Annotations and comments

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

Comments

First Reading

About Tuesday 17 March 1662/63

TerryF  •  Link

"pulling down the shops...[to] make a thorough passage quite through the City...which indeed will be very fine."

Urban renewal by the powerful, the gas-bag Lord Mayor being the tool of the Livery Companies.

Pity the poor shopkeepers, one of whom used to be the father of the Diarist, whose sympathies appear to have changed, as he himself has risen in power?

About Monday 16 March 1662/63

TerryF  •  Link

“Pity about that second head half-grown out of her neck.”

Miss Ann, I believe Robert refers to the appearance of a transgenedered time-traveling
Zaphod Beeblebrox with a second head half-grown out of his neck (recall the worm-hole) introduced to us by Douglas Adams in "The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy" http://imdb.com/title/tt0081874/

About Monday 16 March 1662/63

TerryF  •  Link

"the business of Slopps [their standard-issue clothes], wherein the seaman is so much abused by the Pursers," who overcharged them (so L&M).

About Sunday 15 March 1662/63

TerryF  •  Link

A. De Araujo, Wigglesworth’s "Vanity of Vanities" replies:

"As in a Dropsie, drinking draughts begets,
The more he drinks, the more he still requires:
So on this World whoso affection sets,
His Wealths encrease encreaseth his desires."
http://www.puritansermons.com/poe…

JWB, thanks for the link - wonderful site!

About Sunday 15 March 1662/63

TerryF  •  Link

"reading my vows"

I still wonder whether he reads them aloud (sorry for sounding like a broken vinyl record about a Q for which there is no A).

About Saturday 14 March 1662/63

TerryF  •  Link

"Is what Creed reports to Sam [about Lawson] just malicious gossip?"

Perhaps it is the household line about a chief rival of Mountagu/Sandwich, whose service in the in the Streights [the Mediterranean] brought him less glory. Lawson is a sailor's rock-star; wooden-shoe be a little jealous of his celebrity and misunderestimate him?

That's my present take on it.

About Saturday 14 March 1662/63

TerryF  •  Link

"Sam obviously v. frustrated here."

L&M say with Davis who unfairly complained about M[t]chell, who later was paid a lower fee; "Pepys had reason to believe that Davis favoured Whistler, a rival contractor."

About Friday 13 March 1662/63

TerryF  •  Link

"no Commission for Tangier sitting to-day as I looked for"

Has the Duke gone aglee unannounced again?
Have Pepys and the others received a message, or did he just find this out at Whitehall?

About Edward Field

TerryF  •  Link

Robert Gertz explains why Pepys is especially involved in the Field matter:

"One must admire Ed Field’s style…Very twenty-first century. I would guess he chose to slap Sam with the subpoena as the non-titled and most vulnerable member of the office." http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

About Tuesday 10 March 1662/63

TerryF  •  Link

"Coventry gave Penn 20[%] as his cut."

Glyn, could this be akin to the cut of an agent for a cinematic actor -- though a bit higher than usual today, as I understand it (third hand, my acting days being probably over)?

About Tuesday 10 March 1662/63

TerryF  •  Link

Paul, agreeing with Dirk, your reading of the awkward sentence is also consistent with Vincent's reading of Turner's history.

What exactly is Sam'l judging to be "Sir W. Pen’s treachery" here? Surely not the "buying" of a position and its perks -- as I understand it, a franchise, as it were -- which was S.O.P and something he (SP) too has used to advance himself, though 'tis clear he (SP) has well-formed views about who serves himself only and who the King first.

I, like Paul, always glad for corrections (help).

About Monday 9 March 1662/63

TerryF  •  Link

"Save your Confederate money, boys, the South will rise again"

Confederate States 5 Dollar Note

Winning bid Winning bid: US $35.99 [scroll slightly down] http://cgi.ebay.com/Confederate-S…

Do you suppose there are those about who are banking on the return of the Commonwealth? Yesterday's entry contained the recounting of "the story how my Lord being at dinner with Sydney, one of his fellow plenipotentiarys and his mortal enemy" kept his cool.

There are still the Tower, and Tyburn and the example Sam admires of Sir Harry Vane the younger, principled republican to the bitter end...

About John Roettiers

TerryF  •  Link

John Roettier, 1631–c. 1700, German-English engraver,

His greatest fame was due to the fidelity of his portraits, some of which (of Charkes II and James II) were used for milled coins 1662/1663-1685, including the first six-pence.

About Monday 9 March 1662/63

TerryF  •  Link

"There dined with us today Mr Slingsby of the Mint, who showed us all the new pieces, both gold and silver (examples of them all) that are made for the King by Blondeau’s way, and compared them with those made for Oliver – the pictures of the latter made by Symons [Thomas Simon], and of the King by one Rotyr [John Roettier, 1631–c. 1700], a German I think, that dined with us also. ..."

Silver crown of Charles II (1663)
http://www.scran.ac.uk/database/r…

"[A]lthough Charles II’s first milled crowns bear the date 1662 they were actually struck in 1663 by our reckoning. The picture here shows the obverse of a 1662 crown (the rose below the bust indicates the silver came from the West Country), struck in 1663 from dies prepared in 1662. The reverse is from a very similar coin, which actually was struck in 1663. The diarist Samuel Pepys saw the new dies in late 1662, and was then shown the new coins in the spring. However, in those days the New Year was usually counted from 25 March, with the formula 1662/3 being applied to the dates 1st January to 24th March. http://www.romanbritain.freeserve… -- a site I have found was first provided 24 November last by the ever-webly-ingenious Water Writer [in Aqua Scripto] when Sam'l was shewn the "stamps" [dies] for the coins he is shown today. Cf. http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…