Monday 30 April 1666
Up and, being ready, to finish my journall for four days past. To the office, where busy all the morning. At noon dined alone, my wife gone abroad to conclude about her necklace of pearle. I after dinner to even all my accounts of this month; and, bless God! I find myself, notwithstanding great expences of late; viz. 80l. now to pay for a necklace; near 40l. for a set of chairs and couch; near 40l. for my three pictures: yet I do gather, and am now worth 5200l.. My wife comes home by and by, and hath pitched upon a necklace with three rows, which is a very good one, and 80l. is the price. In the evening, having finished my accounts to my full content and joyed that I have evened them so plainly, remembering the trouble my last accounts did give me by being let alone a little longer than ordinary, by which I am to this day at a loss for 50l., I hope I shall never commit such an error again, for I cannot devise where the 50l. should be, but it is plain I ought to be worth 50l. more than I am, and blessed be God the error was no greater.
In the evening with my [wife] and Mercer by coach to take the ayre as far as Bow, and eat and drank in the coach by the way and with much pleasure and pleased with my company. At night home and up to the leads, but were contrary to expectation driven down again with a stinke by Sir W. Pen’s shying of a shitten pot in their house of office close by, which do trouble me for fear it do hereafter annoy me. So down to sing a little and then to bed.
So ends this month with great layings-out. Good health and gettings, and advanced well in the whole of my estate, for which God make me thankful.
19 Annotations
First Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
"a stinke by Sir W. Pen’s emptying of a shitten pot in their house of office" -- so L&M.
Michael Robinson • Link
" ... by which I am to this day at a loss for 50l., I hope I shall never commit such an error again, for I cannot devise where the 50l. should be, ..."
An error, or difference, larger than SP's net worth at the start of the diary.
"From thence I went home and spent the afternoon in casting up my accounts, and do find myself to be worth 40l. and more, which I did not think, but am afraid that I have forgot something."
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
JWB • Link
Shy
Haven't heard that word used this way since I was a kid when you'd shy a baseball, an apple, rock or walnut at another kid.
cape henry • Link
"An error, or difference, larger than SP’s net worth at the start of the diary."[MR] --now a regrettable, but acceptable, rounding error. Also note the pearls twice that early amount. Pepys now wakes up a bit wealthier today than yesterday -- every day.
Carl in Boston • Link
80l. now to pay for a necklace Seems to me that's about a year's wages at the 80th percentile of income for the time. Just guessing. Yay, Bess. It's good to be Mrs Pepys.
Robert Gertz • Link
Good man, Sam. Glad to see that now you've some necessary security you're aware that the only thing the crap is good for is to make those you care for happy. And Lord knows that girl of yours deserves it.
Of course a few pounds Mum and Dad's way wouldn't hurt...
Samuel • Link
What happened to the 50l? How much did the necklace really cost and what did she do with the rest of the money? :p
Terry Foreman • Link
shying
I wonder if SP gets any OED credit?
A. Hamilton • Link
OED credit?
He should. The earliest usage cited (in the version I use, which dates from the 1990s) is from 1787. I'll drop them a line, although I wonder whether a restrictive sense of propriety will cause them to avoid the citation.
Paul Chapin • Link
If, as Terry reports, L&M show "emptying" instead of "shying" in the sentence about Sir W. Penn's pot, I'd be careful about alerting OED to this entry. It doesn't look like a scanning error, but it may have been an editing error, by Wheatley or Braybrook misreading the shorthand.
Paul Chapin • Link
"I am to this day at a loss for 50l"
I hear you, Sam. Just a couple of weeks ago I finally gave up on 2-3 months effort to discover the source of a $180 discrepancy between my checkbook and the bank statement. It happened to be in my favor, but that didn't make it any less frustrating not being able to figure it out.
A. Hamilton • Link
Paul,
Thank you for bringing that to my attention.
A. De Araujo • Link
"and 80 l. is the price"
Dialogue:
Bess: Monsieur, mon mari m'a donné quatre vingt livres pour acheter un collier des perles.
Jeweller:Ici Ma'am,exactly 80 pounds.
language hat • Link
"I’ll drop them a line, although I wonder whether a restrictive sense of propriety will cause them to avoid the citation."
The OED hasn't had "a restrictive sense of propriety" for the better part of a century now.
cgs • Link
"...I hope I shall never commit such an error again,..."
Samuell "sum ware" be the phrase, watch yee pennys the quids will then be fine.
A. Hamilton • Link
"the quids will then be fine"
Shades of a famous Private Eye cover, a photograph of Princess Diana emerging from her solicitor's office during the royal divorce proceedings with a speech balloon saying, "I've got the quids."
Second Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
"near 40l. for my three pictures:"
L&M: Presumably the three portraits by Hayls of Pepys himself (£14), his wife (£14) and his father (£10).
Terry Foreman • Link
" my wife gone abroad to conclude about her necklace of pearle"
Pepys had promised on 22 August 1665 to give her a pearl necklace within two years at most, and in less if she pleased him i her painting, https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/… According to a family tradition, it survives as a family heirloom in the possession of the Pepys Cockerells; at one time there were four such 'Pepys necklaces' (inf. from J.L. Pepys nCockerellof Aldermaston, Berks.).
john • Link
"but were contrary to expectation driven down again with a stinke"
Surely done on purpose by the friendly Pen. (I can relate in that one of our neighbours used to fertilize his fields with pig manure, which is very similar in odour to the human sort.)