Sunday 15 November 1663

(Lord’s day). Lay very long in bed with my wife and then up and to my office there to copy fair my letter to Sir G. Carteret, which I did, and by and by most opportunely a footman of his came to me about other business, and so I sent it him by his own servant. I wish good luck with it. At noon home to dinner, my wife not being up, she lying to expect Mr. Holyard the surgeon. So I dined by myself, and in the afternoon to my office again, and there drew up a letter to my Lord, stating to him what the world talks concerning him, and leaving it to him and myself to be thought of by him as he pleases, but I have done but my duty in it. I wait Mr. Moore’s coming for his advice about sending it. So home to supper to my wife, myself finding myself by cold got last night beginning to have some pain, which grieves me much in my mind to see to what a weakness I am come. This day being our Queene’s birthday, the guns of the Tower went all off; and in the evening the Lord Mayor sent from church to church to order the constables to cause bonfires to be made in every streete, which methinks is a poor thing to be forced to be commanded.

After a good supper with my wife, and hearing of the mayds read in the Bible, we to prayers, and to bed.

31 Annotations

First Reading

Terry F  •  Link

Barbadoed Irish with sources -

JWB, this annotation is a worthy contribution to yesterday's discussion.

jeannine  •  Link

"my wife not being up, she lying to expect Mr. Holyard the surgeon"
Given the delicate nature of Elizabeth's medical condition, I am curious as to what the norm would be for a male doctor when treating a patient. Dr. H. will make a house call for Elizabeth and Sam doesn't seem to have any concern about that at all. I'm wondering if the doctor examined the patient surrounded by a female nurse, or if he physically would examine her at all. With all of Sam's usual anxiety around men being with his wife alone, this just seems like the norm. Any ideas of the protocol of the times for these things?
Also, not sure if this exam was in relation to the cyst (or whatever her actual medical condition is as it's really not known) or if this is in any way related to her belief of a few days ago that she may be with child?

Terry F  •  Link

"Any ideas of the protocol of the times for these things?"

Jeannine, all the answers to these questions will be given with tomorrow's entry.

aqua  •  Link

"... hearing of the mayds read in the Bible, we to prayers,..."
Has anyone the stats on household help, eating Sam out of his savings.
Mayds, doth read, rite and reckon too.
Sam does like to have his little reading in foreign tongues too, cannot have the lessors read the finer points of life or his journal, just good texts.
After reading C. Hill and his version of living in the lower stratas of English Society, I wonder, did the mayds take note of the lesson or just read it just to keep the peace.
There was great discontent by those that lack the privileges of landed monies with the established privileged members of the Clergy. Running around were the many preachers that were ejected for failing to toe the line, along with the Papists, Ranters, Quakers and other disgruntled citizens, or masterless men, lacking the freedom papers of apprenticeship papers. Those with income dependant on the whims of the Royalists are not going to bite the hand that doth feed them.
Those that be disgruntled were candidates for low income positions on ships or the fields and households of expanding frontiers of English trading.
Here we read of a man that has prospered under the Restoration, having the right training and connections, but Thousands be not prospering, having to fend for themselves, no longer the opportunity to rise from private to Colonel by surviving the death defying bravery of the betters.[no war except to fight in Portugal or Tangiers or ...]
Old English adage " know thy place and do not rock the ship"

Jesse  •  Link

"... hearing of the mayds read in the Bible"

Probably most would 'take note of the lesson.' Having few or little opportunities in the here-and-now their efforts were sure to be rewarded in the hereafter. Probably some scepticism among a few, and a few others who 'keep[ing] the peace' might hope to parley their attractive features towards more earthly benefit.

Xjy  •  Link

"mayds read in the Bible"
Part of the drive for universal elementary education that the Reformation brought with it. With heroic forerunners like Jan Hus (burnt by a lying Pope for his courage and Christian zeal in 1420) and "our own" Wyclif, and then Luther himself and the rest of them, the Bible was available in the vernacular and even the lowest were expected to be able to read the catechism and help save their own souls. Usually the province of priests, this duty was one for enlightened masters, too, or those aspiring to be such. Sam is into educating everybody - father, wife, siblings, cousins, servants, even (with some hesitation) his patron. He'd educate the king himself if he was given half a chance. He would love WHSmith's and all our Teach Yourself books.
Renowned educational theorists of the period were Jan "Comenius" Komensky (another heroic Bohemian, like Hus), and "our own" Milton. And Descartes went to Stockholm to educate Kristina till he shivered to an untimely death there.

OXO  •  Link

The spelling of Surgeon..

Just a few days ago this was spelled "Chyrurgeon" and now it is "Surgeon". Is this a transcription error, or were the two spellings interchangable? I would assume that the pronunciation was identical.. ?

Bryan M  •  Link

"He'd educate the king himself if he was given half a chance."

At the very least Sam is going to teach Chuck and Jimmy a thing or two about just how good a guy can look in a new periwig.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

Sam again seeks guidance on a most serious matter...

"The Way to Grow Rich..." Hugh Aubry...

Chapter Thirty-Five...

"So Your Old Patron is Becoming a Millweight..."

Friend, tis noble to stand by those who've done well by you and advanced you in your earlier days of struggle when they encounter their own hard times or misfortune or some personal disgrace that hobbles them. However...

Don McCahill  •  Link

Just a few days ago this was spelled "Chyrurgeon" and now it is "Surgeon". Is this a transcription error, or were the two spellings interchangable?

Spelling was not considered a requirement in those days. This was 100 years before Johnson's dictionary started the whole spelling craze.

I think you will find many other cases in the diary where Sam's spelling changes, based on how his phonetics of the day are working.

language hat  •  Link

Spelling was not considered a requirement in those days

Yes, but that's not the point. Most alternate spellings make no difference to the pronunciation, but "Chyrurgeon" and "Surgeon" indicate wildly different pronunciations, and as OXO says, Sam almost certainly used a single pronunciation. I'm guessing he said "surgeon" and "chyrurgeon" was an archaic spelling that still lingered on.

Jesse  •  Link

"surgeon" and "chyrurgeon"

Good observations, it is rather curious. I wonder what the original shorthand for these entries looked like? Looking at the background, e.g. http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1… we can probably guess that this was spelled out rather than being one of the 'few hundred special symbols that represented a lot of the most common words.' Was Pepys striving for high church in chyrurgeon and let slip with the common?

aqua  •  Link

spelling; besides thy pronunciation, the printer would be the man that decided, when he be short of the required letters, would use 'is wits. "Chyrurgeon" and "Surgeon" ; 'Chy' needs 3 letters, 'S' needs only one and as they using 'f's instead of 's's, S be more available; just a wild idea, having done type setting, always short of the required letter in a given font, would use a substitute, then blame the draft for having a ink blot.

aqua  •  Link

"Chyrurgeon" a word that not be recognized by OED: it be :CHIRURGEON
but Surgeon gets:
a. AF. surgien (13th c.), also sirogen, sur(r)igien, contracted form of OF. serurgien, cirurgien, mod.F. chirurgien:
see CHIRURGEON. Cf. OPg. surgião (beside mod.Pg. cirurgião). MDu. surgien, -ijn, surisien were also from OF.] but chirurgeon gets [In ME., a. OF. cirurgien (= Sp. cirurgiano, Pg. cirurgião): r d n)Romanic type *cirurgi-an-o f. cirurgía: see CHIRURGY. In later OF. serurgien, contracted surgien, whence Eng. sirurgien, surgien, now corruptly surgeon. The Renascence brought back to Fr. and Eng. (partly also to It.) the spelling chir-, but never to French the pronunciation with k, which has now established itself in Eng., largely because the word being no longer in popular use, the traditional pronunciation has yielded to a new one, founded immediately upon the Gr. The original ending which would normally give mod. chirurgian, was variously perverted in 16th c., and finally settled down in its present form: cf. SURGEON. The result of these successive re-formations and perversions is that the modern [ka-r_-d__n]is, strictly, a different word from ME. ( s_r_rd__n) though it would be difficult to draw a chronological line between the two.]
One whose profession it is to cure bodily diseases and injuries by manual operation; a SURGEON.
c1386 CHAUCER Melib. Harl. MS.) A sirurgien..up ros, and to Melibeus sayde, etc. [Of 6-text,
2 MSS. have sirurgien; 2 surgien; 1 surgeen; 1 surgeane.]
14.. J. ARDERNE in Rel. Ant. I. 191 To aske counsell at all the lechez and cerurgienz that he myghte fynd.

Surgeon be popular with the Printers of the day.

OXO  •  Link

"'Chy' needs 3 letters, 'S' needs only one and as they using 'f's instead of 's's, S be more available; just a wild idea, having done type setting, always short of the required letter in a given font, would use a substitute, then blame the draft for having a ink blot"

So 17th century text speak :) ? (17 ctry txy spk)

GrahamT  •  Link

"...using 'f's instead of 's's, ..."
No, the tall s is a different letter to the f. It doesn't have the cross bar. To 17th Century eyes they would be as different as j and i, or I and l would be to us.

Don McCahill  •  Link

Most alternate spellings make no difference to the pronunciation, but "Chyrurgeon" and "Surgeon" indicate wildly different pronunciations

Ah, but do we know what the pronounciation of those spellings would be in 1660? They are different to us, but might be more similar to the voice of the times.

language hat  •  Link

"do we know what the pronounciation of those spellings would be in 1660?"

Well, that's exactly the point. The spellings indicate different pronunciations (in other words, "chirurgeon" would originally have been pronounced "shi-RUR-juhn" or "si-RUR-juhn," and "surgeon" more or less as we say it). Sam and his contemporaries presumably used only one pronunciation in conversation. Which was it? Logic indicates that the more modern pronunciation was in current use, with the longer one an archaic holdover. Here's what the OED had to say back in the 1880s:

"In later OF. serurgien, contracted surgien, whence Eng. sirurgien, surgien, now corruptly surgeon. The Renascence brought back to Fr. and Eng. (partly also to It.) the spelling chir-, but never to French the pronunciation with k, which has now established itself in Eng., largely because the word being no longer in popular use, the traditional pronunciation has yielded to a new one, founded immediately upon the Gr. The original ending which would normally give mod. chirurgian, was variously perverted in 16th c., and finally settled down in its present form: cf. SURGEON. The result of these successive re-formations and perversions is that the modern (kai'rurdzhun) is, strictly, a different word from ME. (si'rurdzhun), though it would be difficult to draw a chronological line between the two."

indoctus  •  Link

"c" according to a S. Johnson Dictionary has two sounds "K" as in Clock, or an "s" as in cinder.
"H" be silent when it follows a consonant as in right, "Y" be "i"
"Chyrurgeon" [Sirurgeion sluffing it to surgeion]]
It be from the meaning of 'and {Xeir}[chi,epsilon,,iota,rho {chiro] and work {ergon)
Quote from South's Sermons
"when a man's wounds cease to smart, only because he has lost his feeling, they are nevertheless mortal, for his not seeing his need of a chirurgeon"

Joe  •  Link

"and there drew up a letter to my Lord, ... leaving it to him and myself to be thought of by him as he pleases, but I have done but my duty in it"

Very brave indeed.

Second Reading

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Sadly "JWB on 16 Nov 2006 • Link • Flag

Barbadoed Irish: http://www.yale.edu/glc/tangledro…... "

has gone away. Fortunately JWB did post some information on the subject without this link, but if anyone knows where the information has gone, please post. In yesterday would be better.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Education was an on-going concern.

In 1641, Bishop John Comenius was invited by parliament to join a commission reforming the public education system. The Civil War stopped this so in 1642 Comenius went to work with Queen Christina reorganizing Swedish schools. Later in 1642 Comenius moved to Elbing in Polish Royal Prussia. In 1648 he returned to England with Samuel Hartlib, who came from Elbing.

In 1650 Comenius went to Transylvania to be professor in the Hungarian Protestant College and wrote some important works.

In 1654 Comenius moved to Leszno. During the Northern Wars he declared for the Protestant Swedish, so Polish partisans burned his house and manuscripts in 1656. Comenius moved to Amsterdam, where he died in 1670.

After religion, Comenius' passion was using Baconian organization for human knowledge. He led the encyclopedic/pansophic movement, and sacrificed practical opportunities for these visionary projects.

In 1639, Comenius published Pansophiæ Prodromus, and in 1640 Samuel Hartlib published the plan of the pansophic work in outline. Sadly the manuscript was burned in 1657. But his pansophic ideas appeared in his textbooks which tried to organize all human knowledge in outline, for a child.

His influence was in practical education. (1) He was a teacher and organizer of schools. In Didactica Magna he outlined America's school system: kindergarten, elementary, secondary, college, university.

(2) in the general theory of education; he was first to say “education according to nature”. He systematically applied principles of investigation formulated by Francis Bacon and Descartes. The system is explained in Didactica Magna, completed 1631.

(3) subject matter and education methods were explained in a series of textbooks. First Janua Linguarum Reserata issued 1631. Next came a more elementary text, the Vestibulum, then a more advanced one, the Atrium, and 40 other books.

In 1657 he published the Orbis Sensualium Pictus, probably the most widely-circulated school textbook. It was the first successful application of illustrations for teaching.

His books all promoted: (1) learning languages through the vernacular; (2) obtaining ideas through objects; (3) start with objects most familiar to the child to introduce both language and the more remote world of objects: (4) give the child knowledge of environment, physical and social, and religious, moral, and classical instruction; (5) make learning a pleasure not a task; and (6) universal education.

As a theologian, Comenius was a mystic, believed in prophecies, dreams and revelations. His interpretation of Revelation saw the millennium in 1672, and guaranteed miraculous assistance to anyone destroying the Pope and the Hapsburgs, naming Cromwell, Gustavus Adolphus, and George I Rákóczi, prince of Transylvania, to do it.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joh…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

In six weeks we will discover that the Rev. Ralph Josselin, Rector of Earl's Colne, Essex, was a reader of Comenius' collected "German prophesies in a book stiled Lux in tenebris." http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

Josselin seems to have connections to the international Brethren network.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Terry -- no kidding! I knew John Amos Comenius served as the last bishop of Unity of the Brethren, and (here's me assuming again) thought it was a Moravian/Transylvanian thing. That his mystic teachings reached Rev. Josselin in Essex is so -- well, predictable as I now see it. Every known cult must have been in England -- which further explains why the Royals/Parliament was so keen on enforcing the BCP and shoring up at least people's core beliefs. I'll have to read up on the Unity of Brethren now. My particular joy comes in all these predictions of The End Of The World which did not come true. Mystics have been scaring vulnerable people into doing weird things for thousands of years.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Pepys doesn't know it, but not everyone forgot Queen Catherine's birthday.

Edmund Waller, the court poet, presented her with this poem:

"And that the King do seem to take it much to heart, for that he hath wept before her"
He that was never known to mourn,
So many kingdoms from him torn,
His tears reserved for you, more dear,
More prized, than all those kingdoms were!
For when no healing art prevailed,
When cordials and elixirs failed,
On your pale cheek he dropped the shower,
Revived you like a dying flower.
-- TO THE QUEEN, UPON HER MAJESTY'S BIRTHDAY, AFTER HER HAPPY RECOVERY FROM A DANGEROUS SICKNESS. Edmund Waller, 1663"

Clark Kent  •  Link

Re San Diego Sarah's comment about doom predictions--see Stephen Hawking's prediction published on line today that the human race will experience a major die-off in the next thousand years. Given the outcome of the recent U.S. election, I think it could come much sooner. We'll have to wait and see.

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

Clark Kent, re Trumpageddon: pleas can you change into your alter-go and do something about it? ;)

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Yes, Clark Kent ... we need you in your flying suit right now. More than Gotham is in peril.

Log in to post an annotation.

If you don't have an account, then register here.