Friday 18 May 1666
Up by 5 o’clock, and so down by water to Deptford and Blackewall to dispatch some business. So walked to Dickeshoare, and there took boat again and home, and thence to Westminster, and attended all the morning on the Exchequer for a quarter’s tallys for Tangier. But, Lord! to see what a dull, heavy sort of people they are there would make a man mad. At noon had them and carried them home, and there dined with great content with my people, and within and at the office all the afternoon and night, and so home to settle some papers there, and so to bed, being not very well, having eaten too much lobster at noon at dinner with Mr. Hollyard, he coming in and commending it so much.
11 Annotations
First Reading
Michael L • Link
I wonder if eating too much lobster might also make one a dull, heavy sort of person?
Carl in Boston • Link
Eating too much lobthter. Impothible, Prepothterouth. My wife eath lobther, I have haddock, and we all thalute Thamuel Pepyth on the dock of the bay.
Terry Foreman • Link
"all the morning on the Exchequer for a quarter’s tallys for Tangier. But, Lord! to see what a dull, heavy sort of people they are there would make a man mad."
Pepys was amongst 'em in 1660; he was driven to begin a Journall (the Diary).
cape henry • Link
"But, Lord!" I always chuckle when I see that particular exclamation turn up because I know we are about to receive one of Pepys' critiques on the performance of someone or another. In this case we find that the clerks in the Exchequer move a bit ponderously for his taste. Clerks. Moving slowly. Imagine. Lord!
Robert Gertz • Link
"I never said for you to eat 5 of them, Mr. Pepys." Hollier notes.
A. Hamilton • Link
What, no sympathy for the poor Exchequer drudges with whom he used to toil? He deserves his indigestion.
Todd Bernhardt • Link
Ah, he was among them ... but never *of* them. Sam's timeless lament -- "But, Lord! to see what a dull, heavy sort of people they are there would make a man mad" -- is that of the Type A personality among B's. Surely others can empathize with Sam and me...
JWB • Link
"...good advice about his deportment..."
Perhaps an expanded list as to where next year's Christmas turkeys are to go.
Second Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
"At noon...dined with great content with my people, and within and at the office all the afternoon and night"
Pepys's "people" (his Navy Office clerks, Hayter, Hewer, Gibson, et al.) are certainly unlike the "dull, heavy sort of people they are" at the Exchequer now.
San Diego Sarah • Link
Maybe I don't understand Tallys properly yet ... but if the Navy is out of cash, so is the Exchequer. Those slow clerks were doing their master's bidding and not issuing credit they couldn't back. And I still think Pepys would get better service if he was a little more generous with the tips.
Hope • Link
You’d find them heavy too, if you’d “carried them home.” ;-)