Quicksilver Reading CompanionAt Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1672, Daniel Waterhouse and his colleagues from the Royal Society attend a theatrical performance and observe Isaac Newton’s secretive alchemical and scientific labors.
“once more into the breeches” — Stephenson’s annotation: “Readers who enjoy this can find much more in the same vein under the rubric of Restoration Plays.”
“they live below sea-level to begin with” — The Dutch were the 17th century’s premier hydraulic engineers, using windmills and dikes for Dutch Land Reclamation to create habitable polders from the sea.
“Whitehall provided more spectacle” — Whitehall Palace was the primary residence of English monarchs in London until 1698, famous for its labyrinthine architecture and a court life thick with political intrigue.
“Trinity’s miserable wreck of a library” — The famous Wren Library at Trinity College, designed by Christopher Wren, was actually under construction during this period, having been commissioned in 1676.
“Catherine of Braganza, a Portuguese princess with a famously inoperative womb” — The wife of Charles II, Catherine of Braganza never produced a legitimate heir, sparking a succession crisis that defined the era’s partisan politics.
“Louise de Kéroualle, the Duchess of Portsmouth” — A French mistress of Charles II, Louise de Kéroualle was widely suspected of being a political agent for Louis XIV at the English court.
“Barbara Villiers, a.k.a. Lady Castlemaine, a.k.a. the Duchess of Cleveland” — One of the most influential mistresses of Charles II, Barbara Villiers was known for her legendary beauty and her significant interference in state affairs.
“former lover of John Churchill” — John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, was a brilliant military commander who rose to power through the royal court before leading English forces in the War of the Spanish Succession.
“Thomas More Anglesey, Duke of Gunfleet… in the barock style.” — The Baroque was a highly ornate and theatrical style of art and architecture that dominated Europe from the early 17th to the mid-18th century.
“The King’s Comedians” — Following the 1660 reopening of theaters, Restoration Theater flourished through professional acting troupes licensed directly by the King.
“Nell Gwyn, who wound up draped over a bench” — A quintessential Restoration celebrity, Nell Gwyn rose from selling oranges in theaters to becoming a celebrated comic actress and a favorite mistress of Charles II.
“Oldenburg, who was seated next to him. The hefty German had been released from the Tower” — Henry Oldenburg, the first Secretary of the Royal Society, was actually imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1667 on suspicion of treasonous correspondence during the Anglo-Dutch War.
“Sir Winston Churchill” — The father of the Duke of Marlborough, Sir Winston Churchill (1620–1688) was a prominent Cavalier politician and an ancestor of the 20th-century Prime Minister.
“Of sooty coal the Empiric Alchimist… —MILTON, Paradise Lost” — John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667) is frequently used in the novel to highlight the friction between religious tradition and the emerging “Empiric” sciences.
“invasion that Louis XIV had recently flung into the Dutch Republic” — This refers to the Franco-Dutch War of 1672, known in the Netherlands as the Rampjaar or “Year of Disaster.”
“big Holbein portrait of the college’s Founder, King Henry VIII” — The iconic physical image of Henry VIII was largely defined by the court painter Hans Holbein the Younger.
“sacking a few monasteries” — The Dissolution of the Monasteries (1536–1541) saw Henry VIII seize Catholic assets to fund the crown and establish the Church of England.
“Thomas Gresham’s golden grasshoppers” — Sir Thomas Gresham was a Tudor financier who founded the Royal Exchange; his family crest, a golden grasshopper, still adorns the building today.
“Sir Richard Apthorp—the second A in the CABAL” — The Cabal Ministry was a real group of five high-ranking ministers under Charles II; Stephenson’s annotation: ‘Apthorp is fictional, but… representative of a certain type.’
“Admiral de Ruyter sailed down to Guinea and took away all of the Duke of York’s slave-ports” — Michiel de Ruyter was a legendary Dutch admiral who crippled English interests in West Africa, helping trigger the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
“the attrition of slaves is replaced by new shipments” — This highlights the horrific economic reality of The Atlantic Slave Trade and the sugar industry in Jamaica, which relied on the constant replacement of enslaved labor.
“glowing dome of the Reverberatory Furnace” — A Reverberatory Furnace is designed to isolate the material being heated from the fuel, reflecting heat from the roof onto the subject.
“supporting oil-lamps that painted the round bottoms of flasks and retorts” — A Retort is a glass vessel with a long, downward-pointing neck used for distillation in early chemistry.
“Daniel recognized him as Monsieur LeFebure, the King’s Chymist” — Nicaise le Febvre was a French chemist appointed by Charles II to manage the royal laboratory and apothecary.
“The menstruum of a human female” — In the context of Menstruum, alchemists used the term for solvents, but also believed menstrual blood held “generative spirits” essential for transmutation.
“reveal the scarlet raiment of the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics” — The Lucasian Professor of Mathematics is one of the world’s most prestigious academic posts; Newton was the second person to hold it.
“what is to come” — From the original wiki (Eric S Raymond): “When Tom the Vagabond says lewdly “What is to come? I have spied one candidate—” he is committing an anachronism. The verb “to come” as a term for for orgasm is a Victorian development, not well-attested until the 1890s. In period, Tom might have used the verb “to spend”, but that would have ruined the play on words.”
“live out your days as a gentleman farmer in Woolsthorpe” — Woolsthorpe Manor was Newton’s family home where he made his greatest discoveries in calculus and gravity while escaping the Great Plague.
“time to sell my stock in the Guinea Company, I fear” — The Royal African Company, or Guinea Company, held a monopoly on English trade with West Africa, primarily in gold and slaves.
“fending off Hooke on one front, Jesuits on the other.” — Jesuit Science was highly sophisticated in the 17th century, and the order’s scholars often challenged the Royal Society’s findings on optics.
“first that all cœlestial bodies attracted all others… second that all bodies put into motion moved forward in a straight line” — These principles formed the basis of Newton’s Laws of Motion, which revolutionized the understanding of physics and inertia.
“Newton was a clever though odd chap who’d written a paper about colors” — Newton’s Optics began with his 1672 paper proving that white light is composed of a spectrum of distinct colors.
“Universal gravitation is not his only opponent.” — Universal Gravitation was Newton’s radical theory that every mass in the universe exerts an attractive force on every other mass.
“jeova sanctus unus” — From the original wiki (Professorbikeybike): “…many not signed “Isaac Newton” but “Jeova Sanctus Unus” which was the pseudonym Isaac used for Alchemy work.
True? False?
Whether or not he used this as a pseudonym or not, it would appear that he once constructed a virtual anagram for his name (Isaacus Neutonus) in terms of “God’s holy one” (Jeova sanctus unus). See the link below.
http://www.djerassi.com/calculus/program.html”
“Isaac’s old work about fluxions” — The Method of Fluxions was Newton’s original name for his system of differential calculus, developed years before he published it.
“many signed not “Isaac Newton” but “Jeova Sanctus Unus,”” — Stephenson’s annotation: ‘…it would appear that he once constructed a virtual anagram for his name (Isaacus Neutonus) in terms of “God’s holy one” (Jeova sanctus unus).’
“the cannon that had exploded at the “Siege of Maestricht,”” — The Siege of Maastricht (1673) was a landmark in siege warfare and the site of the death of the real-life inspiration for D’Artagnan.
“disasters he had heard about lately aboard ships of the Royal Navy” — The Royal Navy was the primary instrument of English power during the 17th-century wars with the Dutch and French.
“deflagration of a sack of gunpowder” — The study of Gunpowder was a bridge between military necessity and the chemical experiments of natural philosophers.
Original annotations by: stephenson, raymond, professorbikeybike