Tuesday 8 October 1667

Up pretty betimes, though not so soon as we intended, by reason of Murford’s not rising, and then not knowing how to open our door, which, and some other pleasant simplicities of the fellow, did give occasion to us to call him Sir Martin Marrall, and W. Hewer being his helper and counsellor, we did call him, all this journey, Mr. Warner, which did give us good occasion of mirth now and then. At last, rose, and up, and broke our fast, and then took coach, and away, and at Newport did call on Mr. Lowther, and he and his friend, and the master of the house, their friend, where they were, a gentleman, did presently get a-horseback and overtook us, and went with us to Audley-End, and did go along with us all over the house and garden: and mighty merry we were. The house indeed do appear very fine, but not so fine as it hath heretofore to me; particularly the ceilings are not so good as I always took them to be, being nothing so well wrought as my Lord Chancellor’s are; and though the figure of the house without be very extraordinary good, yet the stayre-case is exceeding poor; and a great many pictures, and not one good one in the house but one of Harry the Eighth, done by Holben; and not one good suit of hangings in all the house, but all most ancient things, such as I would not give the hanging-up of in my house; and the other furniture, beds and other things, accordingly.1 Only the gallery is good, and, above all things, the cellars, where we went down and drank of much good liquor; and indeed the cellars are fine: and here my wife and I did sing to my great content. And then to the garden, and there eat many grapes, and took some with us and so away thence, exceeding well satisfied, though not to that degree that, by my old esteem of the house, I ought and did expect to have done, the situation of it not pleasing me. Here we parted with Lowther and his friends, and away to Cambridge, it being foul, rainy weather, and there did take up at the Rose, for the sake of Mrs. Dorothy Drawwater, the vintner’s daughter, which is mentioned in the play of Sir Martin Marrall. Here we had a good chamber, and bespoke a good supper; and then I took my wife, and W. Hewer, and Willet, it holding up a little, and shewed them Trinity College and St. John’s Library, and went to King’s College Chapel, to see the outside of it only; and so to our inne, and with much pleasure did this, they walking in their pretty morning gowns, very handsome, and I proud to find myself in condition to do this; and so home to our lodging, and there by and by, to supper, with much good sport, talking with the Drawers concerning matters of the town, and persons whom I remember, and so, after supper, to cards; and then to bed, lying, I in one bed, and my wife and girl in another, in the same room, and very merry talking together, and mightily pleased both of us with the girl. Saunders, the only violin in my time, is, I hear, dead of the plague in the late plague there.

20 Annotations

First Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

John Evelyn's Diary

8th October, 1667. Came to dine with me Dr. Bathurst, Dean of Wells, President of Trinity College, sent by the Vice-Chancellor.of Oxford, in the name both of him and the whole University, to thank me for procuring [ from Henry Howard ] the inscriptions [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arun… ], and to receive my directions what was to be done to show their gratitude to Mr. Howard
[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henr… ]

http://bit.ly/d482SJ

Bradford  •  Link

Travel writing brings out another side of Pepys; what a happy entry, even though it must end with the plague.

Carl in Boston  •  Link

"Only the gallery is good, and, above all things, the cellars, where we went down and drank of much good liquor; and indeed the cellars are fine: and here my wife and I did sing to my great content."
Wonderful, wonderful, may we do so in our times as well. Let me not see into the future, this is well enough for me.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"talking with the Drawers concerning matters of the town, and persons whom I remember"

drawer \draw"er\, n.

1. One who, or that which, draws; as:
(a) One who draws liquor for guests; a waiter in a taproom. --Shak. Henry IV

http://www.dictionary.net/drawer

Barbara Long  •  Link

I'm totally bummed that this is the last entry on this site. I have enjoyed reading your excellent notes and comments which have been very helpful to me in navigating Sam's diary.

Mary  •  Link

Nil desperandum.

There's lots more to come - the diary doesn't end until 31st May 1669 - always provided that Phil is prepared to keep us all going until we reach the final entry.

Mary  •  Link

Sam's second thoughts on Audley End.

I'm amused by his judgment that little in the house (except the cellars) is anything like as fine as he had originally thought. His taste has certainly changed, if not necessarily been refined, since his last visit.

Grahamt  •  Link

Drawers:
As this is shown with a capital initial D, could it not be a surname, perhaps a mis-transcription of their hosts' name, the Drawwaters?

Terry Foreman  •  Link

The capital D on Drawers was an affectation of the 1893 edition of the Diary (L&M lack it), presumably to recognize an office.

Here we have Pepys chatting up the wait-staff about the usual suspects, the habitués of the Rose as he recalled them -- a quite appealing portrait of Our Boy at his most congenial.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

The capital D does preclude our imagining SP in discourse with the furniture.

Michael Robinson  •  Link

"The house indeed do appear very fine, but not so fine as it hath heretofore to me; particularly the ceilings are not so good as I always took them to be, being nothing so well wrought as my Lord Chancellor’s are; ..."

Series of interior and exterior views of Audley End, House and village:

http://viewfinder.english-heritag…

Note the surviving interiors were modified, c 1760, and then additional rooms and ceilings added or altered, by Adam, c 1775. The stable block is the grandest surviving from the C 17th., but the interior fittings date c 1880-1900. There is mention of this in some, but not all, of the individual picture captions.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"...here my wife and I did sing to my great content."

Well, a possible new career as the Singing Pepys should the Naval Office be shut down.

I wonder if there was an echo...

David Baxter  •  Link

The Mr Warner referred to is Sir Martin Marrall’s man in the play whose efforts to assist his master to win the hand of Mistress Millisent are continually thwarted by Sir Martin’s foolishness. Warner’s aim is to get Mistress Millisent for his master, then “After this exploit, I will have Lilly draw me in the habit of a hero, with a laurel on my temples, and an inscription below it; This is Warner, the flower of serving-men.”

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Another character in the play

"away to Cambridge, it being foul, rainy weather, and there did take up at the Rose, for the sake of Mrs. Dorothy Drawwater, the vintner’s daughter, which is mentioned in the play of Sir Martin Marrall."

Dryden's play refers to a bastard begot by Old Moody 'when he was a Cambridge-scholar'. The mother was 'Dorothy, daughter to one Draw-water, a vintner at the Rose'. https://books.google.com/books?id…
L&M note the surname may have been fictional. Dryden and Pepys had been at Cambridge together.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"Only the gallery is good"

L&M: Evelyn (1 September 1654) thought this 'most cheerful, and I thinke, one of the best in England'.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"Saunders, the only violin in my time, is, I hear, dead of the plague in the late plague there."

L&M: Possibly Saunders was one of the family of musicians of that name whose house in Green St, Cambridge, had been shut up in the plague in October 1665: see J. R. Wardale (ed.) Clare College letters, pp. 69-70. He was the violinist to whose performances a double-edged compliment was pain by the Cambridge poet, Nicholas Hookes (a contemporary of Pepys at the university):
'O' the' Violin
Saunders plays well
where Magge or Mel han't been'
(Amanda, 1653, p. 58).

Terry Foreman  •  Link

To Mr. LILLY, Musick-Master in Cambridge.

SIR, I have seen your scip-jack singers flie,
As if their motion taugh't Ubiquitie:
I've seen the trembling Cat'lin's smart and brisk
Start from the frets, dance, leap, and nimbly frisk
In palsie capers, pratling (a most sweet
Language of Notes) Curranto's as they meet:
I've heard each string speak in so short a space
As if all spoke at once; with stately grace
The surley tenour grumble at your touch,
And th' ticklish-maiden treble laugh as much,
Which (if your bowe-hand whip it wantonly,)
Most pertly chirps and jabbers merrily;
Li'e frolic Nightingals, whose narrow throats
Suck Musick in and out, and gargle notes;
[Page 57]Each strain makes smooth, and curles the air agen,
Like currents suck't by narrow whirlepits in;
Sometimes they murmur like the shallow springs,
Whose hastie streams forc't into Crystal rings,
And check't by pebbles, pretty Musick make
In kisses and such language as they speak,
'Tis soft and easie, Heaven can't out-do't,
That under Fairie-ground is nothing to't:
Who e're that earthly mortal Cherub be,
Whose well-tun'd soul delights in melodie:
He ventures hard, if for an houre he dares
To your surprizing straines apply his eares,
We finde such Magick in your Harmony,
As if to hear you were to hear and die.
Were you a Batchelour, and bold to trie
Fortunes, what Lady's she, though ne're so high
And rich by birth, should see the tickling sport
Your finger makes, and would not have you for't;
Beyond those Saints who speak ex tempore,
Your well-spoke viol scornes tautologie;
And I in truth had rather hear you teach
O'th' Lyra, then the rarest tub-man preach:
In's holy speeches he may strike my eares
With more of Heav'n; you with more o'th' spheres,
I've heard your base mumble and mutter too,
Made angry with your cholerick hand, while you
With hastie jirks to vex and anger't more
Correct its stubbornnesse and lash it o're:
I've heard you pawse, and dwell upon an aire,
(Then make't i'th' end (as lost to part it were)
[Page 58] Languish and melt away so leasurely,)
As if 'twere pity that its Eccho die;
Then snatch up notes, as if your viol broke,
And in the breaking every splinter spoke:
I've seen your active hands vault to and fro,
This to give grace, that to command your bowe;
As if your singers and your instrument
By conspiration made you eminent.
We have good Musick and Musicians here,
If not the best, as good as any where:
A brave old Irish Harper, and you know
English or French way few or none out-go
Our Lutanists; the Lusemores too I think
For Organists, the Sack-buts breath may stink,
And yet old Brownes be sweet, o'th' Violin
Saunders plays well, where Magge or Mel han't been.
Then on his Cornet brave thanksgiving Mun,
Playes on Kings Chappel after Sermon's done:
http://tei.it.ox.ac.uk/tcp/Texts-…

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"... and not one good suit of hangings in all the house, but all most ancient things, such as I would not give the hanging-up of in my house; ..."

Hangings generally referred to tapestries, and rich people frequently travelled with their tapestries as they were expensive, beautiful, unbreakable, stopped drafts, and made their next stop feel like home. They also took their beds and chests of clothes.

It's quite likely the owners left these old tapestries behind when they left. Maybe they were hanging in difficult places to reach?
Anyways, Pepys, you should be so lucky as to have them hanging in your house!

Tapestries
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…

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