Annotations and comments

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

Comments

First Reading

About Monday 8 June 1663

TerryF  •  Link

Thank you, Michael Robinson, peritus on 17c books, for details on the Newman(s) and other concordances. I agree, Pepys might well have regarded the Cambridge edition as the "new" and superior one - even with the difficulties he cites, the Cambridge connection *might* also count for something imponderable (unweighed) as well.

About Slide rule

TerryF  •  Link

A slide-rule's initial value for Pepys is indicated by this descriptive title:

Everard, Thomas. "Stereometry, Or, The Art of Gauging Made easie by the Help of a New Sliding-Rule Which Shews the Area's of Circles in Gallons and Barrels and the Square and Cube-Root of any Number under 100,000 by inspection; and also Resolves Many other Arithmetical Problems Without Pen or Compasses: With an Appendix of Conick Sections, in Which the Nature and Original of Several Solids (frequently mentioned in Books of Gauging) is Explained, and their Magnitudes Compared." London: Peacock, 1689.
http://math.arizona.edu/~models/b…

About The Committee (Sir Robert Howard)

TerryF  •  Link

The Committee, or the Faithful Irishman; a Comedy produced at the King's Theatre in Drury-Lane [(1663; printed 1665) Howar's best play, which kept the stage long after its interest as a political satire was exhausted].... Its extreme drollery, the excellent acting of John Lacy, the mimic, as Teague, and the unrestrained contempt with which it assailed the puritans, made it successful ; but both Evelyn and Pepys, its contemporaries, have noticed it in their Diaries as a very absurd production....The title of The Committee, refers to those Commissioners of Sequestrations appointed by the Parliament in the Civil Wars, to take charge of the seized estates of the loyalists. All the persons of the drama were peculiarly characteristic of the parties of the period when it was written, but the character of Teague was especially drawn from life; as it is stated in Anecdotes * t of some of the Howard Family, by the Honourable Charles Howard, tenth Duke of Norfolk, London, 1769, page 11. The original is there said to have been an Irish servant, whom Sir Robert Howard sent over to England, with despatches to his friends to procure the liberation of his son, imprisoned by the Parliament. This he effected with uncommon success, fidelity, and quickness; but on returning he staid several days in Dublin to rejoice with his friends, altogether forgetting the father's anxiety" http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/…

About Monday 8 June 1663

TerryF  •  Link

Elizabeth adrift, indeed - bespeaking lifelong instability.

As Jeannine has amply documented. Yes, methinks she is "adrift" - nice word, Clement, perhaps better than my "temperamental" (Madame Bovary, anyone?).

About Monday 8 June 1663

TerryF  •  Link

Elizabeth "now depends upon her having Ashwell by her"

No wonder Samuel is vexed: now using Ashwell as a shield, six days ago, temperamental Elizabeth, who seems not to get on with the help, complained that Ashwell stole "some new ribbon from her, a yard or two, which I am sorry to hear, and I fear my wife do take a displeasure against her, that they will hardly stay together, which I should be sorry for, because I know not where to pick such another out anywhere." http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1… , and three days ago, last Friday, he was "a little troubled to see my wife take no more pleasure with Ashwell, but neglect her and leave her at home." http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

About Monday 8 June 1663

TerryF  •  Link

Which Bible Concordance did SP buy three days ago?

Was it the "new" one or was it Newman's, as L&M suggest.

The "new" one must be copious indeed, since, as Michael Robinson reported, Newman's “second Impression” appeared to run to 1368 pp. http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

About Sunday 7 June 1663

TerryF  •  Link

"if [SP] had attended a Eucharist service today...."

30 March 1662
"To church in the morning, and so home, leaving the two Sir Williams to take the Sacrament, which I blame myself that I have hitherto neglected all my life, but once or twice at Cambridge1...."
"1 This does not accord with the certificate which Dr. Mines wrote in 1681, where he says that Pepys was a constant communicant. See Life of Pepys in vol. i." http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

Observance is a sometime thing, depending today on a sleep deficit, as Bradford has observed.

About Sunday 7 June 1663

TerryF  •  Link

Comparing boys is an old sport in the Navy Office compound:

4 May 1662
"walked with my wife to my brother Tom’s; our boy waiting on us with his sword, which this day he begins to wear, to outdo Sir W. Pen’s boy, who this day, and Sir W. Batten’s too, begin to wear new livery; but I do take mine to be the neatest of them all."
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

About Sunday 7 June 1663

TerryF  •  Link

Little Whit Sunday (Pentecost) spirit today.

What a striking contrast between the Diary entry's header and the events that played out this dismal day!

About Saturday 6 June 1663

TerryF  •  Link

language hat, I echo A. Hamilton:
what your sources report also makes the rather public louseing-scene in York House all the more plausible.

About Saturday 6 June 1663

TerryF  •  Link

"Hebden, to-day in the coach, did tell me how he is vexed to see things at Court ordered as they are by nobody that attends to business, but every man himself or his pleasures....He cries out against the King's dealing so much with goldsmiths, and suffering himself to have his purse kept and commanded by them."

The King is in hock because Pariament cannot raise the sums it has allowed him; and he and almost all around him waste and want, but not for sex, drugs, plays and rock & roll.

About Saturday 6 June 1663

TerryF  •  Link

Diagram of a louse.
Source: Hooke, Robert (1635-1703). Micrographia: or some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses : with observations and inquiries thereupon. (MDCLXVII [1667]) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imag…

"To a Louse" Robert Burns (1759–1796).

HA! whaur ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie?
Your impudence protects you sairly;
I canna say but ye strunt rarely,
Owre gauze and lace;
Tho’, faith! I fear ye dine but sparely
On sic a place.

Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner,
Detested, shunn’d by saunt an’ sinner,
How daur ye set your fit upon her—
Sae fine a lady?
Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner
On some poor body.

[...]

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An’ foolish notion:
What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,
An’ ev’n devotion!

http://www.bartleby.com/6/99.html

About Saturday 6 June 1663

TerryF  •  Link

louseing ~ delousing

"Louse Hunting" by Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918)

Nudes--stark and glistening,
Yelling in lurid glee. Grinning faces
And raging limbs
Whirl over the floor one fire.
For a shirt verminously busy
Yon soldier tore from his throat, with oaths
Godhead might shrink at, but not the lice.
And soon the shirt was aflare
Over the candle he'd lit while we lay.

Then we all sprang up and stript
To hunt the verminous brood.
Soon like a demons' pantomime
The place was raging.
See the silhouettes agape,
See the gibbering shadows
Mixed with the battled arms on the wall.
See gargantuan hooked fingers
Pluck in supreme flesh
To smutch supreme littleness.
See the merry limbs in hot Highland fling
Because some wizard vermin
Charmed from the quiet this revel
When our ears were half lulled
By the dark music
Blown from Sleep's trumpet.

http://www.english.emory.edu/Lost…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaa…