Annotations and comments

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

Comments

First Reading

About Saturday 4 October 1662

Terry F.  •  Link

Was ?the negligence of the pilott? reliane ob his experience only, instead of the latest navigational charts, showiing moving shoals better that buoys.
(Such charts in a tight space within sight of shore would have been more useful to pilots than longitude :-))

About Friday 3 October 1662

Terry F.  •  Link

"I might have been spilt."

Prithee, what say L&M here, or what means this?
Methinks "it might have been spilt" fits better here....

About Thursday 2 October 1662

Terry F.  •  Link

Which is to say that I doubt them who say "M only wrote for the flute if forced to," since he certainly wasn’t “forced” to write "The Magic Flute"; though it is true that that instrument is not an ensenble.

About Monday 29 September 1662

Terry F  •  Link

"This day" is different from others; Why is that?

Robert. it seems his "oaths for drinking of wine and going to plays are *out*," not "expired," if "Laissez les bons temps rouler" is what you meant by "off," since he says that "I do resolve to take a liberty to-day, and then to fall to them again."

Does the calendar of feast days provide a clue? Grasping at straws, since I have found this very strange: we have not heard before this that the oaths were conditional....

About Collar Day

Terry F  •  Link

Collar Days

Knights Grand Cross (in the generic sense) wear collars of orders of knighthood on "collar days".... In addition, collars are worn when Her Majesty opens or prorogues Parliament, and by those taking part in the ceremony of the introduction of a peer in the House of Lords. They are not worn after sunset, nor when mounted on ceremonial parades such as Trooping the Colour unless instructed otherwise.... http://www.cam.ac.uk/societies/cu…

About Sunday 28 September 1662

Terry F  •  Link

Brian McMullen, thanks for the keen read. I *assumed* both were
"talking with great pleasure of [Samuel’s] house at Brampton and that here,” but perhaps it was only he who was speaking of the house “here,” and Eliabeth had’t seen it yet. Many things happen, esp. concerning her, that he does not record; but indeed in this case we do NOT know yet either way.

About Aglaura (Sir John Suckling)

Terry F  •  Link

Aglaura

L&M note: "A play by Sir John Suckling which he originally wrote as a tragedy, but transformed into a tragicomedy; first acted in 1737, and published in 1638. The scene mentioned here is probably the one at the beginning of Act V, involving a fight between Ariaspes [Achaemenid, b. 0416 B.C., d. 0359 B.C. of poison, second son of Artaxerxes III Ochus, ruler of Persia], and Ziriff [a fictional person]."

" a tragedy of court intrigue, of which the scene is supposed to be Persia, was acted in the winter of 1637, when its literary qualities received less attention than the novelty and magnificence of the scenery used and the dresses presented by the author to the actors. King Charles is said to have requested an alternative final act with a happy ending, which Suckling afterwards wrote. Flecknoe saw the play when it was revived at the Restoration, and his criticism, that it was "full of flowers, but rather stuck than growing there," applies to all Suckling's dramatic work. He has imagination, fancy and wit, but these faculties are not usually employed upon his plot and his characters. The famous lyric, "Why so pale and wan, fond lover?" occurs in the fourth act of Aglaura." http://www.bartleby.com/216/0921.…

Why so Pale and Wan?

WHY so pale and wan, fond lover?
Prithee, why so pale?
Will, when looking well can't move her,
Looking ill prevail?
Prithee, why so pale?5
Why so dull and mute, young sinner?
Prithee, why so mute?
Will, when speaking well can't win her,
Saying nothing do 't?
Prithee, why so mute?10
Quit, quit for shame! This will not move;
This cannot take her.
If of herself she will not love,
Nothing can make her:
The devil take her!15

http://www.bartleby.com/101/327.h…

About Sunday 28 September 1662

Terry F  •  Link

"talking...with great pleasure of my house at Brampton and that here"

Sounds like Elizabeth's first impressions of the remodeled Seething Lane house are very positive; my, my.

About Sunday 28 September 1662

Terry F  •  Link

"the minister do preach with his hat off"

L&M note: "Calvinist minsters kept their hats on during the sermon (though disapproving of the men in the congregation who did likewise), because to them preaching was a part of their work as teachers. See Evelyn, i.75 & note."

Calvinist clergy are teaching elders, but I'm not sure where the hats-on custom for teachers originated; perhaps someone can track it down?

About Saturday 27 September 1662

Terry F  •  Link

"I perceive she likes Brampton House and seat better than ever I did myself, and tells me how my Lord hath drawn a plot of some alteracions to be made there, and hath brought it up, which I saw and like well."

A puzzling sentence; methinks this isn't Pepys admiring Sandwich's design for "alteracions" for the Pepys's "Brampton House"; but to Hinchbrooke, Sandwich's own place at Brampton, the "seat" in question.

This view seems to be supported by the gist of an unncharacteristically confusing L&M note:
"Nothing appears to be known of any such alterations. Sandwich had probably had a hand in designing the alterations to Hinchingbrooke; see [Monday 4 March 1660/61 http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1… ]. His MS journals (now at Mapperton, Dorset) are embellished with many sketches of buildings, fountains etc."

About Saturday 27 September 1662

Terry F  •  Link

"She tells me of a Court like to be in a little time, which troubles me, for I would not willingly go out of town."

L&M note: "A manorial court at Brampton: see [30 September, 14 October]."

Again reluctance to leave town...

About Friday 26 September 1662

Terry F  •  Link

Well, RG, she IS getting a closet of her own (the ace up the sleeve after the "Wow" and the "Hmmm" and the "Hmmm" some more).

About Friday 26 September 1662

Terry F  •  Link

I "did cause the partition between the entry and the boy's room to be pulled down to lay it all into one, which I hope will please me and make my coming in more pleasant.”

Does this mean that Wayneman (of all peeps) is hereby “promoted” to concierge? OR
merely that Pepys is enlarging his entryway and relocating Waynemen, since has more space to do that?