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Bill has posted 2,777 annotations/comments since 9 March 2013.

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Second Reading

About Sunday 8 February 1662/63

Bill  •  Link

“the King came and took her place with pretty Mrs. Stuart. This is said to be very true”

The story in the text was not true.
---Wheatley, 1893.

About Sunday 8 February 1662/63

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“Whether the wind and the cold did cause it or no I know not, but having been this day or two mightily troubled with an itching all over my body which I took to be a louse or two that might bite me, I found this afternoon that all my body is inflamed, and my face in a sad redness and swelling and pimpled”

Pepys must have had a bad attack of nettle rash.
---Wheatley, 1893.

Nettle rash (also known as urticaria) is composed of reddish itchy weals or swellings in the skin similar to those resulting from contact with stinging nettle. Urtica is the Latin word for nettle.

About Mary de Santhune (b. Pepys, cousin)

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Mary Pepys, only daughter of Thomas Pepys of London, elder brother of John Pepys, Samuel's father. The name of her husband is not known, and she is referred to in the Diary as Mary Pepys. Samuel seems to have been satisfied with the husband, who returned eighteen pence which had been paid him too much when the legacy was settled (see December 11th, 1664). She died December, 1667.
---Wheatley, 1893.

About Lily's 'Epigramma' (John Colet's edition)

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Dean Colet wrote the English rudiments for William Lilly's famous grammar, which for so long a period was the standard school book at English grammar schools.
---Wheatley, 1893.

About Friday 27 February 1662/63

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“we drank the King’s health out of a gilt cup”

Still existing, and has been engraved.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

About Christopher Terne

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TERNE, CHRISTOPHER (1620-1673), physician; M.D. Leyden (incorporated first at Cambridge and then at Oxford); F.R.C.P., 1655; lecturer and author; F.R.S.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.

About Monday 23 February 1662/63

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“and saw “The Wilde Gallant,” performed by the King’s house”

Dryden's first play. Evelyn saw it at Court, 5th February, 1662-3, the night (as appears from the original Prologue) on which it was first acted. Dryden has a copy of verses to the Countess of Castlemaine on her encouraging his first play.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

About Frances Stuart (Duchess of Richmond)

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Frances Terese, eldest daughter of Walter Stuart, third son of the first Lord Blantyre, one of the greatest beauties at the Court of Charles II., became the third wife of Charles Lennox, sixth Duke of Lennox, and fourth Duke of Richmond. She died October 15, 1702, without issue, having survived her husband thirty years. Pepys spells her name Stuart, Steward, and Stewart; the first is right.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

About Sir Thomas Willis

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Sir Thomas Willis possessed some property at Ditton, in Cambridgeshire, where he was buried, in 1705, in his ninety-first year. In 1679, he had been put out of the Commission of the Peace for that county, for concurring with the Fanatic party in opposing the Court.—Cole's MSS.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

About Joseph Williamson

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WILLIAMSON, Sir JOSEPH (1633-1701), statesman and diplomatist; of Westminster School and Queen's College, Oxford; B.A., 1654; fellow and M.A., 1657; held position in office of Sir Edward Nicholas, then secretary of state, 1660-1; keeper of Charles II's library at Whitehall and at the paper office, 1661; called to bar at Middle Temple, 1664; editor, 1665, of 'Oxford Gazette,' which became 'London Gazette,' 1666; M.P. for Thetford, 1669, 1679, 1681, and 1685, and Rochester, 1690 and 1701; knighted and appointed clerk of council in ordinary, 1672; joint British plenipotentiary to congress at Cologne, 1673-4; secretary of state, 1674; LL.D. Oxford, and privy councillor, 1674; fell victim to suspicions aroused by 'popish plot' and was removed from office, 1678; master of' Clothworkers' Company, 1676; member of Royal Society, 1663, and president, 1677-80; recorder of Thetford, 1682; joint-plenipotentiary at congress of Nimeguen, 1696; signed, as joint-commissioner, the first partition treaty, 1698.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.

About Joseph Williamson

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Joseph Williamson, Keeper of the State Paper Office at White Hall, and in 1663 made Under-Secretary of State, and soon afterwards knighted. In 1664 he became Secretary of State, which appointment he filled four years. He represented Thetford or Rochester in different parliaments, and was in 1678 President of the Royal Society. Ob. 1701.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

About Friday 6 February 1662/63

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“ I walked up and down, and looked upon the outside of the new theatre, now a-building in Covent Garden”

Killigrew's, opened 8th of April, 1663
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

About William Owtram

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OWTRAM, WILLIAM (1626-1679), divine; B.A. Trinity College, Cambridge, 1645; fellow of Christ's College and (1649) M.A.; created D.D., 1660; rector of St. Mary Woolnoth, London, till 1666; archdeacon of Leicester, 1669; preacher and rabbinical scholar.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.

About William Owtram

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William Outram, D.D., Prebendary of Westminster. Ob. 1679; one of the ablest and best of the Conformists, eminent for his piety and charity, and an excellent preacher.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

About Monday 8 December 1662

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Perhaps Gosnell has used both conversations with the Pepys (Balty's story of plays and Court, and her need to be gone 3 days a week) to induce SP to let her go, rather than her quitting and ruining other opportunities. Both inducements may have been inventions, Balty surely knew that Mrs. Pepys did not go to plays and the Court "every day."

About Monday 8 December 1662

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“and I doubt the wench did come in some expectation of, which troubles me”

To DOUBT.

4. To suspect, to have suspicion.
---A Dictionary Of The English Language. Samuel Johnson, 1756.

About Monday 8 December 1662

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“believing it to be a good providence of God to prevent my running behindhand in the world”

BEHINDHAND
1 In a state in which rents or profits are anticipated.
2 Not upon equal terms with regard to forwardness.
---A Dictionary Of The English Language. Samuel Johnson, 1756.

About Winifred Gosnell

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As dirk noted in an annotation on 6 December 1662 Gosnell (the maid) also is mentioned on 28 May 1663.

About Ale, buttered

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To make Buttered Ale.
Take a quart of mild Ale, put it into a sauce-pan, with some cloves, mace, a whole nutmeg, and sugar to your taste; set it over the fire, and let it boil five minutes; then take it off and put in a lump of butter, the size of a walnut, and let it stand to melt; then beat six eggs, leaving out four whites, in a little cold Ale, and mix it with the warm Ale, and pour it in and out of the sauce-pan, till it is fine and smooth; then set it over the fire and heat it again, till it becomes thick and quite hot. Send it to table with dry toast.
---The family director; or, Housekeeper's assistant. A. Ashburn, 1807.

About Posset

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LADY MACBETH
I have drugg'd their possets,
That death and nature do contend about them,
Whether they live or die.