Monday 9 July 1660
All the morning at Sir G. Palmer’s advising about getting my bill drawn. From thence to the Navy office, where in the afternoon we met and sat, and there I begun to sign bills in the Office the first time. From thence Captain Holland and Mr. Browne of Harwich took me to a tavern and did give me a collation. From thence to the Temple to further my bills being done, and so home to my Lord, and thence to bed.
30 Annotations
First Reading
Colin Gravois • Link
"...we met and sat, and there I begun to sign bills in the Office the first time."
Well, Sam must have had the best night's sleep in a long while tonight -- if possession is 9/10 of the law, as the old saying goes, he's now occupying the office, sitting in the chair, signing the bills, and will heretofore be a person to reckon with.
Paul Brewster • Link
Mr. Browne of Harwich
L&M identify him as a "Browne, [John] Storekeeper at Harwich; reappointed 1660."
I suspect that SP is already getting to work learning his trade...
The L&M Companion identifies Harwich as the site of a small dockyard used mainly for storage and repairs that plays some part in the Dutch Wars. Presumably Mr. Browne was an official of the dockyard.
Note that this is the first mention in the diary of the town he will later (post-diary) represent as an MP.
Paul Miller • Link
"took me to a tavern and did give me a collation."
COLLATION was a light meal served cold with an emphasis on sweets. In the 16th century it was part of the French court. Themes often centered around classical mythology or allegories. In 1571 at a feast honoring Elizabeth of Austria, new bride of Charles IX, the dinner was followed by dancing. After dancing a collation was served with preserves, sweet biscuits, fruits, marzipan, sugar paste formed into meats and fish, with six large sugar sculptures of Minerva bringing peace to Athens.
[This quote is taken from 'Some Sweet Terms' by Elise Fleming: http://home.netcom.com/~alysk/Som… P.G.]
Glyn • Link
People still use the word collation, perhaps a little pompously, as in the phrase "cold collation" which is usually a selection of cold meats and a salad. I don't think it's gone out-of-use in England.
Paul Brewster • Link
You are what you eat ... A database of the meals of Samuel Pepys
A wonderful (yet incomplete) companion to the diary ... It has been linked before but deserves to be referenced again.
http://astext.com/history/mealtic…
vincent • Link
Paul, et al: Fantanstic on foods of SP, (just need to know if he took any anti acids):
chip • Link
Vincent, how could you think Pepys dyspeptic? Our boy loved to eat (and it shows). Thanks to the Pauls and Glyn for clarification. Perhaps we should start a dining club, eating what Pepys ate on a certain date. He would surely get a kick out of that.
Anthony • Link
"The Dreaded Cold Collation"
Small part of cold dead chicken...slice of tomato laid like wreath on dead chicken bit... thin slice of bread curling at edges as though about to fly off plate... six pale peas glued together for security ...
Spike Milligan: Where have all the bullets gone ? p 150.
Sorry, couldn't resist it !
deepfatfriar • Link
"Collation" is still in use on the continent. When I lived in Italy, everyone there was having prima collatione most mornings about the time I was looking for brekfast.
Ann • Link
OED Says re: Collation
Hence, in gen. use, A light meal or repast: one consisting of light viands or delicacies (e.g. fruit, sweets, and wine), or that has needed little preparation (often
bchan • Link
Harwich (pron. "herrich") is very much an active port today. Ferries from the Continent (for example, from the Hook of Holland) call there regularly.
Mary • Link
Harwich
Who pronounces this 'herrich'? Most of UK would say 'harrich' without a second thought. Is the 'e' version a north Essex/south Suffolk dialectal variant?
Frank G. • Link
"Herrich" is how the Dutch pronouce the name. It seems to be the way that the Dutch think an "a" is pronounced. When they say "the man came to the door" it's not possible to tell if there was one or more men.
Tim Whitsett • Link
Having once lived in the vicinity of Harwich, I thought it was pronounced
"Harridge."
Roger Miller • Link
Yes, when I was child we used to holiday with relatives in Felixstowe on the Suffolk side of the river and they pronounced it 'Harridge'.
Here's a map: http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap…
Colin Gravois • Link
The collation question.
Also used in standard French. The snack airlnes serve after lunch but before landing on a long flight is called "une collation." OED says it's a light meal/repast, but what the airlines are now serving at 35,000 feet is so light it has almost the weightlessness of space.
Second Reading
Rob • Link
Thanks Frank for your resume on how we, the Dutch (mis)pronounce man, men and Harwich.... You are probably right....
Bill • Link
COLLATION, a handsome Treat or Entertainment.
---An Universal Etymological English Dictionary. N. Bailey, 1675.
Dick Wilson • Link
Did Capt. Holland and Mr. Browne put Pepys under any sort of obligation to them, by feeding him lunch? (late afternoon. Tea time, except, they didn't do that, then) Or were they trying to ingratiate themselves with a man who might someday send naval contracts their way?
Chris Squire UK • Link
OED has:
‘ . . II . . 8. Extended to the light repast or refection taken by the members of a monastery at close of day, after the reading or conference mentioned in sense 7.
. . 9. Hence, in gen. use, A light meal or repast: one consisting of light viands or delicacies (e.g. fruit, sweets, and wine), or that has needed little preparation (often ‘a cold collation’). ‘A repast; a treat less than a feast’ (Johnson).
Originally applied to a repast between ordinary meals, and still retaining much of that character.
. . 1534 N. Udall tr. Terence Floures for Latine Spekynge 75 (R.) Such bankettes are called collacions, a collatum, tu, that is of laiyng together every one his porcion.
. . 1664 S. Pepys Diary 6 July (1971) IV. 197 Came to the Hope about one, and there..had a collacion of anchoves, Gammon, &c.
. . 1882 J. H. Shorthouse John Inglesant II. 205 A plentiful and delicate collation was spread..with abundance of fruit and wine.'
Terry Foreman • Link
"All the morning at Sir G. Palmer’s advising about getting my bill drawn. "
The "bill" in this case was the Attorney-General's warrant for Pepys's appointmen as Clerk of the Acts. Pepys got it on the 10th; had it made into a 'King's Bill' on the 11th; on the 12th obtained a privy seal writ and on the 13th the letters patent. The enrollment of the patent is in the "Public Records Office", now the UK National Archives, C 66/2742, no. 2. (L&M footnote)
Terry Foreman • Link
" in the afternoon we met and sat, and there I begun to sign bills in the Office"
These "bills" are warrants to the Navy Treasurer (orders to "pay invoice") which had to be signed by two of the Principal Officers. (L&M)
San Diego Sarah • Link
To make a marchpane [marzipan] according to Delightes for Ladies (1608):
"Take two pounds of almonds being blanched, and dried in a sieve over the fire, beat them in a stone mortar, and when they be small, mix them with two pound of sugar being finely beaten, adding two or three spoonfuls of rosewater, and that will keep your almonds from oiling; when your paste is beaten fine, drive it thin with a rolling pin, and so lay it on a bottom of wafers, then raise up a little edge on the side, and so bake it, then yce it with rosewater and sugar, then put it in the oven again, and when you see your yce is risen up and dry, then take it out of the oven and garnish it with pretty concepts, as birds and beasts, being cast out of standing molds. Stick long comfits upright in it, cast bisket and carrowaies in it and so serve it; guild it before you serve it: you may also print of this marchpane paste in your molds for banqueting dishes. And of this paste our comfit makers at this day make their letters, knots, arms, escutcheons, beasts, birds and other fancies."
Mary K • Link
Marchpane
All that pounding of almonds and loaf-sugar would have made for some sore muscles. Again, I am reminded of Miss Leslie's New Cookery Book (1857).
"To stir butter and sugar together is the hardest part of cake-making. Have this done by a manservant."
Terry Foreman • Link
Marchpane
The German name has largely ousted the original English name marchpane with the same apparent derivation: "March bread". (The word marchpane occurs in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 5, Line 9.) Marzapane is documented earlier in Italian than in any other language, and the sense "bread" for pan is Romance. The origin could be from the Latin term "martius panis", which means bread of March. However, the ultimate etymology is unclear; for example, the Italian word derives from the Latin words "Massa" (itself from Greek Μάζα "Maza") meaning pastry and "Pan" meaning bread, this can be particularly seen in the Provençal massapan, the Portuguese maçapão (where 'ç' is an alternative form for the phoneme 'ss') and old Spanish mazapán – the change from 'ss' to 'z' in Latin words was common in old Spanish and the 'r' appeared later. It could also be derived from martis pan, bread of March. Among the other possible etymologies set forth in the Oxford English Dictionary, one theory proposes that the word "marzipan" may be a corruption of Martaban, a Burmese city famous for its jars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar…
Third Reading
LKvM • Link
". . . in the afternoon we met and sat . . . ."
For all who are reading the diary for the first time, when Sam says he "sat," it means that Sam and the rest were officially "in session."
San Diego Sarah • Link
"and so home to my Lord, and thence to bed."
All morning with the Solicitor General sorting out his bills, a business lunch, all afternoon sitting with the Navy Board making decisions about things he knows nothing about and there is no budget to implement, and then into the office to put these decisions into action, back to the Solicitor's, then off to Whitehall to see what Montagu needs, and thence to bed.
Quite a day, as Colin Gravois said, but if he slept well I think it was from exhaustion, not peace of mind.
Time for Montagu to get a new Clerk!
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Did Capt. Holland and Mr. Browne put Pepys under any sort of obligation to them, by feeding him lunch? (...) Or were they trying to ingratiate themselves with a man who might someday send naval contracts their way?"
Since Pepys doesn't tell us what they discussed, it's impossible to answer your question, Dick Wilson. But if I were John Browne of Harwick, and my port had a bad reputation, as it did in 1660, an opportunity to gladhand the new man at the Head Office would be welcome. Apparently Capt. Holland was a mutual connection which is always a good way to start a relationship.
For Harwich's problems in the early days of the Restoration, see
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
San Diego Sarah • Link
At the Palace of Whitehall, today Charles II decrees there will be entertainment -- but it turns out to be not that simple:
When Charles II returned to England in May 1660 the theatrical affairs of London were in some confusion. In March 1660 Sir William Davenant, the dramatist and poet laureate, who still had in his possession a patent for a playhouse granted by Charles I, had taken a lease of Lisle's Tennis Court in Portugal Street, for conversion into a theatre. He had then departed to France to persuade Charles II to restore and confirm his rights.
Already in France with Charles II was Thomas Killigrew, playwright, one of the grooms of the bedchamber, and according to Pepys, 'a merry droll, but a gentleman of great esteem with the King', who may well have already promised him some theatrical preferment.
On 9 July, 6 weeks after the Restoration, a royal warrant required the issue of a patent under the Great Seal authorizing Killigrew to establish a company of actors and build a theatre. The warrant recognized Davenant's rights under his patent from Charles I, but all other companies of actors were to be suppressed.
Davenant was dissatisfied with this indirect authority and 10 days later he drafted a second warrant to authorize by a patent the establishment of a theatrical monopoly to be shared by Killigrew and himself.
This proposal upset Sir Henry Herbert, the master of revels, who on 4 August presented a petition to Charles opposing it on the ground that it would be 'destructive' of the authority of his office.
The question was referred to the attorney general, Sir Jeffry Palmer, who opined 'the matter more proper for A tolleration; than A Grant under the greate Seale of England'.
The grant passed the privy signet on 21 August 1660, but did not reach the final stage of a patent under the Great Seal, probably because Davenant had decided not to press the matter in face of Herbert's opposition, for in September Palmer added a note to Herbert's petition, stating that he had 'foreborne to proceede further haveinge alsoe receaved an intimacion by Letter from Sir William Davenant that I was freed from further hearing in this matter'.
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
The grant under the privy signet authorized Killigrew and Davenant to build or hire two playhouses in London and to maintain two companies to act in them. But although the grant stated that there were to be no other theatrical establishments, rival companies continued to act, and Killigrew and Davenant were not immune from the hostile authority of the master of the revels.
On 25 April 1662 Killigrew at last obtained from Charles II a patent under the authority of the Great Seal. This contained 2 new clauses, one authorized him to enjoy his rights 'peaceably and quietly without the impeachment or impediment of any person or persons whatsoever' (i.e., including the master of the revels); and the other required the suppression of all other playhouses in London except Davenant's.
On 15 January 1663 Davenant was granted a similar patent, and the joint monopoly of the London theatre which persisted -- in theory at least -- until 1843 had been established."
https://www.british-history.ac.uk…