there seems to be a fair amount of interaction with Pepys and his associates and, at times, their respective mistresses. These interactions at times take the form of reunions
(1/2)
"Up and to the office, where all the morning till late, and Mr. Coventry with us, the first time since before the plague, then hearing my wife was gone abroad to buy things and see her mother and father, whom she hath not seen since before the plague, and no dinner provided for me ready, I walked to Captain Cocke’s, knowing my Lord Bruncker dined there, and there very merry, and a good dinner."
so nine months into the plague taking hold, there seems to be a preoccupation with routine, but no real need to be exposed to the constant reminder of death as by the graves in the churchyard. The business of the day and social interactions in the household certainly made for busy times. For this entry, how you give kidney or bladder stones to relatives is a mystery, but maybe reflects the dietary habits of the day.
(4/2)
"Lord’s day; and my wife and I the first time together at church since the plague, and now only because of Mr. Mills his coming home to preach his first sermon; expecting a great excuse for his leaving the parish before any body went, and now staying till all are come home; but he made but a very poor and short excuse, and a bad sermon. It was a frost, and had snowed last night, which covered the graves in the churchyard, so as I was the less afeard for going through. Here I had the content to see my noble Mrs. Lethulier, and so home to dinner, and all the afternoon at my Journall till supper, it being a long while behindhand. At supper my wife tells me that W. Joyce has been with her this evening, the first time since the plague, and tells her my aunt James is lately dead of the stone (bladder and kidney stones) , and what she had hath given to his and his brother’s wife and my cozen Sarah. So after supper to work again, and late to bed."
around this time there is discussion of putting one's affairs in order; not for any fatal reasons but in a hope for a return to normalcy. As you can see, not without it's hazards
(7/2)
"It being fast day I staid at home all day long to set things to rights in my chamber by taking out all my books, and putting my chamber in the same condition it was before the plague. But in the morning doing of it, and knocking up a nail I did bruise my left thumb so as broke a great deal of my flesh off, that it hung by a little. It was a sight frighted my wife, but I put some balsam of Mrs. Turner’s to it, and though in great pain, yet went on with my business, and did it to my full content, setting every thing in order, in hopes now that the worst of our fears are over as to the plague for the next year. Interrupted I was by two or three occasions this day to my great vexation, having this the only day I have been able to set apart for this work since my coming to town. At night to supper, weary, and to bed, having had the plasterers and joiners also to do some jobbs."
so the business year has commenced with a great deal of activity and people - who I assume that are glad to be seen alive. His dealings as an administrator of Admiralty certainly took hold with gusto.
(9/2)
"Up, and betimes to Sir Philip Warwicke, who was glad to see me, and very kind. Thence to Colonell Norwood’s lodgings, and there set about Houblons’ business about their ships. Thence to Westminster, to the Exchequer, about my Tangier business to get orders for tallys, and so to the Hall, where the first day of the Terme (the first day of the legal year), and the Hall very full of people, and much more than was expected, considering the plague that hath been."
there were many examples of people leaving the city altogether and some departing as far as abroad, from royalty to members of parliament. But with the onset of the new year, the affairs of the time needed to be attended to. As an aside, Sir Thomas Harvy was considered a conceited person by Pepys.
(10/2)
"Up, and to the office. At noon, full of business, to dinner. This day comes first Sir Thomas Harvy (the Navy Commissioner) after the plague, having been out of towne all this while. He was coldly received by us, and he went away before we rose also, to make himself appear yet a man less necessary"
now there was an invention that didn't come into being until the 1960's - the surgical face mask. Something that could have been of great benefit
(12/2)
"Then comes Mr. Caesar, my boy’s lute-master, whom I have not seen since the plague before, but he hath been in Westminster all this while very well; and tells me in the height of it, how bold people there were, to go in sport to one another’s burials; and in spite too, ill people would breathe in the faces (out of their windows) of well people going by."
so Pepys was busy with the affairs of the day and the plague had taken hold proper as far as preoccupation goes, but not so preoccupied that he did not ogle women. The volume of victims had increased and covered greater distance.
13/2
"Up, and all the morning at the office. At noon to the ’Change (Exchange), and thence after business dined at the Sheriffe’s [Hooker], being carried by Mr. Lethulier, where to my heart’s content I met with his wife, a most beautifull fat woman. But all the house melancholy upon the sickness of a daughter of the house in childbed, Mr. Vaughan’s lady. So all of them undressed, but however this lady a very fine woman. I had a salute of her, and after dinner some discourse the Sheriffe and I about a parcel of tallow I am buying for the office of him. I away home, and there at the office all the afternoon till late at night, and then away home to supper and to bed."
"Ill newes this night that the plague is encreased this week, and in many places else about the towne, and at Chatham and elsewhere."
the preoccupation with normal activities seemed to be hampered that upon return to the local coffee house, the amazement to find the locals still alive.
(16/2)
"With Moore to the Coffee-House, the first time I have been there, where very full, and company it seems hath been there all the plague time."
so we have mention of not one but two mistresses; Madam Pierce, his "valentine" and a Mrs Lane who he not seen for some time, before the onset of the plague. As far as I can make of it, Pepys talks in a sort of "pig french" when he discusses the sordid thing he did to his mistresses. Coupled with talk of the exchange of money, it all comes across as a kind of prostitution. What a cad and a bounder. Back in this time, there wasn't a total lock down, but houses that were plague effected were closed down and carried quite the stigma around them
(20/2)
"I there found Captain Ferrers going to christen a child of his born yesterday, and I come just pat to be a godfather, along with my Lord Hinchingbrooke, and Madam Pierce, my Valentine, which for that reason I was pretty well contented with, though a little vexed to see myself so beset with people to spend me money, as she of a Valentine and little Mrs. Tooker, who is come to my house this day from Greenwich, and will cost me 20s., my wife going out with her this afternoon, and now this christening. Well, by and by the child is brought and christened Katharine, and I this day on this occasion drank a glasse of wine, which I have not professedly done these two years, I think, but a little in the time of the sicknesse.
I away to Westminster Hall, and there hear that Mrs. Lane is come to town. So I staid loitering up and down till anon she comes and agreed to meet at Swayn’s, and there I went anon, and she come, but staid but little, the place not being private. I have not seen her since before the plague. So thence parted and ‘rencontrais a’ her last ‘logis’ (met her at her last lodgings), and in the place did what I ‘tenais a mind pour ferais con her’ (did what I had a mind to do with her). At last she desired to borrow money of me, 5l., and would pawn gold with me for it, which I accepted and promised in a day or two to supply her. So away home to the office, and thence home, where little Mrs. Tooker staid all night with us, and a pretty child she is, and happens to be niece to my beauty that is dead, that lived at the Jackanapes, in Cheapside. So to bed, a little troubled that I have been at two houses this afternoon with Mrs. Lane that were formerly shut up of the plague."
Another mention of Gresham College, an unusual institution of higher learning off Holborn in central London. It enrolls no students and grants no degrees. Gresham College has provided lectures free and open to the public since its foundation under the Will of Sir Thomas Gresham in 1597, long before there was any university in London. Maybe, in part, the precursor to trade schools and art colleges
(21/2)
"Thence with my Lord Bruncker to Gresham College, the first time after the sicknesse that I was there, and the second time any met. And here a good lecture of Mr. Hooke’s about the trade of felt-making, very pretty. And anon alone with me about the art of drawing pictures by Prince Rupert’s rule and machine, and another of Dr. Wren’s;1 but he says nothing do like squares, or, which is the best in the world, like a darke roome, —[The camera obscura.]— which pleased me mightily."
Pepys wife is sitting for her portrait; some petty gossip about an associate of Pepys wife, but still fear and reservation about the volume of people in the town as a potential source of plague
(22/2)
"Up, and to the office, where sat all the morning. At noon home to dinner and thence by coach with my wife for ayre principally for her. I alone stopped at Hales’s and there mightily am pleased with my wife’s picture that is begun there, and with Mr. Hill’s, though I must [owne] I am not more pleased with it now the face is finished than I was when I saw it the second time of sitting. Thence to my Lord Sandwich’s, but he not within, but goes to-morrow. My wife to Mrs. Hunt’s, who is lately come to towne and grown mighty fat. I called her there, and so home and late at the office, and so home to supper and to bed. We are much troubled that the sicknesse in general (the town being so full of people) should be but three, and yet of the particular disease of the plague there should be ten encrease."
so the feeling I get is with the beginning of the new year, there is an enthusiasm as the numbers of the recent past have decreased, but not without concerns as new plague numbers are increasing. The business year is starting up but not without a certain amount of fear in the community.
No comments:
Post a Comment