Thursday 30 May 1667

Up, and to the office, where all the morning. At noon dined at home, being without any words friends with my wife, though last night I was very angry, and do think I did give her as much cause to be angry with me. After dinner I walked to Arundell House, the way very dusty, the day of meeting of the Society being changed from Wednesday to Thursday, which I knew not before, because the Wednesday is a Council-day, and several of the Council are of the Society, and would come but for their attending the King at Council; where I find much company, indeed very much company, in expectation of the Duchesse of Newcastle, who had desired to be invited to the Society; and was, after much debate, pro and con., it seems many being against it; and we do believe the town will be full of ballads of it. Anon comes the Duchesse with her women attending her; among others, the Ferabosco, of whom so much talk is that her lady would bid her show her face and kill the gallants. She is indeed black, and hath good black little eyes, but otherwise but a very ordinary woman I do think, but they say sings well. The Duchesse hath been a good, comely woman; but her dress so antick, and her deportment so ordinary, that I do not like her at all, nor did I hear her say any thing that was worth hearing, but that she was full of admiration, all admiration. Several fine experiments were shown her of colours, loadstones, microscopes, and of liquors among others, of one that did, while she was there, turn a piece of roasted mutton into pure blood, which was very rare. Here was Mrs. Moore [L&M say “Mr. Moore“. P.G.] of Cambridge, whom I had not seen before, and I was glad to see her; as also a very pretty black boy that run up and down the room, somebody’s child in Arundell House. After they had shown her many experiments, and she cried still she was full of admiration, she departed, being led out and in by several Lords that were there; among others Lord George Barkeley and Earl of Carlisle, and a very pretty young man, the Duke of Somerset.

She gone, I by coach home, and there busy at my letters till night, and then with my wife in the evening singing with her in the garden with great pleasure, and so home to supper and to bed.

21 Annotations

First Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

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

May. 30. 1667 (Petits Letter) magnetick expts. variation of Variation) The curator was put in mind of making Ready the apparatus magneticus. to obserue the variation of needle at Whitehall & London

Dr. Popes letter to mr Hooke dated at exeter 25 of May 1667 was read giuing account of wormes in cormorants orderd that the letter be filed vp and dr. Pope to inquire whether those cormorants haue wormes in their stomacks at all seasons of the year. another Letter from Dr. Pope about Groutt ale
[ http://www.gruitale.com/art_treat… ]
(turberuill of the surviuing of one whose spleen was cut out)

Dutchess of newcastle [ http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo… ] intertaynd wth. 1 weighing the air in a glasse Recr. of 9 gallons & 3 pints. which exhausted weighed & opend to let in air weighed 1 ounce & 71 caratts more than when exhausted. Expt. of mixing colours. 3 cold liquors by mixture made hott. 4 water boyle in Rarifying engine . and making a bladder swell 5 bodys floating in medio aquae. 2 marbles separated by 47ll./

The dutches withdrawn mr Hooke was putt in mind to make the Expt. in St Iames park on munday morn next. (colwall [mercury] obseru produced) Anatomicall expt. for next day. reflecting box rectifyd. -

http://webapps.qmul.ac.uk/cell/Ho…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

John Evelyn's Diary

30th May, 1667. To London, to wait on the Duchess of Newcastle (who was a mighty pretender to learning, poetry, and philosophy, and had in both published divers books) to the Royal Society, whither she came in great pomp, and being received by our Lord President at the door of our meeting-room, the mace, etc., carried before him, had several experiments shown to her. I conducted her Grace to her coach, and returned home.

http://bit.ly/9cjrV7

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Sir William Coventry to Sandwich
Written from: St. James's
Date: 30 May 1667

Informs Lord Sandwich of the death of the Duke of Kendal, [third] Son of the Duke of York. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Char… ]
Encloses a letter to the Queen of Spain formally communicating the intelligence.

The King continues his resolution to carry on the war [with the Dutch] "by small parties, and not by great fleets". ...

Followed by a leaf of the "London Gazette" (May 8-13), containing a passage as to the proceedings at Breda, & probably enclosed with Coventry's letter.

_____

Arlington to Sandwich
Written from: Whitehall
Date: 30 May 1667

Has received his Lordship's letter of May 1/11, intimating that the Treaty with Spain is ready for signature. The Spanish Ambassador at this Court has later letters which say that the signature is accomplished. The Writer regards the Treaty as a good work, and in a good proportion as answering all Lord Sandwich's pains. Wishes the same account could be given of the Treaty at Breda. "The Dutch are very positive & insolent; valuing themselves upon the protection of France".

Adds various particulars of the French Campaign in Flanders. ...

http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/s…

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"...do think I did give her as much cause to be angry with me..."

Heaven...

Sigh...Smile..."Oh, well...Every now and then, Sam'l you barely managed to be a little less than an absolute jackass."

Ummn... "Thanks?"

"Wait a bloody minute." Bess eyes original manuscript. "This line was written with nineteenth century ink. Why, you bug-eyed little..."

"You can tell that? OW!!!..."

"I spent that century studying inks and calligraphy since you already admired good handwriting."

"Why, Bess...OW!!! Hewer, you damned idiot! OW!!!
You swore she'd never notice!"

"At least you know I was spending all the time you were still serving in Purgatory with him."

"True...OW!!!"

Mary  •  Link

"....without any words friends with my wife though .....do think I gave her as much cause to be angry with me .."

Private self-recognition starts to kick in, but it could be dangerous to reopen the subject of yesterday's quarrel with Elizabeth, even for the sake of a partial apology.
Better to let sleeping dogs lie.

Don McCahill  •  Link

> as also a very pretty black boy that run up and down the room,

Remember that at this time black did not refer to race, but hair coloring.

Michael McCollough  •  Link

Maybe it's just me, but "...show her face and kill the gallants" doesn't seem a compliment to the ladies' features.

cum salis grano  •  Link

Problem: there are portraits of this time showing young boys of other ethnic origins amongst the rich and *****ous. May be some one can peruse the art galleries to see if this be true?

Mary  •  Link

"show her face and kill the gallants"

Well, we speak of women who look 'stunning' or 'to die for.' Same (or similar) difference, I should have thought.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"...indeed very much company, in expectation of the Duchesse of Newcastle, who had desired to be invited to the Society; and was, after much debate, pro and con..."

"Gentlemen...I do not need to tell you that today is a historic day for the Royal Society. Today gentlemen, we cross a threshold in society...Uh, Sire?"

"Yes, yes Hooke. But did you bring those glasses you swear will see through the Duchsess' clothes?"

"Here, here!" stawart cry. Sam in front row giving hearty support.

"And I've set up the mutton experiment so she'll have to bend over..." cry.

"Huzzah!"

"Could we get her to try the invisible dress?!"

"Ooooh...!"

"Hooke, there really isn't an invisible dress, is there?" Sam asks the passing Bob.

"Exactly, Pepys." Charles, with grin.

"Say...Perhaps we could invite more ladies?" bright young man asks from second row. "Like Mrs. Stewart? Or Lady Castlemaine?"

***

Barbados...Six months later...

"And the next thing I know...You could've heard a pin drop. And then the King was congratulating me on my assignment to be Royal Astronomer in Barbados. 'But I'm not an astronomer', I says to Mr. Hooke. 'You are now', Mr. Hooke tells me."

"Tell me about it." Wayneman Birch sighs.

Dr. Hartman Leitner  •  Link

This Mr. (?) Moore, whom Pepys mentions here, was he really Henry More, the "Cambridge Platonist"? Would Evelyn have mentioned him, if he had been there?
I would be glad to know
H.Leitner

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"This Mr. (?) Moore, whom Pepys mentions here, was he really Henry More, the "Cambridge Platonist"? Would Evelyn have mentioned him, if he had been there?"

H. Leitner, Evelyn's diary entry is above: his mentions and omissions of those he encounters are very personal and idiosyncratic. Indeed, this was really the Henry More, whom we know from the history of philosophy as one of the leading Cambridge Platonists. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries…

L&M note More was a fellow in the college (Christ's) from which Pepys's brother John had graduated. They say he was one of the most important theologians of the century.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"the Duchesse of Newcastle...had desired to be invited to the Society; and was, after much debate, pro and con., it seems many being against it; and we do believe the town will be full of ballads of it"

A crude ballad believed to be about this occasion found in John Evelyn's papers has been attributed to him. This much of it is available online at this time:

But, Jo! her head-gear was so pretty,
I ne'er saw anything so witty;
Though I was half-afeard
God bless us! When I first did see her
She looked so like a Cavalier
But that she had no beard.
https://books.google.com/books?id…

I doubt Evelyn wrote these lines its style is unlike anything else I have seen of Evelyn, and he had known the Duchess for years as he had noted in his diary:

25th April, 1667. Visited again the Duke of Newcastle,
with whom I had been acquainted long before in France,
where the Duchess had obligation to my wife's mother for
her marriage there; she was sister to Lord Lucas, and
maid of honor then to the Queen-Mother; married in our
chapel at Paris. My wife being with me, the Duke and
Duchess both would needs bring her to the very Court.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"After dinner I walked to Arundell House, the way very dusty, the day of meeting of the Society being changed from Wednesday to Thursday, which I knew not before, because the Wednesday is a Council- day, and several of the Council are of the Society, and would come but for their attending the King at Council"

L&M: The Society's minutes (reporting the vote on 1 February) make no mention of the reason given by Pepys: Birch, ii. 144. Pepys had not attended any meeting since 9 January.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"the Duchesse of Newcastle...had desired to be invited to the Society; and was, after much debate, pro and con., it seems many being against it"

L&M: The decision to invite the Duchess to the Royal Society was made on 23 May. Lord Berkeley proposed it, saying that she wished to be invited officially, and the Earl of Carlisle and Dr. Charleton seconded it: Birch, ii. 176. She sat at the President's right hand: HMC, Le Fleming, p.49.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"Several fine experiments were shown her of colours, loadstones, microscopes, and of liquors among others, of one that did, while she was there, turn a piece of roasted mutton into pure blood, which was very rare."

L&M: The 'experiments appointed for her entertainment' (which had been in preparation for a week) included 'the mixing of cold liquors, which upon their infusion grew hot', 'a terrella driving away the steel-dust at its poles', and 'the dissolving of meat in the oil of vitriol': Birch, ii. 177-8. The result of the last was not, of course. 'pure blood'', but prthaps looked like it. Birch;s list does not tally very well with Pepys's. Cf. Evelyn, s.d.; M. H. Nicholson, Pepys' diary and the new science, pp. 107+.

john  •  Link

"her lady would bid her show her face and kill the gallants."
I checked the OED and the closest contemporary meaning that seems to fit this use is the following.

4. fig. a. To destroy, do away with, put an end to, suppress (a feeling, desire, project, or other non-material thing).

   1435 Misyn Fire of Love 81 Well vsyd in prayinge‥all wykkydnes kylland & vnclennes.    1573 Cartwright Repl. Answ. Admonit. 26 Sufficient to quench her thirst and kill her hunger.    1579–80 North Plutarch (1595) 236 Too sodaine honour in youth killeth further desire of fame.    1617 R. Wilkinson Barwick-bridge 22 Yea, warre and contention kill up even conscience it selfe. [Later quotations omitted.]

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"The first scientific papers read more like letters among friends, recounting hobbies and oddities.

"The first issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, published on May 30, 1667, included brief dispatches with titles such as “An account of the improvement of optick glasses,” and “An account of a very odd monstrous calf.”

"When natural philosophers sent their letters to 17th-century journals, the editors decided whether they were worth publishing or not. But after 200 years of scientific advances, Victorian scientists could no longer be experts on everything. Journal editors sent papers to outside specialists who understood the details of a particular branch of research better than most scientists. ..."

Excerpt showing this first issue is from
https://www.nytimes.com/article/h…

Hope  •  Link

“... show her face and kill the gallants. In (more or less) currant parlance, “a bombshell”, “drop-dead gorgeous”, “lady killer”, etc.

Hope  •  Link

“... show her face and kill the gallants.” In (more or less) currant parlance, “a bombshell”, “drop-dead gorgeous”, “lady killer”, etc.

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