LKvM
Annotations and comments
LKvM has posted 208 annotations/comments since 5 November 2015.
The most recent first…
Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
LKvM has posted 208 annotations/comments since 5 November 2015.
The most recent first…
Comments
Third Reading
About Thursday 19 December 1661
LKvM • Link
The information about Elizabeth's birth in Devon to an Anglo-Irish mother was not what I had ever thought and was shocking to me.
Up until I read the comments above I had thought her father was an aristocratic French Huguenot, and I had supposed that his wife was also Huguenot French and that they had emigrated to England as a French-speaking family and that at some point they had (oddly!) sent Elizabeth back to an RC convent(!) school, where she continued her French and at some point returned to her family in England, where they all spoke French at home.
But I was very wrong! She knew French from her father and English from her mother, and at home and outside the home she and her brother probably spoke English with neighbors and their children growing up, and then out in the London world she undoubtedly spoke only English, probably with the slightest of accents.
(An example of what I, as a former foreign language teacher, mean by "slightest of accents": I had a friend from Cuba who came to the States when he was twelve, the crucial latest age for learning to speak a new language accent-free, and as an adult he spoke perfectly unaccented English except for the word "position," which he prounounced with a hissing "s" instead of the "z" sound that we use in that word in English. Elizabeth probably also had occasional words that tipped off the listener to her French baclground.)
About Thursday 12 December 1661
LKvM • Link
Re:
"Those that be raised in warm central heated homes and never live in 16th century housing would fail to appreciate the beauty of cold , and the damp of a London day, where one take ones clothing to be the near the fire to remove chill and hands warm up to get the circulation a moving and Oh! the chilblains. When that was the norm [SOP],it would never be mentioned."
Vincente is right: it IS the norm and SOP for Sam. He rarely mentions this bone-chilling London coldness (he may mention a "fine frost," but favorably), along with rare mentions of other everyday annoyances and discomforts like painful shoes/boots, snow inside his chamber window, and a hostess serving food with filthy hands. He even takes his cellar full of feces in stride. Our Sam was a positive stoic, as most people would have to have been (without realizing they were being stoical) in those days.
About Margaret Lowther (b. Penn)
LKvM • Link
Regarding "Sir William Lowther, 1st Bart of Marske, (1670-1705)," what's a Bart?
About Saturday 7 December 1661
LKvM • Link
,
"This morning comes . . . the German, Emanuel Luffe, . . . and here I got the German to play upon my theorbo . . . . He plays bravely. I find by him that my lute is a most excellent lute."
Here is Sam's acknowledgement of German excellence in all matters musical at that time (and later). Even this lowly German footman is a skilled theorbo musician who is also expert enough to judge the quality of Sam's lute (for which reason Sam no doubt believes the German deserves a much higher "preferment").
About Wednesday 4 December 1661
LKvM • Link
I second Lady Sandwich as L.S.
About Monday 2 December 1661
LKvM • Link
"If by protection you mean something like a copyright, even today a title cannot be copyrighted. There can be any number of books, poems, plays and other published works with the same title." So true, unfortunately. This happened to me.
About Friday 29 November 1661
LKvM • Link
Dirk, thank you for the interesting history of the restriction of a nation's "dominion over the sea to the actual distance to which cannon range could protect it. This became universally adopted and developed into a three-mile belt (territorial waters)."
Despite its being "universally adopted," some Asian countries famously still claim a lot more.
About Sir Thomas Allin
LKvM • Link
Thanks for the link to join the Navy Records Society. Its accounts look extremely interesting.
About Thursday 21 November 1661
LKvM • Link
"The name changed but the style remained. Is it OK to ask if the old fella is still with us and maybe lurking somewhere?"
Waiting with Robin Peters a decade later for an answer.
About Monday 18 November 1661
LKvM • Link
Re " . . . a few idle poor people and boys to hear them," I believe Sam's comment about things being out of order at St. Paul's refers to the choristers wearing surplices, garments that disturb him, and that the parson inelegantly drunk before dinner (i.e., around noon) is another blow to his puritan heart.
To pat stewart cavalier, a mote is just a tiny irritating particle in the eye, not a piece of straw (unless it is a very tiny, tiny bit of a piece of straw!).
This is the first time I have heard of Paul's Walk, and I found San Diego Sarah's quotations about Paul's Walk fascinating. They make the cathedral sound much like the busy, thronged temple in Jerusalem that Jesus famously and dramatically rid of all commercial and nonreligious activity; see Matthew, Mark. Luke, and John. The Puritans, undoubtedly knowing these Gospel accounts by heart, probably did the same to Paul's Walk during the interregnum, which is why there are so few there.
(San Diego Sarah's references to Paul's Walk as a crnter of activity refer to a time before the interregnum, as she added).
About Saturday 9 November 1661
LKvM • Link
"So I seemed to be pleased" with Lady Jemimah's comment about Elizabeth needing better clothing -- "seemed" meaning "pretended," as Hamlet used it. It disappoints me that Sam is being false with "milady," who obviously dotes on him.
About Tuesday 5 November 1661
LKvM • Link
Re San Diego Sarah's quote regarding an appeal from English sailors who had been captured by the Algerians and were slaves, i.e. prisoners of war:
"The letter and [its contents] Represent the miseries they endure in their captivity as slaves, and entreat the Admiral's efforts for their deliverance."
This is why "Hail, Britannia" contains the phrase that Englishmen "never never shall be slaves "
About Sunday 3 November 1661
LKvM • Link
Re Vicente: " . . . the old boiler [tough as nails and no longer could lay eggs] that was the choice for those short on the dough," that's also the old hen required for proper chicken and dumplings.
About Wednesday 30 October 1661
LKvM • Link
Re Bradford above in 2004:
"(Viz., imagine the arguments about The Election going on at Halloween parties across America even as I type. Historical Color.)"
Yes, some things never change, and the arguments are going on again in the US, with even more vehemence than twenty years ago.
About Thursday 24 October 1661
LKvM • Link
Well, we may have had a dull entry from Sam, but Sandwich's log makes up for it in spades. Sandwich spotted troubling activity and took off in hot pursuit. For the person who wondered what it means to slip a cable, it's a drastic move and means in an emergency to untie the anchor line (cable, or rode) from the bitt (post, or cleat) to which it is tied and just let it "slip" and run out, leaving the anchor and line on the bottom. It is a great loss.
(In ordinary sailing, one ties a flotation cushion or similar to the bitter end of the anchor line and with luck is able to go back later and find the cushion and retrieve the anchor. This has happened to me.)
About Sunday 20 October 1661
LKvM • Link
Re Stolzi's comment about Will's hat:
"Probably a baseball cap with the bill turned backwards."
That silly "look" has been almost universal in the USA for decades (including at table and among not only adolescents but also mature men). For what it's worth, columnist George Will noted that its first known written occurrence was in the American classic of adolescent life "Catcher in the Rye."
I agree that Will's wearing of his cover in the house is just adolescent bravado, since he is still a teen.
About Tuesday 15 October 1661
LKvM • Link
"God was good to me in manifold outward mercies, a very comfortable season my heart through grace not left as sometimes to vanity, evil is as my death, but when lord will you slay it in the actings thereof, . . ." ? ? ? HiSometimes I think we could use some elucidation of the Rev. Josselin's diary remarks too.
A convoy of fourteen sail! It must have looked like a regatta.
Re the fish described as "meat," meat could mean just food, as in sweetmeats.
About Monday 14 October 1661
LKvM • Link
Thanks again, San Diego Sarah, for the quote from Sandwich's diary, which i enjoy following, and the detailed information on the locations and addressees.
Regarding calling an infant "Lady Katherine," tiny babies were called the "Duke of Whatever" etc. I read a note that Chancellor Hyde deviated from that norm when, instead of calling his daughter's royal offspring by their lordly titles, he said, "How do the children?"
About Tuesday 8 October 1661
LKvM • Link
Re "a frolique," could it mean the same as "a wild hair," defined as "a fervent, usually sudden, desire to do something surprising or unexpected."
About Sunday 6 October 1661
LKvM • Link
It was kind of Sam to invite left-alone Martha, his begrudged Valentine, over for dinner. She and Elizabeth were neighborly, going shopping together, so it made sense to include her.