Bill

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

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Second Reading

About Mathematics

Bill  •  Link

A number of diary entries mention that Sam was learning to do multiplication. I am reminded of the Isaac Asimov story of a computer-based society that has forgotten how to multiply by paper-and-pencil. A technician rediscovers this technique that is soon appropriated by the military! Like that technician, I'm sure Sam felt a "Feeling of Power." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The…

About Monday 6 October 1662

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“and though some things good, yet so full of tautologies”

TAUTOLOGY, a saying or repeating the same thing over again.
---An Universal English Dictionary. N. Bailey, 1724.

About Friday 3 October 1662

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"calling at my brother’s and Paul’s Churchyard, but bought nothing because of my oath, though I had a great mind to it."

Last December Sam wrote: "I have newly taken a solemn oath about abstaining from plays and wine, which I am resolved to keep according to the letter of the oath which I keep by me." I didn't realize that this oath extended to the buying of books. Perhaps it has mostly to do with spending excessive amounts of money? And we shouldn't read any moral dimension into it, as I myself was doing.

About Friday 3 October 1662

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"I might have been spilt"

To SPILL, to spoil or waste, as Water or Liquor.
To SPILL, to spoil, to corrupt, to destroy; to dye, to perish.
---An universal etymological English dictionary. N. Bailey, 1724.

About Fleet Conduit

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Fleet Conduit and Standard stood in Fleet Street, a little west of the Shoe Lane end, "near to the Inn of the Bishop of Salisbury."
William Eastfield, mercer, 1438, appointed his executors of his goods to convey sweet water from Tyborne, and to build a fair conduit by Aldermanberie church, which they performed, as also made a Standard in Fleet Street, by Shew Lane end.— Stow, p. 42.
This must have been a renewal or reparation of the water pipes and conduit, as they were in existence long before; and in 1388 leave was given by the Mayor, Aldermen, and Chamberlain to the inhabitants of Fleet Street to erect a protection over the pipes of the conduit "opposite to the house and tavern of John Walworth, vintner," in order to avert the losses and damage occasioned by inundations from the conduit, "which frequently, through the breaking of the pipes thereof, rotted and damaged their houses and cellars, and the party walls thereof, as also their goods and wares, by the overflow therefrom."
This yere [19 Edward IV., 1479-1480], a wex chaundler in Flete Street had bi crafte perced a pipe of the condit withynne the grounde, and so conveied the water into his selar; wherefore he was jugid to ride thurgh the citie with a condit upon his hedde.—A Chronicle of London, edited by Sir H. Nicolas, p. 146.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About St Gregory by Paul's

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Gregory's (St.) Church, Castle Baynard Ward, a parish church actually attached to the south wall at the west end of old St. Paul's Cathedral. Some of the monuments in the church were very costly and reputed handsome. The church was destroyed in the Great Fire, and not rebuilt. The church of the parish is St. Mary Magdalen's, Knightrider Street . Dr. John Hewett, minister of this church, was executed for treason on Tower Hill, June 8, 1658. His "greatest crime," says Clarendon, "was collecting and sending money to the king;" but when arraigned before the High Court of Justice he refused to plead and was condemned as contumacious.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Princess Royal Mary

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MARY, Princess Royal Of England and Princess Of Orange (1631-1660), eldest daughter of Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria; celebrated for her beauty and intelligence; married William, son of Frederick Henry, prince of Orange, 1641; went to Holland, 1642, and welcomed Charles and James, 1648; gave birth to son, afterwards William III of England, after death of her husband,
1650; made guardian of young prince, 1651; disliked by the Dutch, whose sympathies were with Cromwell; received Charles II secretly, 1651, and helped her brothers and their adherents liberally; finally forbidden by the Dutch States to receive them on outbreak of war between England and Holland, 1652; her son William formally elected stadtholder by Zealand and several northern provinces, but excluded from his father's military dignities; visited Charles II at Cologne and Paris, 1656; courted by Buckingham and others; became sole regent, 1658, opposed by Dona, governor of town of Orange; invoked help of Louis XIV of France, who took Orange, 1660; took part in festivities at the Hague on Charles's restoration; visited England and died there of small-pox.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.

About Nicholas Oudart

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OUDART, NICHOLAS (d. 1681), Latin secretary to Charles II; brought to England from Brabant by Sir Henry Wotton: created M.A. Oxford, 1636 (incorporated at Cambridge, 1638); secretary to Sir William Boswell at the Hague, 1640; assistant-secretary to Sir Edward Nicholas, 1641-51; amanuensis to Charles I; secretary to Princess Mary of Orange, 1651-61; Latin secretary to Charles 11,1666-81; a copy of 'Eikon Basilike' said to be in his handwriting.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.

About Saturday 1 November 1662

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“ I myself did truly expect to speed; but we missed of all”

To SPEED …
2 To have success
---A Dictionary Of The English Language. Samuel Johnson, 1756.

FALSTAFF
Master Brook, I will not lie to you: I was at her
house the hour she appointed me.
FORD
And sped you, sir?
FALSTAFF
Very ill-favoredly, Master Brook.
---The Merry Wives of Windsor. W. Shakespeare.

About Muffs

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Yikes. That last verse is a little risqué. Still, a muffe is a muffe as the Urban Dictionary will tell you.

About The French Church (Threadneedle St)

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The French Protestant Church was founded by Edward VI. in the church of St. Anthony's Hospital in Threadneedle Street. This was destroyed in the Great Fire, and rebuilt, but demolished for the approaches of the new Royal Exchange. The church was then removed to St. Martin's-le-Grand, but this was also removed in 1888 to make room for the new Post Office buildings.
---Wheatley, 1899.

French Protestant Church http://www.egliseprotestantelondr…

About Ironmongers' Hall

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Ironmongers' Hall, on the north side of Fenchurch Street, was much used in the seventeenth century for grand funerals and funeral banquets. The present hall was built in 1748.
---Wheatley, 1899.

About Peter Blondeau

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Peter Blondeau was employed by the Commonwealth to coin their money. After the Restoration, November 3rd, 1662, he received letters of denization, and a grant for being engineer of the Mint in the Tower of London, and for using his new invention for coining gold and silver with the mill and press, with the fee of £100 per annum (Walpole's "Anecdotes of Painting").
---Wheatley, 1899.

About Monday 24 November 1662

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“the King and Duke are come this morning to the Tower to see the Dunkirk money”

Alderman Backwell brought over the money.
---Wheatley, 1899.

About Sir Matthew Hale (Chief Baron of the Exchequer)

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HALE, Sir MATTHEW (1609-1676), judge; of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and Lincoln's Inn; counsel for Sir John Bramston (1641) and Archbishop Laud (1643) on impeachment; counsel for Lord Macguire, 1645, and the eleven members accused by Fairfax, 1646; defended James, duke of Hamilton, 1649; said to have tendered his services to Charles I; took the oath to the Commonwealth, but defended Christopher Love, 1651; member of committee for law reform, 1652; serjeant-at-law, 1654; justice of common pleas, 1654; M.P., Gloucestershire, 1654, and in Convention parliament (1660), for Oxford University, 1659; prominent in the convention; lord chief baron of the exchequer, 1660; knighted, 1660; member of special court to adjudicate on questions of property arising out of the fire of 1666; presided at conviction of two women for witchcraft, 1662; endeavoured to mitigate severity of conventicle acts, and to forward 'comprehension'; lord chief-justice of king's bench, 1671; friend of Baxter and Selden and of the latitudinarian bishops; published two scientific works answered by Henry More; His posthumous works include 'Contemplations, Moral and Divine,' 'Pleas of the Crown,' 1678, 'The Primitive Origination of Mankind Considered,' 'Historia Placitorum Coronas' (ordered by parliament to be printed), and 'The Judgment of the late Lord Chief Justice of the Nature of True Religion,' edited by Baxter, 1684; 'Works Moral and Religious,' edited by Rev. T. Thirlwall, 1805.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.