Sunday 7 April 1661
(Lord’s day). All the morning at home making up my accounts (God forgive me!) to give up to my Lord this afternoon. Then about 11 o’clock out of doors towards Westminster and put in at Paul’s, where I saw our minister, Mr. Mills, preaching before my Lord Mayor. So to White Hall, and there I met with Dr. Fuller of Twickenham, newly come from Ireland; and took him to my Lord’s, where he and I dined; and he did give my Lord and me a good account of the condition of Ireland, and how it come to pass, through the joyning of the Fanatiques and the Presbyterians, that the latter and the former are in their declaration put together under the names of Fanatiques.
After dinner, my Lord and I and Mr. Shepley did look over our accounts and settle matters of money between us; and my Lord did tell me much of his mind about getting money and other things of his family, &c. Then to my father’s, where I found Mr. Hunt and his wife at supper with my father and mother and my wife, where after supper I left them and so home, and then I went to Sir W. Batten’s and resolved of a journey tomorrow to Chatham, and so home and to bed.
20 Annotations
First Reading
daniel • Link
'all the morning at home making up my accounts..'
work on a sunday! i wonder how this would be received by the populace at large.
dirk • Link
The weather has improved apparently...
Diary of Ralph Josselin, Sunday 7 April 1661:
"the season very good, springing. god merciful to me in many outward mercies, but sensible I am my heart is out of frame, the lord sanctify my thoughts, help me to watch over them, the lord command mercy for me and mine in christ Jesus(,) I had but little time for my sermons this day, lord help me to trust thee but not for anything to neglect any opportunities"
dirk • Link
more on Dr. Fuller
http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
john lauer • Link
surely sunday work is ok, after invoking the name of god; that's the way it works, doesn't it. We're much more sophisticated than that now, right? Right?
Susan • Link
Exodus 20: 8 [NRSV] "Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy". Most interpreted this commandment as meaning to do no work on the Lord's Day. Many of Sam's serious minded friends and acquaintances would have strongly disapproved of him spending the entire morning at work - and Sam shows he is uneasy about it with his invocation to God.
Susan • Link
Looking back over the last few days, if Sam had spent less time,drinking and playgoing, then maybe he would have had time to get 'my Lord's' accounts in order without having to spend all Sunday morning on them!! Wonder if this will occur to him and be set down.
vincent • Link
"..and so home and to bed...." and no Madam, Oh! dear and no complaints. Not a good sign.
Xjy • Link
"a good account of the condition of Ireland"
... about which Sam tells us absolutely nothing (well, except for the religious red herring :-)
Wim van der Meij • Link
"(God forgive me!)"... Why do I have a feeling that Sam is writing this 'tongue in cheek'?
Wim van der Meij • Link
Sorry, this probably says more about me than about Sam. But still...
E • Link
Working on a Sunday...
I doubt if most women got a day a week off -- I think this was interpreted as "no unnecessary work on a Sunday". Many servants would find their work counted as necessary. What about the boatmen on the Thames, who were presumably self-employed?
Rich Merne • Link
(God forgive me) Is it at all possible that he was doing some 'immaginative accounting'?
David A. Smith • Link
"(God forgive me!) to give up to my Lord"
I think that telltale exclamation point is Sam's wry internal-monolog joke on the sacrilege of rendering unto Caesar on *the* Lord's day, not *my* Lord's day ....
Paul Brewster • Link
[italics] 7. Lords day./[newline,no italics] All the morning at home making up my accounts (God forgive me)
That's the way its set in the L&M. I think the exclamation point is Wheatley's telltale commentary. According to the L&M Reader's Guide, the italics indicate larger writing. I'm not sure what to make of the slash or stroke, "/", following the full-stop.
L&M's general comment is that "Punctuation is almost all editorial, except for certain full-stops, colons, dashes and parenthesis. Punctuation is almost non-existent in the original since the marks could be confused with the shorthand."
dirk • Link
"Punctuation is almost non-existent in the original since the marks could be confused with the shorthand"
Re - Paul Brewster
The slash *could* be the shorthand symbol for "t" - but that would be even more confusing - or one of Sam's own abbreviations.
Emilio • Link
"the joyning of the Fanatiques and the Presbyterians"
Since no one has commented on this remark yet, here's an L&M footnote that provides some info on how the religious situation in Ireland is different than England:
"A proclamation of 22 January had forbidden unlawful assemblies of 'Papists, Presbyterians, Independents, Anabaptists, Quakers and other fanatical persons'. This news would strike most Englishmen as odd, for in England Presbyterians were not associated with the 'fanatics' and were at this very time engaged in parleys for church-union with Anglicans--the Savoy Conference began on 15 April. Dr William Fuller (formerly a schoolmaster at Twickenham) was now Dean of St Patrick's, Dublin."
The Savoy Conference, btw, met to revise the Book of Common Prayer, which had not been revised since 1604. Here's a page that gets into the various Puritan objections and the response of the bishops:
http://justus.anglican.org/resour…
Emilio • Link
(God forgive me)/more ital fun
I think Sam might be bothered not just because he's working today, but especially because he's dealing with money. There's always been a suspicion of dealing with money within Christianity, however wealthy a congregation was in practical fact. Jesus and the moneylenders, 'Blessed are the poor...', and 'It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle...' are a few relevant verses that come to mind.
As for 'Lords day', the ital and separate line surely indicate that Sam wrote it as a heading on a separate line above the text--L&M use ital frequently for day headings, sometimes above and sometimes at the beginning of the first line of text. The Intro to vol. 1 of L&M reveals that when a heading is in a larger hand they set it in larger type, as they have with '30th Fast day' before the entry for last Jan. 30. The slash is puzzling, but I suppose it corresponds to some kind of mark on the diary page.
Second Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
"This news would strike most Englishmen as odd, for in England Presbyterians were not associated with the 'fanatics' and were at this very time engaged in parleys for church-union with Anglicans--the Savoy Conference began on 15 April...The Savoy Conference, btw, met to revise the Book of Common Prayer, which had not been revised since 1604."
The mandatory use of the Book of Common Prayer with its insistence that the King,, not Jesus Christ. was the head of the church. put the Presbyterians on the side of those called "Fanatics" (i.e., congregationalists of various kinds).
Terry Foreman • Link
"Then about 11 o’clock out of doors towards Westminster and put in at Paul’s, where I saw our minister, Mr. Mills, preaching before my Lord Mayor."
L&M: Weekly sermons had been given in the cathedral before the Lord Mayor and aldermen since 1644, when Paul's Cross and pulpit (scene of the traditional [popular] outdoor sermons) had been pulled down: see http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1… and
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1… and
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
Third Reading
RLB • Link
Re. Sunday: it certainly always was, except in the most strict of sects, no work on a Sunday unless necessary. After all, Luke 14:5 says: “Which of you shall have an ox or an ass fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath day?” Which is sensible advice.
Sam was probably asking for forgiveness because yes, it was necessary to do his accounts this morning to have them ready that afternoon; but it would not have been so, had he done this work the day before and not put it off until the last moment.