Wednesday 4 September 1667
By coach to White Hall to the Council-chamber; and there met with Sir W. Coventry going in, who took me aside, and told me that he was just come from delivering up his seal and papers to Mr. Wren; and told me he must now take his leave of me as a naval man,1 but that he shall always bear respect to his friends there, and particularly to myself, with great kindness; which I returned to him with thanks, and so, with much kindness parted: and he into, the Council. I met with Sir Samuel Morland, who chewed me two orders upon the Exchequer, one of 600l., and another of 400l., for money assigned to him, which he would have me lend him money upon, and he would allow 12 per cent. I would not meddle with them, though they are very good; and would, had I not so much money out already on public credit. But I see by this his condition all trade will be bad. I staid and heard Alderman Barker’s case of his being abused by the Council of Ireland, touching his lands there: all I observed there is the silliness of the King, playing with his dog all the while, and not minding the business,2 and what he said was mighty weak; but my Lord Keeper I observe to be a mighty able man. The business broke off without any end to it, and so I home, and thence with my wife and W. Hewer to Bartholomew fayre, and there Polichinelli, where we saw Mrs. Clerke and all her crew; and so to a private house, and sent for a side of pig, and eat it at an acquaintance of W. Hewer’s, where there was some learned physic and chymical books, and among others, a natural “Herball” very fine. Here we staid not, but to the Duke of York’s play house, and there saw “Mustapha,” which, the more I see, the more I like; and is a most admirable poem, and bravely acted; only both Betterton and Harris could not contain from laughing in the midst of a most serious part from the ridiculous mistake of one of the men upon the stage; which I did not like. Thence home, where Batelier and his sister Mary come to us and sat and talked, and so, they gone, we to supper and to bed.
25 Annotations
First Reading
language hat • Link
"I met with Sir Samuel Morland, who chewed me two orders upon the Exchequer"
"Chewed" should, of course, be "shewed" (showed).
cum salis grano • Link
"...and would, had I not so much money out already on public credit...." fails to record that he has some scribbler tendencies.
I wonder if collateral be involved, like when one of his muaical instruments were at hock.
There are those that money burns a hole in the purse, and there be others that put out monies to gather more.
cum salis grano • Link
"...I met with Sir Samuel Morland, who chewed me two orders ..."
I defer to LH but to my limited mind, it read that that poor Samuel got an earful , where is the money , no sob stories the King gave the cash to his bed mates,
Bacon Quote...."some few to bee chewed and disgested. "
chew OED
1. a. trans. To crush, bruise, and grind to pulp, by the continued action of the molar teeth, with help of the tongue, cheeks, and saliva.
3. fig. and transf. in many applications: a. by simile.
1393 ..
1597 BACON Ess. Studies (Arb.) 8 Some bookes are to bee tasted, others to bee swallowed, and some few to bee chewed and disgested.
1696 EVELYN in Pepys Corr. 3 Dec., I have of late been chewing over some old stories.
c. in reference to counsels, opinions, statements, etc.: To consider or examine deliberately (as a process preliminary to swallowing and digesting them).
1579...1626 SIR C. CORNWALLIS Disc. Prince Henry in Harl. Misc. (1641) III. 522 Counsels are to be chewed not swallowed.
1663 J. SPENCER Prodigies (1665) 397. 1678 CUDWORTH Intell. Syst. 560 Nor scrupulously chew or examine any thing.
d. in reference to plans, etc.: To meditate, devise or plan deliberately.
1599 SHAKES. Hen. V, II. ii. 56 Capitall crimes, chew'd, swallow'd, and digested.
1682 DRYDEN Duke of Guise I. iii, If while alive, I cease to chew their ruin.
1718 PRIOR To Mr. Harley 285 He chews Revenge.
e. in reference to words: To take or retain in the mouth; to keep saying or mumbling over.
1603 SHAKES. Meas. for M. II. iv. 5 Heauen in my mouth, As if I did but onely chew his name.
insisted upon the truth.
{dag}f. to chew to (a person): (cf. 2b); to reduce (anything) to a condition ready for another's use, to prepare (words, etc.) for another to utter. Obs.
1594 CAREW tr. Huarte's Exam. Wits xi. (1616) 156 Lawyers..if the cases which the law thrusteth into their mouth bee not squared and chewed to their hands, they are to seeke what to doe.
1641 MILTON Animadv. ii. Wks. (1847) 60/1 A minister that can not be trusted to pray in his own words without being chewed to..should as little be trusted to preach.
...
6. intr. To perform the action described in 1, 2; to exercise the jaws and teeth (on, upon anything); to bite, champ.
7. fig. To exercise the mind, meditate, ruminate upon, on, occas. at. Also with over; esp. to discuss, talk over (a matter).
1580 LYLY Euphues (Arb.) 351, I haue more desire to chew vpon melancholy, then to dispute vpon Magicke.
1601 SHAKES. Jul. C. I. ii. 171. 1649 SELDEN Laws Eng. II. viii. (1739) 49, I shall only leave the Reader to chew upon the point.
Paul Chapin • Link
"Betterton and Harris could not contain from laughing in the midst of a most serious part from the ridiculous mistake of one of the men upon the stage"
Nowadays that outtake would appear as an extra feature on the DVD.
language hat • Link
It is "shewed," as you can see in Latham and Matthews.
JWB • Link
First as tradgey, then as farse: Morland to Titus Oakes?
JWB • Link
That's Oates.
cum salis grano • Link
chewed,no one shewed me this entry, so truly chewed out for me old error.
Brian • Link
"silliness of the King, playing with his dog all the while, and not minding the business."
Lathan & Matthews have a comical three-word addition: "silliness of the King, playing with his dog all the while, or his codpiece, and not minding the business"
Second Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
"with Sir W. Coventry going in, who took me aside, and told me that he was just come from delivering up his seal and papers to Mr. Wren"
A major tool of office as Secretary to James Stuart, Duke of York, has just been being transferred.
A seal is a device for making an impression in wax, clay, paper, or some other medium, including an embossment on paper, and is also the impression thus made. The original purpose was to authenticate a document, a wrapper for one such as a modern envelope, or the cover of a container or package holding valuables or other objects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea…
Terry Foreman • Link
"Sir Samuel Morland, who chewed me two orders upon the Exchequer, one of 600l., and another of 400l., for money assigned to him, which he would have me lend him money upon, and he would allow 12 per cent."
For the use of Treasury orders as negotiable instruments, see http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
Terry Foreman • Link
"Alderman Barker’s case"
This case was promoted by Ormond's enemies, particularly Buckingham. It was the first blow in an attack that led to Ormond's dismissal in March from his office as Lord Lieutenant. William Barker and others had adventured £7000 in the purchase of Irish lands, but on 12 June 1667 the Council of Ireland had adjudged thei claims invalid, mainly on the ground that the money had not been paid. Barker now brought the case on appeal to the [rather distracted] King and Privy Council, but lost it, the lands being granted to others in July 1669. (Per L&M footnote, which references the Calendar of State Papers of Ireland and T. Carte, Ormond [1851], iv, 314+, which, no doubt sources the Ormond correspondence in the Carte Calendar posted here.)
Terry Foreman • Link
'so to a private house, and sent for a side of pig"
L&M helpfully note that pork was the traditional dish at Bartholomew Fair.
Terry Foreman • Link
"at an acquaintance of W. Hewer’s, where there was some learned physic and chymical books, and among others, a natural “Herball” very fine"
L&M note a specimen of this kind of book is John Evelyn's 'Hortus Hyemalis, sive Collectio Plantarum' http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
Terry Foreman • Link
"a natural “Herball”"
L&M: A book of dried and pressed plants.
Terry Foreman • Link
"both Betterton and Harris could not contain from laughing in the midst of a most serious part from the ridiculous mistake of one of the men upon the stage; which I did not like."
L&M: The play was a tragedy by Orrery. Betterton and Harris player the leading roles of Solyman and Mustapha. It was unusual for Betterton to violate artistic discipline in this way.
Robert Harneis • Link
At this time when it is the fashion to take down statues of those who were in some way connected with the slave trade, is it not time to put one up to Sir William Coventry who when he died left £3000-00 in his will for purchasing the freedom of slaves from Algiers on the Barbary Coast? According to Wikipedia he had alread paid for the liberation of sixty slaves before his death.
Mary K • Link
that private house.
Was this, I wonder, a 17th century fore-runner of the kind of pop-up food supplier that one can encounter these days, this one making a speciality of roast pork for the duration of Bartholomew Fair?
San Diego Sarah • Link
Codpiece? in 1667? ... I doubt it very much:
"Costume historians have long argued that the codpiece fell from favour as the result of the vogue for femininity that swept through the French and English courts. Elaborate ruffs and ballooning breeches heralded a shift in focus to the face and hips. “It’s evident in the late-16th and early 17th-century portrait miniatures of decorous young men by Nicholas Hilliard and similar painters that the style of men’s fashion was taking a new direction,” says Bartels.
"However, fashion is more subtle than we think. Drawing on detailed investigation of contemporary sources, Bartels argues that codpiece entered a third – and hitherto overlooked – phase in its evolution. During the last quarter of the 16th century, she suggests that the codpiece was squeezed downwards and diminished in size, and then finally supplanted, by the emergence of another trend known as the ‘peascod’ belly."
For the whole argument that this style had died about 100 years before Pepys:
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/fe…
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... Sir W. Coventry going in, who took me aside, and told me that he was just come from delivering up his seal and papers to Mr. Wren; and told me he must now take his leave of me as a naval man, ..."
Thank you for your service, Sir William. You were a casualty.
Terry Foreman • Link
"silliness of the King, playing with his dog all the while, or his codpiece, and not minding the business"
Keenly spotted, Brian (L&M, 421). .
This is one of many passages that were not transcribed for the Henry B. Wheatley edition. Elsewhere in that edition Pepys does show his take on codpieces, that are, as San Diego Sarah sats, outdated in his time.
1662, September 24th. Sir J. Minnes, Sir W. Batten, and I, going forth toward White Hall, we hear that the King and Duke are come this morning to the Tower to see the Dunkirk money! So we by coach to them, and there went up and down all the magazines with them; but methought it was but poor discourse and frothy that the King’s companions (young Killigrew among the rest) about the codpieces of some of the men in armour there to be seen, had with him. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42…
Cp. https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
San Diego Sarah • Link
The Tower has a magnificent display of both Kings' and horses' armor, which is what Young Killigrew was inspecting:
https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-l…
Some of the wooden horses and kings we see on display today are worth as much attention as the armor they are wearing ...
https://museumcrush.org/the-woode…
According to the Royal Armouries blog, Grinling Gibbons was commissioned to create and carve a horse and figure of Charles II to hold his armor in June 1685.
Six months later Gibbons’ workshop supplied the wooden horse and figure at a cost of £40.
The considerable sum was said to be eight times the cost of the horse made by the previous woodcarver, Thomas Cass, in 1669, and given Gibbons’ reputation for fine craftsmanship another order was placed – this time for a horse and figure of King Charles.
And more information is there about the display and the woodcarvers.
San Diego Sarah • Link
"At Vauxhall, Sir Samuel Morland built a fine room, anno 1667, the inside all of looking-glass, and fountains very pleasant to behold, which is much visited by strangers: it stands in the middle of the [NEW SPRING] garden, covered with Cornish slate, on the point of which he placed a punchinello, very well carved, which held a dial, but the winds have demolished it."[6]
6 Walford, Edward (1893). Old and New London. VI. London: Cassell. p. 449.
Sir John Hawkins, in his General History of Music (1776), says:
"The house seems to have been rebuilt since the time that Sir Samuel Morland dwelt in it. About the year 1730, Mr. Jonathan Tyers became the occupier of it, and, there being a large garden belonging to it, planted with a great number of stately trees, and laid out in shady walks, ...; and the house being converted into a tavern, or place of entertainment, was much frequented by the votaries of pleasure.[8]"
8 The lease to Jonathan Tyers (1702–1767) was from 1728; little is known of Tyers' early history; .... David Coke, "Vauxhall Gardens", Rococo: Art and Design in Hogarth's England (London: Victoria and Albert Museum) 1984:75–81, p.75, and cat. no. F1 (bust).
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
@@@
Sir Samuel Morland obtained a lease of the place [NEW SPRING GARDENS[, and Charles II made him Master of Mechanics, and here "he [Morland], anno 1667, built a fine room," says Aubrey, "the inside all of looking-glass and fountains, very pleasant to behold." -- Wheatley, 1893.
So Sir Samuel Morland is doing very well for himself now. I wonder why Pepys never mentions visiting his house there? Perhaps he didn't know Sir Sam was the owner?
I previously considered Morland's move from Pall Mall to Vauxhall to be a downgrade, but now I know he built a house in the middle of these gardens, I think it was an upgrade.
Third Reading
San Diego Sarah • Link
Talking about Grinling Gibbons, according to The Gentle Author on the Spitalfield's blog, Gibbons immigrated to England in 1667 -- here's the story, but go to the blog for spectacular pictures:
In Search Of Grinling Gibbons
Master wood carver Hugh Wedderburn took me on a quest in search of Grinling Gibbons in the City of London. Gibbons was born in Rotterdam in 1648, where he trained as wood carver and was exposed to the art of Dutch still life painting before he came to Britain in 1667.
John Evelyn wrote in his diary in 1671, ‘I this day first acquainted with a young man Gibson [sic] whom I had lately found in an obscure place & that by mere accident, as I was walking neere a poor solitary thatched house in a field in our parish neere Says Court. I found him shut in but looking through the window I perceiv’d him carving that large cartoone or Crucifix of Tintoretto.’
John Evelyn arranged introductions for Grinling Gibbons to Charles II and Christopher Wren, enabling him to set up his workshop on Ludgate Hill – an auspicious and opportune location for a wood carver, beside the ruins of Old St. Paul’s.
It is significant that Evelyn described Gibbons carving from a 2-dimensional image, transforming it into physical form. Today Gibbons is recognised for his extraordinarily lifelike carvings of flowers, fruit and foliage, which bear a relationship to still life painting yet upon close examination are less naturalistic than they may at first appear.
From Hugh Wedderburn’s workshop in Southwark, we undertook our quest westward across the City, starting at the Tower of London to visit the Parade of Kings – a sequence of monarchs in armour on horseback – where a wooden horse is attributed to Gibbons and a portrait head of Charles I is by the same hand. While the other horses are lifeless merry-go-round figures, more mounts for armour than sculptures in their own right, it is easy to appreciate why this one particular horse might earn its attribution, with its lifelike flared nostrils and bulging veins visible through the skin. The accompanying head of Charles I possesses a soulful melancholy and presence, in stark contrast to the workmanlike nature of the others.
Just up the hill at All Hallows By The Tower, we admired the elaborate font * lid of foliage with two putti gesturing to the large bird atop the construction. When the lid is suspended up above the font for ceremonies and seen from below, it has proportion and balance with everything in place. Yet when it is lowered, the sculpture appears distorted and the putti’s anatomy bulges curiously. This is an example of carving in perspective and evidence of Gibbons’ sense of theatre, creating a visual effect that works from a single view point and is deliberately non-naturalistic.
San Diego Sarah • Link
CONCLUSION
Five minutes walk away at St. Mary Abchurch, Hugh and I climbed up ladders to admire the swags on the reredos closely. When these swags were first installed the pale lime wood stood in contrast to the dark oak background, throwing them into even more dramatic relief. This is what we imagine when we think of Grinling Gibbons – lush garlands of fruit, flowers and foliage that he carved in a manner which appeared more lifelike than had been seen before. Yet on close examination, it became evident that the definition of the leaves and fruit was only carved where it was visible, with the forms merging into abstraction away from view.
At St. Paul’s, we admired Grinling Gibbons majestic quire stalls and epic organ case before climbing up into the roof where trays of bits and pieces that have fallen off over the centuries are preserved. Like the most fascinating jigsaw in the world, here are thousands of fragments that all belong somewhere. Examining them closely revealed the breathtaking detail of the carving by Gibbons and his studio who were responsible for all the architectural decoration in the cathedral. Even the wings on the angels can be identified as derived from different species of birds, revealing the minute observation of the natural world that informs these bravura carvings.
As we left the cathedral, Hugh and I paused to look back at the west front and admire Gibbons’ lavish foliate adornments that provide such a successful counterpoint to the austerity of Wren’s geometry. Somehow the palm leaves on the Corinthian columns are more luxuriant that you might expect. Garlands of leaves and fruit have been hung directly across structural elements of the design, disrupting its formality.
The legend that Gibbons and Wren had a tense working relationship comes as no surprise because the conflict is evident in the dynamic between the two visual languages at play. Yet it is this dynamic between the classical geometry and the presence of organic forms that makes this architecture so compelling and alive. This is Gibbons’ contribution and one of many reasons why we should celebrate his genius.
https://spitalfieldslife.com/2024…
* I posted the story behind the font top last year at
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…