Annotations and comments

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

Comments

First Reading

About Peaches

TerryF  •  Link

"The Peach (Prunus persica) is a tree native to China that bears a juicy fruit of the same name....The fruit is a drupe, with a single large seed encased in hard wood (called the "stone" or "pit"), yellow or whitish flesh, a delicate aroma, and a velvety skin that bruises easily. Peaches, along with cherries, plums and apricots, are stone fruits (drupes).

"The scientific name persica derives from an early European belief that peaches were native to Persia (now Iran)." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peach

About Apricots

TerryF  •  Link

"The apricot (Prunus armeniaca, syn. Armeniaca vulgaris) is a fruit-bearing tree native to China. It is related to the plum, and classified with it in the subgenus Prunus of the genus Prunus."
You'd never know it, but Wikipedia does and more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apri…

About Thursday 6 August 1663

TerryF  •  Link

"a gossiping"

The name of an event; cf. Mr. Lawrence's deed.

gossip
O.E. godsibb "godparent," from God + sibb "relative" (see sibling). Extended in M.E. to "any familiar acquaintance" (1362), especially to woman friends invited to attend a birth, later to "anyone engaging in familiar or idle talk" (1566). Sense extended 1811 to "trifling talk, groundless rumor." The verb meaning "to talk idly about the affairs of others" is from 1627. http://www.etymonline.com/index.p…

About Company of Leathersellers

TerryF  •  Link

"The Leathersellers' Company is one of the ancient Livery Companies of the City of London, ranked fifteenth in the order of precedence. It was founded by royal charter in 1444 with authority to control the sale of leather within the City. The Company no longer has this regulatory role, and instead devotes its energies to support for charity, education and the British leather trade.
The Leathersellers' Company is made up of 150 liverymen and a variable number of freemen." http://www.leathersellers.co.uk/

About Wednesday 5 August 1663

TerryF  •  Link

Pineal gland

Descartes believed it to be in the very center of the brain, but, alas, his anatomy was faulty - as Galen had pointed out, it is rather anterior (toward the front), is inidrectly light-sensitive, involved in regulating the circadian rhythms, secretes melatonin, &c." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine…

BTW, In 2005 "a study in the journal *Nature* compared *Britannica* and Wikipedia science articles and suggested that the former are usually only marginally more accurate than the latter." http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/20…

(Many of this days annotes - excluding mine- are very witty!)

About Wednesday 5 August 1663

TerryF  •  Link

Pepys's catamaran - the mind and the body
OR Bess and Betty - joined in the eyes of the (be)holder.

About Company of Leathersellers

TerryF  •  Link

"The Leathersellers' Company has owned six Halls, the first of which was sited on London Wall near Moorgate, an area long associated with the leather trade. It was in use from around 1476 until 1543 when the Company bought the former priory of St Helen on Bishopsgate. The old priory buildings were converted into a Hall, but they were increasingly expensive to maintain and so in 1799 the site was cleared and the first St Helen's Place laid out...." http://www.leathersellers.co.uk/s…

About Tuesday 4 August 1663

TerryF  •  Link

Lest the return of Sir W. Penn go unremarked -

The gout that's kept him away and abed had been known as a crippler. Its cognitive complications might also have been remarked. SP's vows and relative absention unintionally helps stave off gout, whose ravages on the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1516-1556) have been been reported within the last week. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/…

About Tuesday 4 August 1663

TerryF  •  Link

Brother John's summons

Samuel, the family success, takes a rather paternal interest in John, who's trailed him via (nearby) St. Paul's (these are John's old haunts too) to Cambridge; who knew when he would come so his brother could see how his studies progress. He shares meals with John; and they will have a chance to visit as Samuel's. ah, activities permit.

About Tuesday 4 August 1663

TerryF  •  Link

"A ventriloquist?"

"I...see her mouth when she speaks, which should not be."

Is it that unusual?

About Tuesday 4 August 1663

TerryF  •  Link

Mother Palmer

Her singing "in the belly" (Mongolian double-tones?) and the sport made with her previousely are not recorded in the Diary; are they
ante 1660?

Wheately has it that she sang "some old body songs" which, as L&M transcribe are "some old bawdy songs" - (too bad they weren't at least well sung).

About Aristotle

TerryF  •  Link

Aristotle (Ancient Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης, Aristotélēs) (384 BC – March 7, 322 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote books on many subjects, including physics, poetry, zoology, logic, rhetoric, government, and biology, none of which survive in their entirety. Pepys knew him somewhat scholastically, and quizzed his brother John about the four causes and the four terrestrial elements and their qualities, sc. "Fire, which is hot and dry. Earth, which is cold and dry. Air, which is hot and wet. Water, which is cold and wet."
More from Wikipedia- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aris…

About Judith and Holofernes

TerryF  •  Link

‘Judith and Holofernes’ - good trumphs over evil with gorey action - a subject fit for a puppet-play such as Pepys saw.

"The story comes from the apocryphal Book of Judith in the Old Testament. The Jewish town of Bethulia was under siege by the Assyrian army and its general, Holofernes. When the residents were at the brink of capitulation, a beautiful widow, Judith devised a scheme for their deliverance. Dressing in her finest clothes, Judith left Bethulia with her maid and entered the Assyrian camp as an ostensible deserter. Holofernes found her a welcome addition to his camp, as much for her beauty as for her veiled promise to assist in the defeat of the Jews. After a banquet, at which Holofernes became drunk, the general lured the beautiful widow into his tent. He quickly fell asleep, however, and Judith seized the opportunity to cut off his head with his own sword. Together with her maid, who stuffed Holofernes' head into a bag, Judith stole back to Bethulia. Once apprised of Judith's heroic act, the Bethulian soldiers charged from the city and defeated the Assyrian army." http://tours.daytonartinstitute.o…

About Monday 3 August 1663

TerryF  •  Link

SP's "Puritan, king’s-execution-applauding...past" and the Petts.

Thursday 1 November 1660 http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

"Here dined with us two or three more country gentle men; among the rest Mr. Christmas, my old school-fellow, with whom I had much talk. He did remember that I was a great Roundhead when I was a boy, and I was much afraid that he would have remembered the words that I said the day the King was beheaded (that, were I to preach upon him, my text should be “The memory of the wicked shall rot”); but I found afterwards that he did go away from school before that time."1

1 Pepys might well be anxious on this point, for in October of this year Phieas Pett, assistant master shipwright at Chatham, was dismissed from his post for having when a Child spoken disrespectfully of the King. See ante, August 23rd. http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

About Monday 3 August 1663

TerryF  •  Link

The (in]fidelities of Captain Browne -

who "served the late times [the party of the Interregnum] all along, yet he kept us in discourse of the many services that he did for many of the King’s party, lords and Dukes, [&c., &c.,]..."

So, yes, Australian Susan and Patricia, he likely opportunely hoped to sell his version of events to those who might echo it at court; "and among others he recovered a dog that was stolne from Mr. Cary (head-keeper of the buck-hounds to the King)...."

I wonder how the Diarist - himself an admitted loser and coveter of others' dogs - felt when Captain Browne told this as one in a series of examples of his trust with others' property.