Bill

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

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Second Reading

About Wimbledon

Bill  •  Link

The manor-house of Wimbledon was purchased of Sir Christopher Hatton by Sir Thomas Cecil (afterwards Earl of Exeter), who rebuilt it in 1588. He bequeathed it to his third son, Sir Edward Cecil (afterwards Viscount Wimbledon), at whose death in 1638 it was sold to Queen Henrietta Maria. The estate was seized during the Civil Wars, and a survey was taken by order of Parliament in 1649 (printed in "Archaeologia," vol. x.). At the Restoration it again came into the possession of the Queen Dowager, who in 1661 sold it to George Digby, Earl of Bristol. On his death in 1676 it was sold by his widow to Lord Treasurer Danby (afterwards Duke of Leeds). Wimbledon House, designed by John Thorpe, was a very remarkable building, thought by some (according to Fuller) to be equal, if not to exceed Nonsuch. There is a view of the front in Lysons' "Environs of London."
---Wheatley, 1904.

About Monday 14 March 1663/64

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“and her stomach coming down we were presently friends”

Pride, haughtiness, only used now as a quotation.

"He was a man
Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking
Himself with princes."
Shakespeare, Henry VIII., act iv., sc. 2.

---Wheatley, 1904.

STOMACH, ... also Choler or Passion; a testy and refractory Humour.
STOMACHFUL, that has a great Spirit, dogged, peevish, loath to submit.
---An universal etymological English dictionary. N. Bailey, 1724.

About Royal Fishery

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There had been recently established, under the Great Seal of England, a Corporation for the Royal Fishing, of which the Duke of York was Governor, Lord Craven Deputy-Governor, and the Lord Mayor and Chamberlain of London, for the time being, Treasurers, in which body was vested the sole power of licensing lotteries ("The Newes," October 6th, 1664). The original charter (dated April 8th, 1664), incorporating James, Duke of York, and thirty-six assistants as Governor and Company of the Royal Fishing of Great Britain and Ireland, is among the State Papers. The duke was to be Governor till February 26th, 1665.
---Wheatley, 1904.

About Jean d'Espagne

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D'ESPAGNE, JEAN (1591-1659), French protestant pastor and theologian; pastor at Orange, 1620; published 'Antiduello,' a discussion on the morality of the duel, 1632; pastor to a French congregation in London, which came to regard him as a schismatic.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.

About Friday 19 February 1663/64

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“ Mr. Jaggard, a salter, in Thames Street,”

SALTER, one who deals in Salt or Salt Fish.
---An universal etymological English dictionary. N. Bailey, 1724.

So not surprising that Jaggard served a dinner of “all fish”.

About Wednesday 17 February 1663/64

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“both of whom are very witty men”

WITTY, full of wit.
WIT, One of the Faculties of the rational Soul, Genius, Fancy, aptness for any Thing, Cunningness.
---An universal etymological English dictionary. N. Bailey, 1724.

About Wednesday 17 February 1663/64

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“where I found an excellent mastiffe, his name Towser”

To TOUSE. To pull; to tear; to haul; to drag; whence touser.
---A Dictionary Of The English Language. Samuel Johnson, 1756.

About Monday 15 February 1663/64

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TORY, a Word first used by the Protestants in Ireland to signify those Irish common Robbers and Murderers who stood outlawed for Robbery and Murder; now a Nick name to such as call themselves High Church men, or to the Partisans of the Chevalier de St George.
---An Universal Etymological English Dictionary. N. Bailey, 1724

There is discussion of the word "tory" in the annotations of 25 Nov 1661 http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

About Thursday 11 February 1663/64

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"my wife and I hand to fist to a very fine pig"

To drink hand to fist. Boire á tire-larigot. [To drink as much as one wants]
---The Royal Dictionary Abridged, French to English. A. Boyer, 1755

About Cotton's 'Scarronides, or, Le Virgile travesty'

Bill  •  Link

A travesty indeed. Compare:

I sing of warfare and a man at war.
From the sea-coast of Troy in early days
He came to Italy by destiny,
To our Lavinian western shore,
A fugitive, this captain, buffeted
Cruelly on land as on the sea
Robert Fitzgerald, 1983

I sing of arms and the man, he who, exiled by fate,
first came from the coast of Troy to Italy, and to
Lavinian shores – hurled about endlessly by land and sea
A.S. Kline, 2002

I sing the man (read it who list,
A Trojan true as ever pist,)
Who from Troy-town, by Wind and Weather
To Italy (and God knows whither)
Was packt, and wrackt, and lost, and tost,
And bounc'd from Pillar unto Post
Charles Cotton, 1664

About Monday 8 February 1663/64

Bill  •  Link

"I found he would have played the Jacke with me"

To play the Jack with one.
To attempt to domineer over one, I suppose, is here the intended sense.
---English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases Collected from the Most Authentic Sources. J. Russell Smith, 1869.

About Saturday 6 February 1663/64

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Sasha: "what would have been the main factors in the English decline between 1650 and 1700?"

A very cursory google search gives quite large casualty estimates for the English Civil Wars. One site suggested 12% of the population! Surely this was a factor.

About Saturday 6 February 1663/64

Bill  •  Link

For Sasha cumgranosalis:

British Isles:
England in 1600 had 4.2 million; by 1650, 5.5 million. As of 1700, it was down to 5.2 million (the really big growth didn't start until after 1750).
Scotland, 1 million in 1600, 1 million in 1650, 1.2 million in 1700.
Ireland, 1 million in 1600, 1.5 million in 1650, 2 million in 1700.
http://1632.org/1632tech/faqs/eur…

In the mid-1670s, when the [Old Bailey] Proceedings began to be published, the population of the capital was approximately 500,000. Fourteen years later, Gregory King, Britain’s first great demographer, estimated it at 527,000. This was a period of low overall population growth, even stagnation in England and was characterised by a very late age at marriage, low illegitimacy rates, and relatively low levels of birth within marriage.
https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/s…

About Friday 5 February 1663/64

Bill  •  Link

“a brave morning”

BRAVE, Courageous, Gallant, Excellent, Skilful.
---An universal etymological English dictionary. N. Bailey, 1724.

About Thursday 28 January 1663/64

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“it was only to discourse with her about finding a place for her brother”

PLACE, Space or Room, in which a Person or Thing is; also Office or Employment.
---An universal etymological English dictionary. N. Bailey, 1724.

About Monday 28 March 1664

Bill  •  Link

You're not doing too badly yourself, Terry. The blog post is from 2010 so YouTube has caught up.

This video recites "My Mind to Me a Kingdom is" without Byrd's music. These are "Calvinist precepts" that we should all adopt but few of us do. Certainly not Pepys, I think. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m…

And here is the poem with Byrd's Music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4…

And Byrd's music without the poem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2…

And, last but not least, Emma Kirby's version starts off this long video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W…

About Monday 28 March 1664

Bill  •  Link

"Wim van der Meij, you got first to Dyer's ballad."

Actually, it was earlier:

The piece of poetry beginning—

"My mind to me a kingdom is,
Such perfect joy therein I find"—

was set to music by the celebrated W. Byrd, in 1558, in a book called Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs of Sadnesse and Pietie. On the authority of an old MS. in the Bodleian Library, it has been attributed to Sir Edward Dyer.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

About Sunday 27 March 1664

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“Thence walked through the ducking-pond fields; but they are so altered since my father used to carry us to Islington”

In Ben Jonson's "Every Man in his Humour," there is an allusion to the "Citizens that come a-ducking to Islington Ponds." The piece of ground, long since built upon, in the Back Road, was called "Ducking-pond Field," from the pool in which the unfortunate ducks were hunted by dogs, to amuse the Cockneys, who went to Islington to breathe fresh air and drink cream. The King's Head tavern stood opposite the church. Islington was classic ground to Pepys, as he speaks of the house in which he had been nursed at Kingsland.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.