Annotations and comments

Terry Foreman has posted 16,447 annotations/comments since 28 June 2005.

Comments

First Reading

About Monday 14 March 1663/64

Terry F  •  Link

"they deft their cards above"

L&M have "they left their cards above".

---

"saw our office globes in doing"

Nice phrase.

About Monday 14 March 1663/64

Terry F  •  Link

"My Lord's apparent slighting of him."

Apparent to Our Man, I think, Andrew, who, his heart on his sleeve, seeks some reaffirmation, thing stabilizing, from M'Lord, so, chased after him and "thanked him for his putting me into the Fishery, which I perceive he expected" -- probably not, for M'Lord is busy, on the way out -- "and cried 'Oh!' says he, 'in the Fishery you mean. I told you I would remember you in it,' but offered no other discourse." His mind already was already elsewhere.

--

"Go Bess"?
Is she in the dark as to what is going on? Young and self indulgent, methinks.

About Sunday 13 March 1663/64

Terry F  •  Link

"the Doctor which he helped my brother to"

Presumably not Dr Alexander Burnet, the Pepys's physician.
L&M do not comment on this detail.

About Priscilla Holden

Terry F  •  Link

Priscilla Holden - Neighbor of Thomas Pepys, Samuel's brother, in early 1664; wife of Joseph Holden, haberdasher. (L&M)

About Saturday 12 March 1663/64

Terry F  •  Link

"Sir J. Minnes...employed at a great salary"

Pepys whines about others' relative wealth for a second day running. William Matthews notes that Mennes's salary was £500/yr compared to Pepys's £350.

About Friday 11 March 1663/64

Terry F  •  Link

"Great candor."

I meant by this phrase to call attention to Pepys's concession this day that he's also looking out for his own interest when(ever) he looks out for the King's. As you suggest, Andrew, when it suits, Pepys is given to rhetorically sheathing the swords of the Hobbesian world involving Moore, et al.

What an interesting fit of envy we have here! Has there been its like? Perhaps Moore read Hugh Audley's *The way to be rich* through and followed the advice of Chapter LXXXIII.

About Friday 11 March 1663/64

Terry F  •  Link

"hoping...my diligence...is...useful for the King...[and of] profit to myself."

Great candor, the apparent reverse of the spirit of Scottish Moralists like Adam Smith in the 18th century, who argued that each acting rationally to optimize his individual good thereby promotes the larger good.

(*her* good? Was the female pronoun used in economics in the 18th century?)

About Thursday 10 March 1663/64

Terry F  •  Link

"Should it be 'called for my wife'?"

Maybe it *should* be, Antipodal Susan, but L&M don't find it so either.

About Thursday 10 March 1663/64

Terry F  •  Link

"Directors and Councils or the Coefficient of Inefficiency"+

Michael Robinson has pointed toward factors dooming the The Company of the Royal Fishing, perhaps not least the inefficient size of its governing board, which the Wheatley note to the Diary text of March 4 indicates is 37, counting the Governor. http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

C. Northcote Parkinson' study of the various incarnations of the English cabinet since 1257 shows that one of at least 20 members has been succeeded by a smaller one. From this he infers that (1) cabinets and boards generally cease to be viably efficient if they are larger than 20; (2) a smaller size is optimal; (3) "Less certain is the optimal number of members, which must lie between three (a physical minimum) and 20. That it may be eight seems both justified and ruled out by observation: no contemporary government in Parkinson's data set had eight members, and only the unfortunate king Charles I of England had a Committee of State with that membership." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coef…

This is the Parkinson whose study of the British Admiralty led him to conclude famously that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park…

+ C. Northcote Parkinson, *Parkinson's Law and Other Studies in Administration*, Houghton Mifflin, 1957, Chap. 4.

About Friday 4 March 1663/64

Terry F  •  Link

The Royal Fishing Company - its logo

When organizing a company, the first order of business is a logo, in the 16th century, arms.

A little research reveals that they are "Barry wavy of six argent and azure; over all a fishing vessel of one mast sans sail or"
http://www.heraldsnet.org/saitou/…

Now the enterprize can begin!

About Thursday 10 March 1663/64

Terry F  •  Link

The Royal Fishery Company

Chartered like other companies (East India, &c.) to compete with the Dutch by mirroring them organizationally, The Royal Fishery Company was reorganized in 1677, dissolved in 1690 and revived in 1692. (*Industrializing English Law: Entrepreneurship and Business Organization, 1720-1844.* By Ron, Harris. Cambrdege University Press, 2000. p 184, n. 45.)

About Heraclius (Pierre Corneille)

Terry F  •  Link

*Héraclius* (1646).

The drama is scattered with neo-classical sayings, e.g.:

He who allows himself to be insulted deserves to be so; and insolence, if unpunished, increases! [Qui se laisse outrager, merite qu'on l'outrage Et l'audace impunie enfle trop un courage.]
Heraclius (I, 2)

Tyrant, step from the throne, and give place to thy master. [Tyran, descends du trone et fais place a ton maitre.]
Heraclius (I, 2)

Guess, if you can, and choose, if you dare. [Devine, si tu peux, et choisis, si tu l'oses.]
Heraclius (IV, 4)

http://www.worldofquotes.com/auth…

About Tuesday 8 March 1663/64

Terry F  •  Link

"puppy-dog water"

Apparently roast pig or puppy-dog were mixed wth wine for this concoction (L&M Larger Glossary).

Humane Society, where are you?

About Tuesday 8 March 1663/64

Terry F  •  Link

"'Heraclius' being acted...."

A hilarious sentence!! Such practiced Puritan casuistry, over 100 words worth, with distictions well worthy of a Jesuit confessor? -- perhaps prima facie proof of Pepys's popery?!

About Monday 7 March 1663/64

Terry F  •  Link

"my Lady Castlemayne in a box"

A bon bon? Is Pepys pleased at a lukewarm appraisal of her beauty by the "ordinary lady"? Is the earlier lust gone?

L&M suggest that the play at the Drury Lane -- "the other house" -- might have been *The Cardinal* by Thomas Porter.

About The Unfortunate Lovers (Sir William Davenant)

Terry F  •  Link

THE COQUET
(from "The Unfortunate Lovers," 1643)
by: Sir William Davenant (1606-1668)

'IS, in good truth, a most wonderful thing
(I am even ashamed to relate it)
That love so many vexations should bring,
And yet few have the wit to hate it.

Love's weather in maids should seldom hold fair:
Like April's mine shall quickly alter;
I'll give him to-night a lock of my hear,
To whom next day I'll send a halter.

I cannot abide these malapert males,
Pirates of love, who know no duty;
Yet love with a storm can take down their sales,
And they must strike to Admiral Beauty.

Farewell to that maid who will be undone,
Who in markets of men (where plenty
Is cried up and down) will die for even one;
I will live to make fools of twenty.

http://www.poetry-archive.com/d/t…