Bill

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

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Second Reading

About Sunday 4 August 1661

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"he begins “Right worshipfull and dearly beloved” to us"

Sometimes a bilingual dictionary is useful to explicate stock phrases. SP is quite pleased to be considered part of "la petite Noblesse."

Worshipful, right worshipful, honorable. C'est une Epithete d'honneur qui avoit autrefois la vogue parmi la petite Noblesse, quand on la traitoit de Worship.
---A short dictionary English and French. G. Miège, 1684.

About Monday 26 August 1661

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"which puts us to a stand"

A STAND, a Pause or Stay, Doubt or Uncertainty.
---An Universal Etymological English Dictionary. N. Bailey, 1675.

About Drury Lane

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Drury Lane, was so called, says Stow, "for that there is a house belonging to the family of the Druries. This lane turneth north toward St. Giles-in-the-Fields." Before the Drurys built here, the old name for this lane or road was "Via de Aldwych;" hence the present Wych Street at the bottom of Drury Lane. A portion of it in James I.'s time was occasionally called Prince's Street (" Drury Lane, now called the Prince's Street "), but the old name triumphed. In 1605 an Act was passed for "paving Drury Lane and the town of St. Giles," and it is stated in the preamble that "the lane called Drury Lane, leading from St. Giles-in-the-Fields towards the Strand and towards New Inn, is of late years by occasion of the continual rode there, and often carriages, become deep, foul, and dangerous to all that pass those ways."
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Mariage d'Orphée et d'Eurydice (Jean Chapoton)

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"From 30 August 1661 there is a 'translation-plot' from a French troupe's one-day Drury Lane production of Chapoton's La Descent d'Orphée aux Enfers; it is called The description of the Great Machines of the Descent of Orpheus into Hell, presented by the French Comedians at the Cock-Pit in Drury-Lane: The Argument."
---Documents of Performance in Early Modern England. T. Stern, 2009

This 'translation-plot,' a scene-by-scene summary, is available at Early English Books Online (a fee-based service made available by some academic libraries). It was "printed for Robert Crofts at the Crown in Chancery-Lane, 1661."

The two different titles: "Mariage" and "Descent" refer to the same play in different guises.

About Friday 30 August 1661

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The definition of a comedy in 1661 may not have been quite the same as ours.

COMEDY, a Play composed with Art either in Prose or Verse to represent some Action agreeable to human Life and not cruel.
---An Universal Etymological English Dictionary. N. Bailey, 1675.

About Monday 30 September 1661

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Sept. 30 [1661] Happened that remarkable Encounter between the French Ambassador, and the Spanish, for Precedency at the publick Entry of Count Brohe, Ambassador Extraordinary from Sweden to England, on Tower Hill.
---A Chronological History of England. J. Pointer, 1714.

About The Mitre (Fenchurch St)

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Dan Rawlinson, of whom Pepys speaks so familiarly, kept the Mitre Tavern in Fenchurch Street. He was a staunch royalist, and when the King was executed, "hung his sign in mourning." This, says Hearne, made him much suspected in the rump time; but "endeared him so much to the churchmen that he throve amain and got a good estate." The Mitre was burned in the Great Fire, but rebuilt and somewhat sumptuously adorned, the walls being painted by Isaac Fuller, who left so many specimens of his pencil in the Oxford colleges.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Daniel Rawlinson

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Dan Rawlinson, of whom Pepys speaks so familiarly, kept the Mitre Tavern in Fenchurch Street. He was a staunch royalist, and when the King was executed, "hung his sign in mourning." This, says Hearne, made him much suspected in the rump time; but "endeared him so much to the churchmen that he throve amain and got a good estate." The Mitre was burned in the Great Fire, but rebuilt and somewhat sumptuously adorned, the walls being painted by Isaac Fuller, who left so many specimens of his pencil in the Oxford colleges.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Saturday 31 August 1661

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"all things go to rack"

WRACK
1. Destruction of a ship.
2. Ruin; destruction.
---A Dictionary Of The English Language. Samuel Johnson, 1756.

About Saturday 31 August 1661

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FAIRING, A present given at a fair.
---A Dictionary Of The English Language. Samuel Johnson, 1756.

Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart,
If fairings come thus plentifully in:
A lady wall'd about with diamonds!
Look you what I have from the loving king.
---Love's Labour's Lost, V.ii. Shakespeare.

About Christ's Hospital

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Christ's Hospital, Newgate Street, a school on the site of the Greyfriars Monastery, founded by Edward VI., June 26, 1553, ten days before his death, as a hospital for poor fatherless children and others. A sermon by Bishop Ridley in the preceding year had been the exciting cause and gave permanent form to this and two other princely endowments; but the more important preliminary concessions had been secured many years before the signature of the dying boy was affixed to the "Charter of Incorporation of the Royal Hospitals." The hospital is commonly called "The Blue Coat School," from the dress worn by the boys, which is of the same age as the foundation of the hospital. The dress is a blue coat or gown (the yellow petticoat, or "yellow," as it was called, having been discontinued), a red leather girdle round the waist, yellow stockings, and a clergyman's band round the neck. The flat black cap of woollen yarn, about the size of a saucer, was dropped some thirty years ago.

April 21, 1657. — I saw Christ Church and Hospital, a very goodly Gothic building; the hall, school, and lodgings in great order for bringing up many hundreds of poor children of both sexes; it is an exemplary charity. There is a large picture at one end of the hall representing the Governors, Founders, and the Institution.—Evelyn.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Bartholomew Fair

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Bartholomew Fair, a once famous fair, held every year in Smithfield, and so called because it was kept at Bartholomew Tide, and held within the precinct of the Priory of St . Bartholomew in Smithfield. The duration of the Fair was limited by Henry II. to three days (the Eve of St. Bartholomew, the day, and the morrow), and the privilege of holding it assigned by the same sovereign to the Prior of St. Bartholomew. This was for several centuries the great Cloth Fair of England. Clothiers repaired to it from the most distant parts, and had booths and standings erected for their use within the precinct of the Priory, on the site of what is now called Cloth Fair. The gates of the precinct were closed at night for the protection of property, and a Court of Pie Poudre erected within its verge for the necessary enforcement of the laws of the Fair, of debts and legal obligations. In this court,— according to Blackstone, "the most expeditious court of justice known to the law of England,"—offences were tried the same day, and the parties punished, in the stocks or at the whipping-post, directly after condemnation.
At the dissolution of religious houses the privilege of the Fair was in part transferred to the Mayor and Corporation, and in part to Richard Rich, Lord Rich (d.1560), ancestor of the Earls of Warwick and Holland. It ceased, however, to be a "Cloth Fair" of any great importance in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The drapers of London found another and more extensive market for their woollens; and the clothiers, in the increase of communication between distant places, a wider field for the sale of their manufactures. It subsequently became a Fair of a very diversified character. Monsters, motions, i.e. puppetshows, drolls, and rarities, were the new commodities to be seen. The three days were extended to fourteen, the Fair commencing on August 22 instead of September 2; and Bartholomew Fair was converted into a kind of London Carnival for persons of every condition and degree in life. The serious-minded Evelyn records his having seen "the celebrated follies," as he calls them, of the place.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Thursday 29 August 1661

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" he being to go to Brampton (to settle things against my mother comes)"

In August, 1661, John Pepys retired to a small property at Brampton (worth about £80 per annum), which had been left to him by his eldest brother, Robert Pepys
---Wheatley, 1896.

About Wednesday 31 July 1661

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"was forced to borrow..."

On 24 May 1661 Sam said that he was "clearly worth 500l. in money." (And in September he will be "worth near 600l.") If he doesn't have 40l. in cash money on hand, where is this 500l. "in money"? Lent out? Owed to him? Where?

Pepys' Wealth: http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…

About George Digby (2nd Earl of Bristol)

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DIGBY, GEORGE, second Earl of Bristol (1612-1677), son of John Digby, first earl of Bristol; born at Madrid; entered Magdalen College, Oxford, 1626; M.A, 1635; attacked Roman Catholicism in correspondence with Sir Kenelm Digby, 1638-9; M.P., Dorset, 1640; opposed third reading of bill for Strafford's attainder, though on committee for his impeachment, 1641; succeeded as Baron Digby, 1641; fled to Holland (1642) and was impeached by default for levying royalist troops; fought for Charles I at Edgehill, 1642, but gave up his command after a quarrel with Prince Rupert; secretary of state and privy councillor, 1643; high steward of Oxford University, 1643; lieutenant-general of the king's forces north of the Trent, 1646; defeated at Carlisle Sands; retired to France and took part in the Fronde, 1648; lieutenant-general in French army, 1651; detected in an intrigue against Mazarin, and forced to leave France; reappointed secretary of state to Charles II, 1657; subsequently deprived of the seals as a catholic; K.G., 1661; ineffectually impeached Clarendon (1663), who had foiled his scheme of an Italian marriage for the king; wrote comedies and, according to Walpole, translated from French first three books of 'Cassandra.'
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.