Thursday 28 February 1666/67

Up, and there comes to me Drumbleby with a flageolet, made to suit with my former and brings me one Greeting, a master, to teach my wife. I agree by the whole with him to teach her to take out any lesson of herself for 4l.. She was not ready to begin to-day, but do to-morrow. So I to the office, where my Lord Bruncker and I only all the morning, and did business. At noon to the Exchange and to Sir Rob. Viner’s about settling my accounts there. So back home and to dinner, where Mr. Holliard dined with us, and pleasant company he is. I love his company, and he secures me against ever having the stone again. He gives it me, as his opinion, that the City will never be built again together, as is expected, while any restraint is laid upon them. He hath been a great loser, and would be a builder again, but, he says, he knows not what restrictions there will be, so as it is unsafe for him to begin. He gone, I to the office, and there busy till night doing much business, then home and to my accounts, wherein, beyond expectation, I succeeded so well as to settle them very clear and plain, though by borrowing of monies this month to pay D. Gawden, and chopping and changing with my Tangier money, they were become somewhat intricate, and, blessed be God; upon the evening my accounts, I do appear 6800l. creditor. This done, I to supper about 12 at night, and so to bed. The weather for three or four days being come to be exceeding cold again as any time this year.

I did within these six days see smoke still remaining of the late fire in the City; and it is strange to think how, to this very day, I cannot sleep at night without great terrors of fire, and this very night I could not sleep till almost two in the morning through thoughts of fire.

Thus this month is ended with great content of mind to me, thriving in my estate, and the affairs in my offices going pretty well as to myself. This afternoon Mr. Gawden was with me and tells me more than I knew before — that he hath orders to get all the victuals he can to Plymouth, and the Western ports, and other outports, and some to Scotland, so that we do intend to keep but a flying fleete this year; which, it may be, may preserve us a year longer, but the end of it must be ruin.

Sir J. Minnes this night tells me, that he hears for certain, that ballads are made of us in Holland for begging of a peace; which I expected, but am vexed at. So ends this month, with nothing of weight upon my mind, but for my father and mother, who are both very ill, and have been so for some weeks: whom God help! but I do fear my poor father will hardly be ever thoroughly well again.

34 Annotations

First Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

The Royal Society today at Arundel House — from the Hooke Folio Online

Febr: 28. 1666[/67] (Sandwich Returnd from Portugal of Father Iohn marks & mr Henry Iacob correspondent at Lisbon, to get correspondents at Fernambuco
[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern… ]) 2 coco nutts) Quadrant sent to Lisbon to marks).

Bulliald query about sea compasse (mr Boyle the variations of Olearius
[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam… ]) [ William ] Ld. Brereton compasse not mouing in Iron mine)

There was produced by the Curator [ Mr. Hooke ] a box with optick glasses fitted in it designed to contrast the power of a Long telescope into a short one

It was orderd that the eye glasses should be made to draw, and that the 2 steel glasses should be truly ground well polished & exactly placed. (Sr. P Neile about Eustachio Diuinis making an optick glasse wth Rock crystall wch had veines to try whether a broad glasse or narrow one would bear the greatest aperture)

The lamp formerly produced was againe brough in wth. a small wax light to serue for a wick and soe contriued as to be thrust vp by the mouing weight in the vessell. But this contriuance not succeeding it was suggested that there should be prouided a rush wth. a small brasse wire in it and likewise a small waxt threed with a cotton whipt about it, this was orderd to be prouided against next meeting.

The formerly produced circular pendulum designed for an aequall motion wth. vnequall weights, being againe spoken of, the President affirmed that though the Inuentor [Mr. Hooke ] had demonstrated that the bullet of the circular pendulum if it can be kept Rising or falling in a parabola will keep its circular motion in the same since, yet he hath not Demonstrated that the Diameter of the Parabola from the point of contact in the curue to the vertex of the Diameter is aequall to that portion of the curue from the said point of contact to the vertex of the same curue plus half the Latus Rectum [ http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Latu… ] or plus double the focus of the parabola.

http://webapps.qmul.ac.uk/cell/Ho…

Horace Dripple  •  Link

Here's to hoping that Mr. Drumbleby proves less vexing to Sam than the dancing-master Mr. Pembleton.

Horace Dripple  •  Link

My apologies, it is Mr. Greeting who will be Elizabeth's new instructor, not Mr. Drumbleby. And presumably will be in close contact with her.

cape henry  •  Link

"...So ends this month, with nothing of weight upon my mind..."Interesting statement - parents' conditions excluded - considering the volatile stresses in the Office and the rude singing in Holland.

A. De Araujo  •  Link

"without great terrors of fire"
Was there anything extraordinary,besides buildings,that was lost forever in the great fire?

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"She was not ready to begin to-day, but do to-morrow."

Wash day? A new novel? Those...?

Too bad we don't know if it's Bess complaining of being excluded from Sam's music sessions or Sam urging her to study music. They did have a very nice day a couple of days ago and she might have asked for music lessons then.

Sam got his drawing yesterday, Bess got her lessons today. The family Pepys, masters of the art of the deal.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"Mr. Holliard...secures me against ever having the stone again."

"secures me" i.e. gives me grounds for confidence
1530s, "without care," from L. securus "without care, safe," from *se cura, from se "free from" (see secret) + cura "care" (see cure). The verb is from 1590s. Meaning "firmly fixed" (of material things) is from 1841, on notion of "affording grounds for confidence." http://www.etymonline.com/index.p…

.

language hat  •  Link

"Up, and there comes to me Drumbleby with a flageolet..."

This is one of the great opening lines. "Drumbleby with a flageolet"! I wonder if he enjoyed writing that collocation as much as I enjoy reading it?

Terry Foreman  •  Link

I know "gives me grounds for confidence" is ascribed a later date, but that seems to me to be what Pepys has in mind here.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

language hat, I had a similar reaction to “Drumbleby with a flageolet”!

Mary  •  Link

"was there anything extraordinary besides buildings that was lost in the great fire?"

Books, manuscripts, charters, registers.... much lost in St. Paul's alone, and who knows how much elsewhere.

Mary  •  Link

Drumbleby with a flageolet.

has the same sort of ring as Clifford Mortimer's post- Shakespearean firm of invented solicitors "Goforth & Bindtheboy."

cum salis grano  •  Link

Oh! the Monikers we are laden with.

Drumble also a dial. var. of dumble: cf. DIMBLE.

[Variant of dumble, DUMMEL, perh. influenced by drone, or dromedary.]


An inert or sluggish person; a ‘drone’.

1575 Appius & Virg. in Hazl. Dodsley IV. 118 Yea, but what am I? A dreamer, a drumble, a fire or a spark?

1598 SHAKES. Merry W. III. iii. 156 Go, take vp these cloathes heere, quickly..Look, how you drumble!

1613 MARKHAM Eng. Husbandman I. II. xvi. (1635) 204 This dunge you shall bring into your Garden in little drumblars or wheele-barrowes.

jeannine  •  Link

“Here’s to hoping that Mr. Greeting proves less vexing to Sam than the dancing-master Mr. Pembleton…”… Horace, nothing to worry about here, there was a note on the margin of the Diary that clarified the situation, and it should read as below:…

"Up, and there comes to me Drumbleby with a flageolet, made to suit with my former and brings me one Greeting, a grotesquely squat, feeble, toothless, crooked neck, lumpish, pock-marked, distorted, haggard, grotesque, withered, one-eyed man with a revolting and most vile stench, dressed in slovenly tattered and ill-fitting clothing made of the most pitiful cloth with distasteful tailoring, with bulging lardy hands, who moved with the gait of a three-legged horse stuck in the mud, who I find to be a perfect master, to be left alone with and to teach my very beautiful wife."

Robert Gertz  •  Link

I dunno Jeannine...Your Greeting sounds like the worst possible suitor for Sam but as for Bess, who knows? I mean she can put up with and apparently faithfully love Sam.

Spoiler...

Bess will actually play this game later on, from her side, to Sam's horror, though not quite to such an extent. Though I always found her female Greeting rather deliciously chosen...

Australian Susan  •  Link

Losses from the fire: medieval MSS had had a hard time surviving the attentions of iconoclasts in the 1530s and the 1650s and the Fire would have done for even more which had survived in churches and the Cathedral. Also the area around St Paul's was a great centre for book-selling and although there was an attempt to move stock, many, many items would have been lost. From the Elizabethan period, Parishes had to keep registers and thess are a wonderful source for historians, especially those of family history. Alas, many of those perished in the Fire, although one that survived, and survived until modern times, was used as the basis of a wonderful BBC drama/documentary about one Parish living through the Plague Year.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

And of course there's always the other hand...

“Up, and there comes to me Drumbleby with a flageolet, made to suit with my former and brings me one Greeting, a grotesquely squat, feeble, toothless, crooked neck, lumpish, pock-marked, distorted, haggard, grotesque, withered, one-eyed man with a revolting and most vile stench, dressed in slovenly tattered and ill-fitting clothing made of the most pitiful cloth with distasteful tailoring, with bulging lardy hands, who moved with the gait of a three-legged horse stuck in the mud, who I find to be a perfect master, to be left alone with and to teach my very beautiful wife.”

"You're not leaving me with..." Bess, wild-eyed.

"Mrs. Pepys. The man is highly recommended, perfectly suitable...Cheap." Sam beams, followed by slight frown. "Here I am, at no small expense, dutiful and loving husband as I am, attempting to gratify your every whim, my love. Surely you cannot be so ungrateful, dear wretch, as to reject my love gift."

"If you...Must...Put it that way..." sigh.

Both eye departing Sam...

"Mrs. Pepys, shall we commence?"

"Up in my closet." sigh. "If we must...Jane? Call us when time. Quickly?"

"Mum..." Jane shakes head in sympathy as Bess and Greeting take the stairs.

Poor lamb...Lord, what is the little bastard thinking of?

Door closes.

Greeting whirls round.

"Put aside that damned flagollet, my dear, and take up..." pulls off wig, foul coat...

"...the guitar. My dear cousin-in-law." Sandwich beams, pulling out said instrument.

(Quiet, you. It is a guitar.)

"My dearest Lord. Welcome home." Bess grins.

***
Fortunately, after enduring seven rounds of the 17th century version of "I Gave My Love a Cherry" Bess recaptures her love of her little bug-eyed philanderer.

Nix  •  Link

May we henceforth expect Samuel to be suspicious of any cheerful Greeting?

Nix  •  Link

"it is strange to think how, to this very day, I cannot sleep at night without great terrors of fire, and this very night I could not sleep till almost two in the morning through thoughts of fire" --

Odd coincidence -- I was awakened at 2 this morning by a dream about a fire. Too much singing Beethoven last night ("wir betreten feuertrunken"/"we march, drunk with fire").

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"I did within these six days see smoke still remaining of the late fire in the City; and it is strange to think how, to this very day, I cannot sleep at night without great terrors of fire, and this very night I could not sleep till almost two in the morning through thoughts of fire. "

This is surely PTSD, and surely quite common. Wikipedia has it that the Fire destroyed the residences of 70,000 of the City's 80,000 inhabitants, Imagine who else in the Pepys home alome had such sleep-disturbances. Samuel doesn't talk about this or hear about them.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"He gives it me, as his opinion, that the City will never be built again together, as is expected, while any restraint is laid upon them. He hath been a great loser, and would be a builder again, but, he says, he knows not what restrictions there will be, so as it is unsafe for him to begin. "

L&M tell the backstory: The width of the streets and the lines of frontages had been left by the recent rebuilding act for decision by the King and city. Rebuilding could not be undertaken in advance of these decisions. Hollier had property on the w, side of Warwick Lane. In 1660 the Royal College of Physicians but a site there from him for £1200 on which they built the college which they occupied until 1835.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"This afternoon Mr. Gawden was with me and tells me more than I knew before — that he hath orders to get all the victuals he can to Plymouth, and the Western ports, and other outports, and some to Scotland, so that we do intend to keep but a flying fleete this year; which, it may be, may preserve us a year longer, but the end of it must be ruin."

L&M suggest this involves laying up the big ships and foregoing setting out a battle fleet. Presumably the "flying fleete" is a fleet of boats that patrol the coasts of the British Isles.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"I agree by the whole with him to teach her to take out any lesson of herself for 4l.. She was not ready to begin to-day, but do to-morrow. "

L&M: The lessons continued until 20 May 1667 and were resumed on 11 August 1668. Thomas Greeting was a court musician.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"Hollier had property on the w, side of Warwick Lane. In 1660 the Royal College of Physicians but a site there from him for £1200 on which they built the college which they occupied until 1835."

Terry ... I think your fingers weren't quite in sync with your brain copying this note. Is the year correct? Did they "buy" the site from him? Thanks for checking.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"This is surely PTSD ..."

Yes it is. Nightmares six months after an encounter with traumatic events like the Fire would do it. Plus he must have seen and heard awful things during the plague. And add to that the residual fear and pain of his stones operation ... he's a prime candidate.

Come to that, as are all the soldiers of both armies who experienced hand-to-hand combat in the 20 years of civil wars ... drinking too much is self-medication; chasing the ladies is a time-honored distraction from mental pain; likeways gambling and horse racing and dueling and spending too much money ... see any of that in the Diary?

So much for a post I did a few months back that people in the 17th century experienced grief and pain differently because God was with them in ways we do not know.

Or maybe some of them didn't believe in God the way they pretended to, so their mental pain and reactions were like ours after all? Another "we will never know".

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"... then home and to my accounts, wherein, beyond expectation, I succeeded so well as to settle them very clear and plain, though by borrowing of monies this month to pay D. Gawden, and chopping and changing with my Tangier money, they were become somewhat intricate, and, blessed be God; upon the evening my accounts, I do appear 6800l. creditor."

I have suggested before that Pepys kept double books ... his, and the ones he shows to the Auditors.

He has the household accounts (look out Elizabeth, you cannot cheat!) -- he has the Tangier books -- he has the Victualling books -- and he has the Navy Board books. This month he appears to confess that he's borrowing from Tangier funds to pay Gauden, and things are complicated ... but he has still thinks he made money.

Does anyone disagree?

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"This afternoon Mr. Gawden was with me and tells me more than I knew before — that he hath orders to get all the victuals he can to Plymouth, and the Western ports, and other outports, and some to Scotland, so that we do intend to keep but a flying fleete this year; which, it may be, may preserve us a year longer, but the end of it must be ruin."

Who would have placed these orders? I'm guessing the Duke of York as the Lord High Admiral. Without Coventry being in place, no one thought to tell Pepys.
%%%

I realize that all month when Phil highlighted "Victualling" I hadn't bothered to check the link. Today I did, and find that they led to Dennis Gauden, not the Victualling offices.

So Gauden is being audited?
Or is he now the only victualler? That could be the case after the Fire; maybe his competition are out of business?

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Dennis Gauden audited

L&M in the Companion note [he] had sole responsibility for supplies 1660-9 ....He was also victualler for Tangier 1663-67. The government's inability to pay him ruimrf him; ;....

Phil Gyford  •  Link

"I realize that all month when Phil highlighted "Victualling" I hadn't bothered to check the link. Today I did, and find that they led to Dennis Gauden, not the Victualling offices."

Having checked, all instances of "victualling" lead to the description of Victualling. Instances of "the Victualler" lead to Gawden, the Navy Victualler. Is this wrong?

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Phil, Terry found the L&M note which shows that you are probably correct, since Gauden was being audited at this time.

I found another annotation supporting this: L&M Companion: Gauden had sole responsibility for supplies 1660-9 ... He was also victualler for Tangier 1663-67. The government's inability to pay him ruined him.

But we also know of Capt. John Shales -- Victualling agent at Portsmouth, 1660-1668. And this week Pepys reports talking with John Lanyon -- Victualling contractor for Tangier, whose operation base was Plymouth. (cf. L&M Companion for further details.) And John Lanyon works closely with Timothy Alsop, the king's brewer, on victualing projects.

So, Phil, I don't think you can assume the victualler is ALWAYS Gauden. Context is everything.

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