31 December, in the year of our Lord 2022
The rain today some of the heaviest I think I ever saw. Mr. Jones, poor man, digging a great trench outside his house since a half-past four in the morning, and only then after an hour come Nathan and Davey from the farm to help, though by them all doing it avert a flood. All this by the Messenger.
Thus ends the year, with great sadness to myselfe and family as to health, though my own, blessed be God, in as good condition as I ever had, and I pray my father be granted the fortitude to overcome all current infirmity. But I am thankful for what I have, and the good friends that I have, and enter here some little memorys of them, to ingender cheer in myselfe and whomsoever may read these words. That in August I did visit with Mr. J. Thomas the great yearly Show of Flowers in the south port of the River, where were errected many great constructions of canvas, with poles and ropes, and within them a great desplay of flowers, and we eat a souvlakey from Greece for dinner on the lawn and saw there the biggest Salsify in all the City. That Dr. Rh. Davies and Sr. Llorence Cubedo come to supper, and all very merry and joyed by one another his company, so that Mr. M. Jones and I determined we should meet with them one day in Madridd, where Sr. Cubedo hath chambers. That I was of singular assistance to Mr. Jones, paynting his house with him, it being a very dry month, in that I stood with my foot on the lowest rung of his ladder for him, lest he fall and kill himself, which he did not, so proving the value of my service.
In September I went to the Tower grounds with Mr. Jones and Mr. Owen and there we saw As You Like It by Mr. Shakespeare, performed well enough in the open air, only it the most ridiculous and facetiose play I ever saw in my entire life and I Did Not Like It And Will Never See It Again. That same week Mr. Jones’s daughters dog eat all her Ibuproffen and was very poorly. And on the same day, to wide spread scorn and disbelief, the Secretarie for Foreyne Parts, Mrs. Trusse, won the competition to succeed the dissembling incumbent as First Lord of the Treasurie, which was a case of the unfit replacing the incorrigeably unfit, though, thanks be to God, the new proved naught than a Jayne Grey de nos jours. A few days after that, I think it was, by water with Mr. Jones, his sister and her husband with us, to Fox Hall, our purpose being to joy ourselfs, with many other brave people who were there, by having at a new entertaynement which was there constructed across the length of the boating lake, it being of four great ropes that were strung between two great scaffolds, one at each opposing end of the water, the east a little higher than the west so as to form a suspension that was sloped, and from a position upon a platform at the top end of the ropes the people dangled prostrate, each in a harnesse suspended below his rope, and with a push were sent a-plunge down the rope and across the lake, to make land (very abrupt) at the Coffee-house at the bottom, the total length being all of a furlong and the speed greater than the fastest stagecoach, which did cause many onlookers to gasp in awe that any could still breathe while they did it. And we did do it, and breathed, my new surcoat flapping and my waistcoat and breeches displayed for all to see, and exceeding merry for the sport we had, 7l 7s. 6d. for each one of us. The same day at supper comes the cryer with the news that the old King dead, with some cynickle people saying that it was from Incredulitie at who should lead his Gouvernement; all very somber throughout the land, with even those such as Mr. Jones who craved the Commonwealth admitting respect for a life of such long service. But the nation at years end in a poor way, with many not able to heat their mouldy homes or pay for all their Necessities, and many doubtful for yet another untried First Lord and a still unproven King. Abroad, the Emperor of Russia continues to bombard the lands of the Cossacks, a most brutal onslaught, and his justification of it the bitterest Calumny in all Evrope.
But best of all that I begun my course in musique at the Conservatoire, all doubt leaving me for the difficulty of it (except, I concede, for Sonique Art), and joyed by the learning of it and the making of many new friends. And I resolved that in the next days I will submit two of my three Assignments, these being, firstly, my exercises — which are threefold, in Chordal and Cadence Analisys, Harmonisacion of a Chorale in the Manner of Mr. Bach, and Fifth Species Counterpoint Above and Below the Cantus Firmus Following the Rules Layed Out in the Great Treatise Gradus ad Parnassum by Mr. Fux — together with, secondly, my Essay on the subject To What Extent is There a Single Tradition in the Composition of Symphonys Between 1850 and the Present Day? though I still harbour doubts about when exactly is the Present Day and wonder if I must work backwards. Today I started my new Composition, which will be a fine piece, or so it is to be hoped, and excede even my first endeavore (which was ‘Zip Wire’, for clavachord solo), it being for a Quintett of Wind Instruments, which are flageolet, hautbois, clarinette, fagotto and a horn-player — only, feeling melancholy and without any keyboard in the house upon which to work out my ideas, ran aground after five bars. And so to bed.
Pepys: the Covid Diaries (2020- ) 