The Diary Samuel Pepys (love books to read .TXT) 📖

article, “Who was Cocker?” Bibliographer, July, 1884, vol. vi, p. 25). ↩

Pepys refers to the passage in Troylus and Cryseyde (book iii, stanza ccii, lines 1408⁠–⁠1414):

“Allas! what hath this lovers the agylte?
Dispitous Day, thyn be the pyne of Helle!
For many a lover hastow slayn, and wilt;
Thi pourynge in wol nowher lat hem dwelle:
What? profrestow thi light here for to selle?
Go selle it hem that smale seles grave,
We wol the nought, as nedeth no day have.”

Morris’s Aldine edition of Chaucer, vol. iv, p. 284

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The General Post Office was originally in Cloak Lane, Dowgate Hill, but was subsequently removed to the Black Swan, Bishopsgate. The latter place was destroyed in the Fire of London in 1666. There is no notice of these music meetings in the records of the Post Office. ↩

Lord Viscount Brouncker was the first president of the Royal Society after the charter had been obtained, but Sir Robert Moray had been appointed president when the society was first founded, and it was in his honour as a Scotsman that the anniversary meeting was fixed to take place annually on St. Andrew’s Day (November 30th). ↩

Portuguese has frequently been treated as a plural, and a false singular, Portuguee, formed from it. See an interesting paper by Mr. Danby P. Fry, “On the words Chinee, Maltee, Portuguee, Yankee, Pea, Cherry, Sherry, and Shay” (Philological Society’s Transactions, 1873⁠–⁠74, p. 253). ↩

An optical instrument used to enable objects to be seen in the dark. The name is derived from the Greek words σκότος and σκοπἑω. ↩

King Henry was acted by Harris and Owen Tudor by Betterton. Downes says that the “play was splendidly cloth’d. The King in the Duke of York’s coronation suit, Owen Tudor in King Charles’s, Duke of Burgundy (Smith) in the Lord of Oxford’s, and the rest all new.” Mrs. Betterton (Ianthe) acted as Princess Katharine. Mrs. Long was the Queen of France, and Mrs. Davis, Anne of Burgundy. ↩

Experimental Philosophy in Three Books, Containing New Experiments, Microscopical, Mercurial, Magnetical; London, 1664, by Henry Power (sm. 4to, pp. 192). Mr. F. C. S. Roper, who printed privately in 1865 a Catalogue of Works on the Microscope, described this as the earliest work on the microscope in the English language which he had met with. ↩

Servant = lover. ↩

Among the State Papers is a letter from Edward Montagu to Secretary Bennet, dated August 29th, 1664, in which he writes, “If his last proposal do not succeed, will rather choose what is worst for himself than trouble his friends any longer; and if unable to serve him another way, will do it by ridding him of his importunity” (Calendar, Domestic, 1663⁠–⁠64, p. 675). ↩

A tragicomedy by James Shirley, “written when the stage was interdicted,” and first performed after the Restoration. Before the publication of this notice in Pepys, Langbaine’s statement was the only evidence that it had ever been acted. —⁠B. ↩

Pepys notices Sir W. Penn’s feast on the anniversary of his wedding-day, when he had been married eighteen years (January 6th, 1661⁠–⁠62). See vol. ii, p. 165. ↩

The fourth edition of Samuel Daniel’s Collection of the History of England was published in 1650, and the fifth edition in 1685. The first part was originally published in 1612. ↩

Sir Anthony Bateman. ↩

Elizabeth Falkener, wife of John Falkener, announced to Pepys the death of “her dear and loving husband” in a letter dated July 19th, 1664 “begs interest that she may be in something considered by the person succeeding her husband in his employment, which has occasioned great expenses.” (Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1663⁠–⁠64, p. 646) ↩

Sturbridge Fair, which is still held, is of great antiquity. The first trace of it is to be found in a charter granted about 1211 by King John to the Lepers of the Hospital of St. Mary Magdalen at Sturbridge by Cambridge. The fair was to be held in the close of the hospital on the vigil and feast of the Holy Cross. The name is derived from the little river of Stere or Sture, flowing into the Cam near Cambridge. ↩

Gardener’s Lane, Westminster, between King Street and Duke Street. ↩

James Huysman (1656⁠–⁠96). In Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painting he is said to have “rivalled Lely, and with reason.” ↩

In the Royal Collection.

“The dress is that of a cavalier about the time of the Civil War, buff with blue ribands.”

Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painting, ed. Dallaway, vol. ii, p. 122, note

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Huysman is said by Walpole to have been himself most partial to his picture of Queen Catherine. “He created himself the queen’s painter, and to justify it, made her sit for every Madonna or Venus that he drew.” ↩

William Penn, afterwards the famous Quaker. P. Gibson, writing to him in March, 1711⁠–⁠12, says: “I remember your honour very well, when you newly came out of France and wore pantaloon breeches.” ↩

Tom Edwards made love to Mrs. Pepys’s chambermaid Jane (see February 11th, 1667⁠–⁠68), and Jane had a fit of jealousy on August 19th, 1668, but the two were married on March 26th, 1669. There is some confusion in the Diary between the Pepys’s chambermaids named Jane, for reference is made to Jane Wayneman and to Jane Gentleman, but it appears from the marriage licence that Tom’s wife was Jane Birch. The licence is as follows: “Thomas Edwards, of St. Olave, Hart Street, London, gent., bachelor, about 25, and Jane Birch, of same, spinster,