Samuel Pepys' diary is well known among those who are interested in seventeenth century English history. It offers a candid and lively view of London during the middle of the century. I find Pepys' descriptions of his daily flirtations with women friends (and occasional flirtations with his wife), his obsession with his fortune, and his fascination with music particularly fun to read.
An enterprising person has created a website for his famous diary, on which Pepys' daily entries can be read on a daily basis, and upon which equally enterprising and knowledgeable people comment. I've found myself reading the RSS feed each morning and following Samuel's London comings and goings.
Yesterday's entry was particularly interesting to me. He begins the entry by saying
Up, and comes Mr. Foley and his man, with a box of a great variety of carpenter’s and joyner’s tooles, which I had bespoke, to me, which please me mightily; but I will have more.
I was not aware that Pepys had a predilection for tools, but how I feel his pain!
I was also not familiar with the name Foley as tool manufacturer, but one of the beauties of the Pepys' Diary site is that there are many notes and annotations to the entries, including one for Foley, which explains that he is a member of the Foley family which built a manufacturing dynasty in Worcestershire.
2 comments:
Pepys and tools! I have also enjoyed reading his diary. I'll check out that diary website and share it with Bruce.
Love the photo of the old tools, too.
I'll bookmark your blog! Do you have a theme?
Happy blogging.
No theme, just set it up as a test a while ago. I wanted to post the Pepys/tools thing somewhere, and it wasn't really wedding-related enough :-) so it went here. The daily feeds of the diary are really neat, you and Bruce will enjoy them.
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