155: 4. Roundheads and Cavaliers. The Puritans, during the term of the Civil War, were nicknamed Roundheads because they wore their hair short (as everybody does now), instead of allowing it to fall over their shoulders as was the fashion with the Royalists or Cavaliers.

155 6. St. Anne's Lane. Probably the lane of that name in Westminster, near the Abbey.

155 12. Prick-eared cur. A dog with pointed ears. The epithet was applied to the Puritans, because they wore their hair short, and their ears were not covered by long locks.

156 4. Tend to the prejudice of the land-tax. Sir Roger naturally finds the mischiefs of parties to come mostly from the Whigs, who support the war, and so raise the land tax.

156 25. Plutarch. The Greek historian and moralist, born about 46 A.D. His Lives are perhaps the most interesting work of biography in the world. The quotation in the text is from his other principal work, the Morals.

alienated from one another. It

157 5. That great rule. Luke vi. 27–29. 157 8. Many good men . . is probable Addison had especially in mind his own old friendship with Swift, which had grown very chill of late on account of their political differences. As early as December 14, 1710, when he began to be intimate with the new Tory ministry, Swift writes in the Journal to Stella, Mr. Addison and I are as different as black and white, and I believe our friendship will go off by this damned business of party." A month later, January 14, 1711, he says, "At the coffeehouse talked coldly awhile with Mr. Addison; all our friendship and dearness are off; we are civil acquaintances, talk words, of course, of when we shall meet, and that is all."

66

158 26. Guelphs and Ghibellines. The two great political parties in Italy, fiercely opposed to each other from the middle of the twelfth to the end of the fifteenth century. The Guelphs or popular party, supported the pope; the Ghibellines, or aristocratic party, the emperor.

158 27. The League. The Holy Catholic League, formed in France, 1546, to resist the claims of Henry IV to the throne, and check the advance of Protestantism.

XXII. WHIGS AND TORIES- Continued

Motto. "Trojan or Rutulian, it shall be the same to me."Virgil, Æneid, x. 108.

161 24. Diodorus Siculus. A Greek historian of the first century, born as the name implies in Sicily. He wrote a Histori

cal Library, of which only a part is preserved.

162 19. The spirit of party reigns more in the country. Here speaks the Whig prejudice of Addison; Sir Roger himself might have thought differently.

162 29. Tory fox hunters. See Addison's account of a typical Tory fox hunter in The Freeholder, No. 22.

164 23. Fanatic.

The term was frequently applied to the

Puritans, and later to Dissenters.

XXIII. SIR ROGER AND THE GIPSIES

Motto. " They find their constant delight in gathering new spoils, and living upon plunder."- Virgil, Æneid, vii. 748.

166: 2. Set the heads of our servant-maids so agog, i.e. by telling their fortunes.

166 6. Crosses their hands with a piece of silver. It was customary to make the sign of the cross upon the hand of the gipsy with the coin given him—probably with a view to avert any evil influence from such doubtful characters.

166 23. A Cassandra of the crew.

Cassandra, daughter of Priam, king of Troy, had been given by Apollo the gift of prophecy; but the god, afterward offended by her, rendered the gift futile by decreeing that she should never be believed.

XXIV. THE SPECTATOR DECIDES TO RETURN TO LONDON
Motto.

"Once more, ye woods, farewell."— Virgil, Eclogues, x. 63. 171 2. Spring anything to my mind. The metaphors in this and the following lines are drawn from the chase. To "spring" is to rouse game from cover; to "put up" has much the same meaning.

171 6. Foil the scent. When a variety of game is started, and their trails cross, the dogs become confused and cannot follow any one.

171: 14. My love of solitude, taciturnity. See paper I of this volume.

171: 28.

White Witch.

Called "white" because doing good;

most witches were believed to practise a black art.

172: 10.

Some discarded Whig. Discarded, or he would not

have been staying in the country among Tories.

173: 19. Stories of a cock and a bull. Any idle or absurd story. The phrase in this form or in the other now more common, "a cock-and-bull story," has been common in English for nearly three hundred years; but its origin is not known.

men.

173 25. Make every mother's son of us Commonwealth's Sir Andrew Freeport, it will be remembered, was a pronounced Whig, and the Whigs were charged with having inherited the doctrines and traditions of the Commonwealth.

XXV. THE JOURNEY TO LONDON

Motto. "We call that man impertinent who does not see what the occasion demands, or talks too much, or makes a display of himself, or does not have regard for the company he is in." - Cicero, De Oratore, ii. 4.

174 5. Ready for the stage-coach. By 1710 coaches ran regularly between London and most larger towns in England. The best were called "flying-coaches," were drawn by six horses, and sometimes made eighty miles a day. They did not run at night. The fare was about three pence the mile.

1747. The chamberlain was the chief servant of an inn.

174 9. Mrs. Betty Arable. The title Mrs. was applied to unmarried ladies, the term Miss being reserved for young girls and for people who misbehaved themselves.

174 13. Ephraim, the Quaker. The name was frequently applied to Quakers, because Ephraim "turned his back in battle." See Psalm 1xxviii.

177 26. The right we had of taking place. Roads were very narrow, and two coaches meeting often found it difficult to pass; hence disputes of the coachmen as to the right of way.

XXVI. SIR ROGER AND SIR ANDREW IN ARGUMENT

Motto. "I recall the argument, and remember that Thyrsis was vanquished." - Virgil, Eclogues, vii. 69.

1799. The old Roman fable. The fable of the Belly and the Members, told in Livy, Bk. ii, Chap. xxxii; retold by Shakespeare in Coriolanus, i. I. 99.

179 13. The landed and trading interest. See note, p. 242. 180 3. Carthaginian faith. Punica fides, a phrase used by the Romans to characterize the treachery of the Carthaginians.

183 21. Throws down no man's enclosure, and tramples upon no man's corn, as country gentlemen do when hunting over the grounds of their neighbours or their tenants.

184 22. His family had never been sullied by a trade. It will be remembered that Sir Roger was sensitive on this point. See IX, p. 89.

185 15. Gray's Inn Walks.

The walks and gardens of

Gray's Inn (see note, p. 221) were a favourite resort.

185 18. Prince Eugene. Eugene of Savoy (1663–1736), a famous Austrian general. He had fought side by side with Marlborough through several campaigns in the great War of the Spanish Succession that was now drawing to a close. At this time Marlborough had just been dismissed from his command in the army (see p. 244), and the English Tory ministry were making negotiations for a peace. Prince Eugene visited London to urge the continuance of the war and the restoration of Marlborough, but his mission was futile.

186 5. Scanderbeg. Corrupt form of Iskander (Alexander) Bey; a noted Albanian chief, whose name was George Castriota, born 1404. He won many victories against the Turks.

186 24. Out of Dr. Barrow. See VI, p. 79. Dr. Isaac Barrow (1630-1677) was one of the most eloquent divines of his age. 187: 1. Tobacco stopper. A small plug, made of wood or bone, to pack the tobacco in the bowl of a pipe.

188 14. The late Act of Parliament, the Act to repress Occasional Conformity, passed 1710. By the Test Act of 1673 it was required of every person filling any civil office that he should take the sacrament, at certain times, according to the forms of the Church of England. The object, of course, was to exclude all Romanists and all Dissenters from office. But it was found that many Dissenters did not feel themselves forbidden by conscience to take the sacrament occasionally from the hands of a priest of the Church of England, if only so they could qualify for office. A bill to prevent this "Occasional Conformity " was warmly urged through all the earlier years of the reign of Anne; Whigs were in power, it was impossible to pass it. came in, in 1710, they naturally passed it at once.

but so long as the When the Tories

188: 19. Plum-porridge. Extreme Dissenters looked with disfavour upon all Christmas festivities as savouring of Romish observance.

188 28. The Pope's Procession. November 17, the anniversary of the accession of Queen Elizabeth, was long celebrated