Saturday 24 March 1665/66
Up and to the office, where all the morning. At noon home to dinner, where Anthony Joyce, and I did give my final answer, I would give but 500l. with my sister, and did show him the good offer made us in the country, to which I did now more and more incline, and intend to pursue that. After dinner I to White Hall to a Committee for Tangier, where the Duke of Yorke was, and I acquitted myself well in what I had to do. After the Committee up, I had occasion to follow the Duke into his lodgings, into a chamber where the Duchesse was sitting to have her picture drawn by Lilly, who was there at work. But I was well pleased to see that there was nothing near so much resemblance of her face in his work, which is now the second, if not the third time, as there was of my wife’s at the very first time. Nor do I think at last it can be like, the lines not being in proportion to those of her face.
So home, and to the office, where late, and so to bed.
21 Annotations
First Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
"I...did show him the good offer made us in the country"
See March 19: "This day by letter from my father he propounds a match in the country for Pall...of one that hath seven score and odd pounds land per annum in possession, and expects 1000l. in money by the death of an old aunt. He hath neither father, mother, sister, nor brother, but demands 600l. down, and 100l. on the birth of first child..."
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
cape henry • Link
"...I would give but 500l. with my sister..." Somehow I suspected that Pepys would not give in to the fairly naked extortion of an additional L300 by Mr. Harmon, who, withal, has played his hand very clumsily. Of course, Mr. Harmon may have done some investigations of his own and determined that Pall might make a difficult wife, so there is that to consider. He may have known his asking price was too high by just enough.
(I must concur to the fullest with TB & LH concerning the creepiness contained in yesterday's entry. Pepys sometimes has a slobbering quality that is both vulgar and sinister.)
Terry Foreman • Link
John Evelyn's Diary
24th March, 1666. Sent £2,000 to Chatham.
------------
The plan for a naval infirmary goes forward.
Michael Robinson • Link
" ... where the Duchesse was sitting to have her picture drawn by Lilly, who was there at work. ..."
“Once a sitting had been arranged a patron would be offered first a rapid chalk drawing of a suggested design; there are indications that oil-sketches were also occasionally produced, in the tradition of Rubens and van Dyck. Once a pose had been chosen, sittings would be given and the head painted from life: Lely at his easel, six feet from the window with the light falling over his left sholder, the sitter also six feet from the light and from the painter. To very important sitters Lely would take his equipment and set it up in their apartments. … According to one account, related in 1673, Lely ‘slightly chalks out the body’, after he had laid in the face, ‘the person sitting in his intended posture’: and also laid in the coloring of the hands and the garments. ‘he does all this by the life presently whilst the person stays so you have a picture in an instant.’ … As the pressure of business became more an more taxing Lely was compelled to employ assistants, so that a very large number of portraits could be produces as quickly as possible. … a competent assistant could be trusted to paint the rest of the figure. Other assistants would paint the background. … His patrons became increasingly apprehensive. A friend of Sir Thomas Isham warned him near the end that ‘I have known Sr Peter Lely charge an origenall, for a coppey, especially to thos that don’t understand pictors;’ and Lely had to write, on December 1st. 1677, an attestation for Sir Richard Newdegate that two portraits done for him had been ‘from the Beginning to ye end drawne with my owne hands.’
Oliver Millar ‘Sir Peter Lely, 1618-80, exhibition at 15 Carleton House Terrace' [London]: National Portrait Gallery, 1978 p. 17.
Miss Ann • Link
Every one is a critic!
Mary • Link
"the good offer made us in the country"
So Elizabeth's objection that the country gentleman is "a drunken, ill-favoured, ill-bred country fellow" doesn't weigh particularly heavily if there is a chance that the family can get Pall off its hands. Oh, good.
Robert Gertz • Link
Yeah, that does seem a little disturbing that Sam would let Pall go to a drunken lout provided the lout has cash in hand. Interesting that he also wants 100Ls on birth of first child? A reward for perpetuating the line? Hmmn...Harmon wants 800. This fellow wants 600 down, 100 later and might disgrace the family down the line, regardless of any human feeling a normal brother might show toward a sister. Doesn't seem Sam is thinking this out carefully, even from a strictly practical pov.
Phoenix • Link
Perhaps I've missed it, but has Sam ever indicated real affection - brotherly or otherwise - for anyone? Seems to me his 'affection', opinions and praise only revolve around how they affect or reflect on him.
Robert Gertz • Link
Well, he's only talking to himself after all. But yes, he has a great affection for his father, Lady Sandwich, Lord Sandwich (despite considerable self-interest there), Sir Will Coventry. With Tom his brother his feelings were there...I think we have to understand in his account of Tom's death that he was studying in a sense his reaction to Tom's death and rather surprised to note how quickly his grief, though real, faded. His mother...Well, he was terrified that she might die while he was off to sea to work for Sandwich... Pall...Well, there is evidence that however unjust he is to her, she may be a bit difficult to take...Likewise with John Jr. Will Hewer and Tom Edwards get slapped around but are loved like sons.
I remember the charming note he closed with on his twenty-eight birthday when he rejoiced in his family and friends. The man has been changed by his success and advance but I think he has great love for others in him, visible if nowhere else in the love so many of the Diary's characters obviously feel for him.
Now as to Bess...Yes, he frequently cheats, on rare occasions beats, calls her a fool once in a while...But she's everywhere and everything in the Diary. It wouldn't be the Diary without her living, papable presence. No real aarriage or long-term relationship is without some strain and mix of failures and failings if honestly described and I think, myself, he loves her as much as he is capable of and perhaps more than many not as honest as he to themselves love their own spouses. The daily business of living and getting ahead and the separate paths his work and interests push him into have made their relationship more difficult and separated them to some extent but every now and then we get a sudden surprise in a burst of feeling or a quiet moment of happiness between them. We don't know what he might sacrifice for her or she for him now but I suspect we might be surprised.
Mary • Link
The ill-bred, country fellow does have some advantages as far as the family is concerned.
£140-odd in land per annum
Expectations of £1000 cash when an elderly aunt dies.
No father, mother, sister, brother.
Looks good on paper, doesn't it?
We know that John Pepys has a difficult relationship with his wife and that Pall (according to Sam) is not an easy person to get on with. Perhaps John would be only too glad to reduce the sum of troublesome females in his household to one.
Mary • Link
Has Sam ever shown real affection?
Yes, for his father.
cgs • Link
luved the above.
muney doth talke.
Ruben • Link
Samuel loves himself, his family, his friends, his servants in this order.
He does not have a formal obligation to spend his money in his sister's marriage arrangements, but he cares the way a father cares for his child. That was an apropriate expression of love in Samuel's days.
When he travels (in the future) to the Continent he takes his wife along, in spite that he could have made the trip alone (who counts females?). And she had already been to France.
You see the difference: Sandwich travels to Spain for a long period whitout wife. And there is a lot to see in Madrid, the capital of an empire.
Robert Gertz • Link
"Pepys I see you're enjoying Lilly's work on my Duchess." Jamie waves to said beaming Duchess. "Marvellous, darling!"
"Ah...Yes, your Grace. A marvellous work."
"Indeed. Costly, true but well worth it, eh?"
"Ah...Of course, your Grace. I only wish I could afford such artistry for my own dear wife." barely repressed chuckle...
"Oh, come now, Pepys...Clerk of the Acts, Tangier Treasurer, Surveyor-General of Victualing...Surely not beyond the means of an up-and-coming man like you."
"Well, your Grace...One must consider old age..."
"True, true. But a fine servant of the Crown like you deserves a proper memorial...Pepys, I insist you allow me the pleasure of having Lilly do you and your no-doubt charming wife. I'm sure for my sake he'll be happy to reduce his commission by...oh, twenty percent. What is your going rate, Lilly? Two hundred pounds per portrait?"
"Without frame of course, your Grace." Lilly calls.
Slight gag... "Your Grace is much...Much too kind..."
"Nonsense...You must be properly rewarded, Pepys."
Second Reading
Ivan • Link
Phoenix asked whether Pepys had ever shown real affection for anyone other than himself. I noted Mr P's comments on Mr. Hill [" a man I love mightily"] earlier in March 1666 [02/03/1666] on Hill's departure for Portugal. There seems to be a note of genuine sadness. "..and endeed I am heartily sorry for Mr. Hill's leaving us - for he is a very worthy gentleman, as most I know - God give him a good voyage and success in his business. Thus we parted, and my wife and I to bed, heavy for the loss of our friend."
Notice how Sam includes his wife in his sentiments of loss.
Terry Foreman • Link
"the good offer made us in the country"
See https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
Terry Foreman • Link
"the Duchesse was sitting to have her picture drawn by Lilly"
This portrait may be the seated three-quarter length, of which there are many versions but of which the original, probably the portrait recorded later in James II's collection, is still in the royal collection; or the full-length derivation, now at Hampton Court, from the same design: O. Millar, Tudor, Sruart and early Georgian pictures in coll. H.M. Queen (1693) , nos. 242, 243. (L&M note)
Marquess • Link
Is Sam trying to imply that the said duchesse was not as comely in real life as portrayed in the portrait?
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Is Sam trying to imply that the said duchesse was not as comely in real life as portrayed in the portrait?"
My reading of
"But I was well pleased to see that there was nothing near so much resemblance of her face in his work, which is now the second, if not the third time, as there was of my wife’s at the very first time. Nor do I think at last it can be like, the lines not being in proportion to those of her face."
is that Pepys thinks Hayles did a better job the first time around than Lely has done at this second or third refining of Anne Hyde, Duchess of York's portrait. Pepys -- who is now a connoisseur of painting technique as well as everything else -- thinks the master has her face out of proportion.
mountebank • Link
The posts above talking about Pepys' relations with other say much to me of duty and respect but less of love and affection.
Although as ever, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Gerald Berg • Link
If jealousy is a sort of love, Sam loves well.