Thursday 13 March 1661/62

All day, either at the office or at home, busy about business till late at night, I having lately followed my business much, I find great pleasure in it, and a growing content.

20 Annotations

First Reading

Australian Susan  •  Link

"great pleasure in it"
Yes, yes, Sam, we are all very pleased for you, but it do indeed make thin pickings for us reading your diary. Far be it from me to condone or encourage swerving from the course of duty, but am I the only one who hopes Sam does, just a bit....?

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

Not to worry, Aussie Susan. From what I hear, we have plenty to look forward to...

(After all, we need some dynamics -- light and dark, ups and downs, etc. -- to make the experience more enjoyable, eh? :-)

vicenzo  •  Link

Sam has missed the financial section:
Imported Iron is to be taxed at 40 shillings to ton so that people will buy english jacks.
see : http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…
Date: 14/03/2005
High society section has been told that the Duke of Albemarle gets Honors and he will be right Noble;
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…
Date: 14/03/2005
Sam missed out that two MP's had difference of opinion that required the speaker to step in:
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…

The Religeous section notes that there is the debate over the Bill for uniformity of Worship [no devious thinking now]
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…

Ruben  •  Link

To Australian Susan
It is only during low tides that you may look for the best shells.
Go to Background info and find what's new!

Pauline  •  Link

"...and a growing content."
Yes, Aussie Susan and Todd.
But it is "comic" that the great pleasure and growing content is (to quote the man) for this industriousness:
"I took much pains in sorting and folding of papers"
Sounds like the sort who blissfully orgami-izes the after-dinner mint foil.

He certainly inspires us all to out-produce him wordwise when he comes over all 'business' like this.

Australian Susan  •  Link

Bill for the Uniformity of Worship [mentioned by Vincenzo, above]
This was the Bill that, when passed, launched the 1662 Book of Common Prayer - the BCP is still authorised for use in the Anglican Communion and which, along with the King James Bible, has had an enormous influence on the development of the language and of literature. Such commonplace phrases as "out of the mouths of babes and sucklings" and "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" come from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, surely one of the most widely used books in English. From 1662, the Established Church, the Church of England, began to be what it became in the 20th century "the Tory Party at Prayer" - uniquely enmeshed with conformity and maintaining the status quo: the Church of the ruling classes. It is interesting to see Sam working his way towards this alignment, from a non-conformist adolescence and young aldulthood.

Mary  •  Link

"sorting and folding of papers"

According to an L&M footnote, this was clearly the basis of Sam's 'filing system' as he habitually wrote a summary of the contents of each paper on the outer fold of it.

neven  •  Link

busy about business --- "From Vancouver, to the Caymans, to the UK, to Canadian Music Week in Toronto, back to the UK, then off to Amsterdam and now planning a second recording, idleness has not been the food of fodder for Curtis Santiago. He is busy about business." http://www.curtissantiago.com/san…
The phrase seems to have a modest circulation still --- even on the internet.

JWB  •  Link

An aside
I read Massie's "Dreadnought" over the weekend. Twice Churchill, as 1st Lord, suggested "Oliver Cromwell" as ship's name and was twice refused by Geo. V. Churchill rejoined: "Oliver Cromwell was one of the founders of the Navy and scarcely any man did so much for it. It seems right that we should give to a battleship a name that never filed to make the enemies of England tremble." Churchill took great pleasure in Admirality work too.

DK Johnson  •  Link

All day sorting those papers that long ago passed through the digestive passages of rats who long ago passed through the digestive passages of . . . Next time you "must" sort your papers, write in your diary instead.

Michael Robinson  •  Link

Tory Party At Prayer?

In the C 18th. and C 19th. -- but now the Liberal Democrats at family eucharist; and not the 1662 service either, alas!

Australian Susan  •  Link

The name of Oliver Cromwell (from JWB above) still meant to George V someone who had executed one of his ancestors and that would outweigh all his merits as a leader. This presumably was the reason for the refusal - does your book expand on this? Later in the century, there was a rumour that Diana wanted to call the baby now called William, Oliver, but someone had a quiet word with her over how her mother-in-law would feel about such a choice. The long arm of history is also apparent in that both George V on his Jubilee Tour and the present Queen on her Silver Jubilee tour would not go to Taunton, the centre for the last rising against a monarch (Duke of Monmouth in 1686). By the way, has a RN Ship ever been named after Sam?

Glynn  •  Link

The only reference I can find :
HMS Pepys, a shore base on Manus Island in the Admiralty islands, just North of Papua New Guinea

Xjy  •  Link

The memory of kings
Perhaps GV wasn't thinking of an ancestor so much as a predecessor. But it's interesting how blindly and implacably these royal warts nurse their grudges.
But if they can... we can! :-)
"Warts" -- pah, they are unworthy to be a wart on Oliver's face! Pustules...
And "our" Sam gradually discovering the singular seductiveness of gilded pimples...
Where's Shelley now that we need him?

An old, mad, blind, despis'd, and dying king,
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn--mud from a muddy spring,
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,
A people starv'd and stabb'd in the untill'd field,
An army, which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edg'd sword to all who wield,
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay,
Religion Christless, Godless--a book seal'd,
A Senate--Time's worst statute unrepeal'd,
Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.

language hat  •  Link

Great quote, Xjy.
People love Shelley's lyricism and forget (or try to) his politics.

Australian Susan  •  Link

From Shelley to Tom Paine, speaking of those who expressed sympathy for the French Royal family in the 1790s: "They pity the plumage and forget the dying bird."

A. Hamilton  •  Link

BCP

The Episcopal Church in the United States is sometimes called the Republican Party at prayer.

mike gresk  •  Link

the premise is laudable. " ... find a job which you love, and you never work another day in your life..." iam am happy for sam, perhaps envious...

William Watson  •  Link

It has been a long time since I saw a Republican anywhere near an Episcopal Church in the US. What I have heard spoken in them over the past few years has all been left of center. Church and state are conflated far more there, than anything I ever heard in Evangelical churches from the Christian right!

Second Reading

Chris Squire UK  •  Link

The Church of England 100 years ago was called the Tory party at prayer but that’s not true nowadays: it has published a 52-page letter outlining its hopes for political parties to discern “a fresh moral vision of the kind of country we want to be” before the general election in May.

In it, leading English bishops address themes such as the church’s duty to join the political debate in an increasingly consumerist society, welfare reform and Britain’s role in the world.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/…

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