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198 13. Your dramatic rules. Perhaps the knight has in mind the dramatic “unities” of time, place, and subject; but his next sentence shows that he has no very definite rules in mind. He only knows that Mr. Spectator has been writing some learned papers of late on the drama and poetry; and he cannot see why a play so simple as this admits any laboured criticism.

198: 21. Are now to see Hector's ghost. Because at the beginning of the fourth act Andromache proposes to visit the tomb of Hector.

199: 15.

The old fellow in whiskers. Perhaps Phenix, a

friend of Pyrrhus.

XXX. WILL HONEYCOMB'S EXPERIENCES

Motto.

"The greedy lioness the wolf pursues,

The wolf the kid; the wanton kid, the browse."

— Virgil, Eclogues, ii. 63. Dryden's tr.

202 24. Miss Jenny. Notice the use of the epithet "Miss "; the day before Will Wimble would have said "Mistress Jenny." See note on p. 248.

203: 21. The book I had considered last Saturday, in Spectator, No. 357, April 19, 1712. It was one of the famous series of papers on Milton's Paradise Lost.

203: 23. The following lines. Paradise Lost, x. 888-908. They are not quoted quite accurately.

XXXI. SIR ROGER AT VAUXHALL

Motto. "Their gardens are maintained by vice."

—Juvenal, Satires, i. 75.

205 9. Spring Garden. A famous garden and pleasure resort (more commonly called Fox Hall or Vauxhall Gardens), on the south side of the Thames, near where the Vauxhall bridge now spans the river. There was a large garden covering about eleven

acres, with arbours, walks shaded by day and lighted at night by lamps festooned from the trees, a miniature lake, booths for the sale of refreshments, and a large central "rotunda" for music. First opened in 1661, Vauxhall was a favourite place of resort all through the eighteenth century; all the lighter literature of that century contains frequent references to it. The Gardens were not finally closed until 1859. For fuller account, see Besant's London in the Eighteenth Century, Chap. iv.

205 19. Temple Stairs. A boat-landing near the Temple gardens. The most pleasant way of getting from the east of London to the west, in Addison's time, was by boat on the river.

66

206 16. La Hogue. See note on Sir Cloudesley Shovel, p. 251. 206 29. How thick the city was set with churches. The "city" is that part of London originally enclosed by a wall, and extends from the Tower on the east to Temple Bar on the west. Temple Bar was the gateway over that great thoroughfare which is called Fleet Street on the east side of it, and the Strand on the west side. The Bar was demolished in 1878, and its site is marked by a rather ugly monument surmounted by the arms of the city of London.

207 4. The fifty new churches. The Tories had been brought into power in 1710 very largely by the popular cry, "The Church is in danger." (See note, p. 249.) Accordingly, one of the first acts of the House of Commons, in 1711, was to vote the building of fifty new churches in London.

208: 4. Mahometan paradise, because the chief attraction of the Mahometan heaven is the houris, "the black-eyed," whose beauty never grows old.

208 28. Member of the quorum. A justice of the peace.

XXXII. THE DEATH OF SIR ROGER

The first number of The Bee, a weekly paper set up in 1733, by Addison's friend, Budgell, contains the following statement: "Mr.

Addison was so fond of this character [Sir Roger de Coverley] that a little while before he laid down The Spectator (foreseeing that some nimble gentleman would catch up his pen the moment he quitted it), he said to an intimate friend, with a certain warmth in his expression which he was not often guilty of, By G——————, I'll kill Sir Roger, that nobody else may murder him.' Accordingly the whole Spectator, No. 517, consists of nothing else but an account of the old knight's death, and some moving circumstances which attended it."

It seems probable that about this time both Steele and Addison were thinking of bringing The Spectator to a close, and this was the first of a series of papers which should dismiss all the members of the Spectator Club. In No. 544—the last of this volumeCaptain Sentry succeeds to Sir Roger's estate, and passes from notice; in No. 549 the old clergyman is reported dead, and Sir Andrew Freeport gives up his business and retires into the country to make ready for the end; in No. 555 the Spectator makes his parting bow, and the volume closes.

Motto. "Alas for piety and ancient faith."

– Virgil, Æneid, vi. 878. 211: 16. The quorum. The justices of the peace for the county.

212: 9. The Act of Uniformity, passed in 1662, provided that all ministers should declare their unfeigned assent to everything in the Book of Common Prayer, and should use it at morning and evening service. The Act threw more than two thousand ministers out of their livings, and united all Dissenters against the Church. Of course Tories, like Sir Roger, held it to be a wise and necessary measure, of utmost importance to the security and stability of the Church.

212 17. Rings and mourning. It was customary to give by will mourning rings and mourning gloves and hat bands to a large number of friends. They would be worn, of course, by such of the

DE COVERLEY- - 17

friends as attended the funeral services; but not afterward. Ashton's Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne, Chap. iv.

See

XXXIII. CAPTAIN SENTRY AS MASTER OF COVERLEY HALL

Motto. "No one ever had a scheme of life so well arranged but that circumstances, or age, or experience, would bring him something new, and teach him something more: so that you find yourself ignorant of the things you thought you knew, and on experience you are ready to give up what you supposed of the first importance." - Terence, Adelphi, v. 4.

216: II.

Colonel Camperfelt. Colonel Kemperfeldt, the father of the admiral who was lost in the Royal George, has often been supposed to be the model from which the character of Captain Sentry was drawn.

13.25

Study of American Literature

BY BRANDER MATTHEWS
Professor of Literature in Columbia University

Cloth, 12mo, 256 pages

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A text-book of literature on an original plan, and conforming with the best methods of teaching.

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