
However, Snopes, the "urban legends reference pages," lists this as one of many "mistaken hair beliefs," concurring with Dr. De Araujo that it is coincidence. http://www.snopes.com/oldwives/ha…

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About Saturday 31 October 1663

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Sam's salary
I noticed that too, Robert, but then I went on to think that Sam is probably including in his "salary" the emoluments he receives related to his job, and what he means here is he needs some investments, some landed property perhaps, that will yield income above and beyond what he gets for his work. As people have noted before, a job like Sam's, obtained through patronage, is by no means secure, should there be a change in court.