Microscope
Microscope is in Scientific Terms.
Pepy's Diary. 11 Feb 1661. At the office all the morning. Dined at home, and then to the Exchequer, and took Mr. Warren with me to Mr. Kennard, the master joiner, at Whitehall, who was at a tavern, and there he and I to him, and agreed about getting some of my Lord's deals on board to-morrow. Then with young Mr. Reeve home to his house, who did there show me many pretty pleasures in perspectives1, that I have not seen before, and I did buy a little glass of him cost me 5s. And so to Mr. Crew's (age 63), and with Mr. Moore to see how my father and mother did, and so with him to Mr. Adam Chard's' (the first time I ever was at his house since he was married) to drink, then we parted, and I home to my study, and set some papers and money in order, and so to bed.
Note 1. 'telescope' and 'microscope' are both as old as Milton, but for long while 'perspective' (glass being sometimes understood and sometimes expressed) did the work of these. It is sometimes written 'prospective.' Our present use of 'perspective' does not, I suppose, date farther back than Dryden.-Trench's Select Glossary.-M. B.
Pepy's Diary. 10 Apr 1661. After that back home, and there eat a little dinner. Then to Rochester, and there saw the Cathedrall [Map], which is now fitting for use, and the organ then a-tuning. Then away thence, observing the great doors of the church, which, they say, was covered with the skins of the Danes1, and also had much mirth at a tomb, on which was "Come sweet Jesu", and I read "Come sweet Mall", &c., at which Captain Pett and I had good laughter.
Note 1. Traditions similar to that at Rochester, Kent [Map], here alluded to, are to be found in other places in England. Sir Harry Englefield, in a communication made to the Society of Antiquaries, July 2nd, 1789, called attention to the curious popular tale preserved in the village of Hadstock, Essex, that the door of the church had been covered with the skin of a Danish pirate, who had plundered the church. At Worcester, likewise, it was asserted that the north doors of the cathedral had been covered with the skin of a person who had sacrilegiously robbed the high altar. The date of these doors appears to be the latter part of the fourteenth century, the north porch having been built about 1385. Dart, in his "History of the Abbey Church of St. Peter's, Westminster", 1723 (vol. i., book ii., p. 64), relates a like tradition then preserved in reference to a door, one of three which closed off a chamber from the south transept-namely, a certain building once known as the Chapel of Henry VIII, and used as a "Revestry". This chamber, he states, "is inclosed with three doors, the inner cancellated, the middle, which is very thick, lined with skins like parchment, and driven full of nails. These skins, they by tradition tell us, were some skins of the Danes, tann'd and given here as a memorial of our delivery from them". Portions of this supposed human skin were examined under the microscope by the late Mr. John Quekett of the Hunterian Museum, who ascertained, beyond question, that in each of the cases the skin was human. From a communication by the late Mr. Albert Way, F.S.A., to the late Lord Braybrooke.
Pepy's Diary. 13 Feb 1664. Anon down to dinner to a table which Mr. Coventry (age 36) keeps here, out of his £300 per annum as one of the Assistants to the Royall Company, a very pretty dinner, and good company, and excellent discourse, and so up again to our work for an hour till the Company came to having a meeting of their own, and so we broke up and Creed and I took coach and to Reeves, the perspective glass maker, and there did indeed see very excellent microscopes, which did discover a louse or mite or sand most perfectly and largely.
Pepy's Diary. 25 Jul 1664. Thence to Mr. Reeves, it coming just now in my head to buy a microscope, but he was not within, so I walked all round that end of the town among the loathsome people and houses, but, God be thanked! had no desire to visit any of them.
Pepy's Diary. 26 Jul 1664. All the morning at the office, at noon to Anthony Joyce's, to our gossip's dinner. I had sent a dozen and a half of bottles of wine thither, and paid my double share besides, which is 18s. Very merry we were, and when the women were merry and rose from table, I above with them, ne'er a man but I, I began discourse of my not getting of children, and prayed them to give me their opinions and advice, and they freely and merrily did give me these ten, among them (1) Do not hug my wife too hard nor too much; (2) eat no late suppers; (3) drink juyce of sage; (4) tent and toast; (5) wear cool holland drawers; (6) keep stomach warm and back cool; (7) upon query whether it was best to do at night or morn, they answered me neither one nor other, but when we had most mind to it; (8) wife not to go too straight laced; (9) myself to drink mum and sugar; (10) Mrs. Ward did give me, to change my place. The 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, and 10th they all did seriously declare, and lay much stress upon them as rules fit to be observed indeed, and especially the last, to lie with our heads where our heels do, or at least to make the bed high at feet and low at head. Very merry all, as much as I could be in such sorry company. Great discourse of the fray yesterday in Moorefields [Map], how the butchers at first did beat the weavers (between whom there hath been ever an old competition for mastery), but at last the weavers rallied and beat them. At first the butchers knocked down all for weavers that had green or blue aprons, till they were fain to pull them off and put them in their breeches. At last the butchers were fain to pull off their sleeves, that they might not be known, and were soundly beaten out of the field, and some deeply wounded and bruised; till at last the weavers went out tryumphing, calling £100 for a butcher. I to Mr. Reeves to see a microscope, he having been with me to-day morning, and there chose one which I will have.
Pepy's Diary. 07 Aug 1664. So I walked homeward and met with Mr. Spong, and he with me as far as the Old Exchange [Map] talking of many ingenuous things, musique, and at last of glasses, and I find him still the same ingenuous man that ever he was, and do among other fine things tell me that by his microscope of his owne making he do discover that the wings of a moth is made just as the feathers of the wing of a bird, and that most plainly and certainly. While we were talking came by several poor creatures carried by, by constables, for being at a conventicle. They go like lambs, without any resistance. I would to God they would either conform, or be more wise, and not be catched!
Pepy's Diary. 13 Aug 1664. Up, and before I went to the office comes my Taylor with a coate I have made to wear within doors, purposely to come no lower than my knees, for by my wearing a gowne within doors comes all my tenderness about my legs. There comes also Mr. Reeve, with a microscope and scotoscope1. For the first I did give him £5 10s., a great price, but a most curious bauble it is, and he says, as good, nay, the best he knows in England, and he makes the best in the world. The other he gives me, and is of value; and a curious curiosity it is to look objects in a darke room with.
Note 1. An optical instrument used to enable objects to be seen in the dark. The name is derived from the Greek.
Pepy's Diary. 13 Aug 1664. Thence home and to my office, wrote by the post, and then to read a little in Dr. Power's book of discovery by the microscope to enable me a little how to use and what to expect from my glasse.
Pepy's Diary. 14 Aug 1664. After dinner up to my chamber and made an end of Dr. Power's booke of the microscope, very fine and to my content, and then my wife and I with great pleasure, but with great difficulty before we could come to find the manner of seeing any thing by my microscope. At last did with good content, though not so much as I expect when I come to understand it better.
Pepy's Diary. 16 Aug 1664. At noon busy at the 'Change [Map] about one business or other, and thence home to dinner, and so to my office all the afternoon very busy, and so to supper anon, and then to my office again a while, collecting observations out of Dr. Power's booke of microscopes, and so home to bed, very stormy weather to-night for winde.
Pepy's Diary. 02 Jan 1665. Thence to my bookseller's and at his binder's saw Hooke's (age 29) book of the microscope1, which is so pretty that I presently bespoke it, and away home to the office, where we met to do something, and then though very late by coach to Sir Ph. Warwicke's (age 55), but having company with him could not speak with him.
Note 1. "Micrographia: or some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by Magnifying Glasses. London, 1665", a very remarkable work with elaborate plates, some of which have been used for lecture illustrations almost to our own day. On November 23rd, 1664, the President of the Royal Society was "desired to sign a licence for printing of Mr. Hooke's microscopical book". At this time the book was mostly printed, but it was delayed, much to Hooke's disgust, by the examination of several Fellows of the Society. In spite of this examination the council were anxious that the author should make it clear that he alone was responsible for any theory put forward, and they gave him notice to that effect. Hooke made this clear in his dedication (see Birch's "HISTORY", vol. i., pp. 490-491).
Pepy's Diary. 29 Jul 1666. So away home to dinner, where Mr. Spong and Reeves dined with me by invitation. And after dinner to our business of my microscope to be shown some of the observables of that, and then down to my office to looke in a darke room with my glasses and tube, and most excellently things appeared indeed beyond imagination. This was our worke all the afternoon trying the several glasses and several objects, among others, one of my plates, where the lines appeared so very plain that it is not possible to thinke how plain it was done.
Pepy's Diary. 30 May 1667. Several fine experiments were shown her of colours, loadstones, microscopes, and of liquors among others, of one that did, while she was there, turn a piece of roasted mutton into pure blood, which was very rare. Here was Mrs. Moore of Cambridge, whom I had not seen before, and I was glad to see her; as also a very pretty black boy that run up and down the room, somebody's child in Arundel House [Map]. After they had shown her many experiments, and she cried still she was full of admiration, she departed, being led out and in by several Lords that were there; among others Lord George Barkeley (age 39) and Earl of Carlisle (age 38), and a very pretty young man, the Duke of Somerset (age 13).
