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

so plentifully scented in life), but with a numerous and valuable progeny, amongst whom was this wonder both of greatness and goodness.⁠ ⁠… I will readily acknowledge (and why, indeed, should I scruple to own what himself with such repeated contrition and brokenness of spirit would to all sober ears so freely and heartily condemn himself for?) that a long scene of his life had been acted off in the sports and follies of sin. If I may use his own words, it was a pagan and abandoned way he had sometime pursu’d, scepticism itself not excepted.⁠ ⁠… He had for many years practis’d in the politicks of this nation, and having so nearly attacht himself to one of the greatest Ministers of State [Lord Chancellor Clarendon] that this kingdom ever knew (whose mistaken wisdom and integrity perhaps hath been since better understood by the want of him), made himself no small figure in the administration.”

The Lords Middleton are descended from Sir St. John Broderick, a younger brother of Sir Alan. —⁠B. ↩

See July 4th, 1663. ↩

Quick or ready, a naval term frequently used by Shakespeare. ↩

Nathaniel Whitfield was one of the four clerks of the Ticket Office, and was detailed to attend to Sir William Batten. ↩

Charles Howard, created Earl of Carlisle, 1661, employed on several embassies, and Governor of Jamaica. Died February 24th, 1684⁠–⁠85. —⁠B. ↩

John Hingston, see note 3137. ↩

Mrs. Corey. See January 15th, 1668⁠–⁠69. Knipp is not mentioned by Genest as having acted in the play (English Stage, vol. i, p. 66). ↩

Captain Hogg wrote to Sir William Penn on December 27th that he had “sailed from Cowes on the 23rd, chased several vessels, and was chased by twenty sail, consisting of four Holland men-of-war, three merchant ships, etc., but escaped, and took a galliot hoy of their fleet” (Calendar of State Papers, 1666⁠–⁠67, p. 373). On the previous November 25th Commissioner Thomas Middleton reported to Pepys that Captain Hogg had brought into Portsmouth a privateer bound for France, laden with deals (p. 258 of the same). ↩

Captain Robert Robinson was sent in December as commodore of a squadron of six sail (the Warspight, the Jersey, the Diamond, the St. Patrick, the Nightingale, and the Oxford) to convoy the fleet home from Gottenburgh. On the 25th they fell in with a squadron of five Dutch men-of-war, of which three, including the admiral, were after a short action taken. Captain Robinson was knighted on December 12th, 1673 (Chamock’s Biographia Navalis, vol. i, p. 63). ↩

A blank in the MS. ↩

John Swinfen, M.P. for Tamworth. ↩

M.P. for Lincoln, made a Commissioner of the Admiralty, 1679. —⁠B. ↩

This tragicomedy, which refers to the feudal custom styled the droit du seigneur, was acted in 1628, and printed in Beaumont and Fletcher’s Works, 1647. Dryden, in the preface to his Fables, says “there is more indecency in the Custom of the Country than in all our plays together, yet this has been often acted on the stage in my remembrance.” ↩

See January 11th, 1665⁠–⁠66. ↩

A mazer or drinking-bowl turned out of some kind of wood, by preference of maple, and especially the spotted or speckled variety called “bird’s-eye maple” (see W. H. St. John Hope’s paper, “On the English Medieval Drinking-Bowls Called Mazers,” Archæologia, vol. 50, pp. 129⁠–⁠93). ↩

There is a song called “The New Droll,” in a rare volume entitled The Loyal Garland, or a Choice Collection of Songs Highly in Request⁠ ⁠… Fifth Edition, printed for T. Passinger, at the Three Bibles, on London Bridge, 1686, referred to in Beloe’s Anecdotes of Literature, 1812, vol. vi, p. 90, and Halliwell’s Catalogue of Chap-Books, Garlands, etc., 1849, p. 106. ↩

Belonging to Farryner, the king’s baker. ↩

This must be a landing-place, as no actual bridge existed at Blackfriars until 1760⁠–⁠69. ↩

Thomas, Earl of Arundel. The library was presented to the Royal Society on the advice of John Evelyn. Mr. Howard gave the Society all the printed books, of which a catalogue was printed; but the MSS. he divided between the Society and the College of Arms. Of the latter portion a catalogue has been privately printed by Sir Charles George Young, Garter King of Arms. In the year 1831 an arrangement was made between the Trustees of the British Museum and the Royal Society, the consent of the then Duke of Norfolk having been obtained, by which the Society’s portion of the MSS. was transferred to the Museum, where they are now preserved for public use, and known as the Arundel MSS. A very full catalogue of them has been published by the Trustees. About twenty years ago the Society sold the principal portion of the Arundel Library. ↩

His salary was paid to March 25th, 1667. ↩

H. Muddiman, writing to George Powell on November 15th, 1666, says: “Lady Denham is recovering; some have raised strange discourse about the cause of her sickness, but the physicians affirm it to have been iliaco passio” (Calendar of State Papers, 1666⁠–⁠67, pp. 262, 263). The popular idea that she was poisoned is alluded to in the Grammont Memoirs, chap. ix. Lord Orrery, writing to the Duke of Ormond, January 25th, 1666⁠–⁠67, says: “My Lady Denham’s body, at her own desire, was opened, but no sign of poison was found” (Orrery State Papers, 1742, p. 219).