Goree, near Cape Verde, west coast of Africa, Gaudaloupe, is in West
Indies; Ticonderaga and Niagara, frontier forts in Canada.
Gowries, the, Alexander Ruthven and his brother, the Earl of Gowrie, who
were killed in a scuffle during the visit of King James to their house
in Perth (Aug. 1600).
Grammont, a French count whose Memoirs give a vivid picture of life at
Charles II.’s court.
Grandison, Sir Charles... Miss Byron, the title character (and his
lady-love) of one of Richardson’s novels.
Granicus, Rocroi, Narva, won respectively by Alexander (aged 22) against
the Persians, by Conde (aged 22) against the Spaniards, and by Charles
XII. (aged 18) against the Russians.
Great Captain, the, Gonzalvo Hernandez di Cordova, who drove the Moors
from Granada and the French from Italy (d. 1515).
Guarini, (see Pastor Fido).
Guicciardini, Florentian statesman and historian; disciple of
Macchiavelli secured the restoration of the Medici, (1485-1540).
Guizot and Villemain, in 1829 upheld liberal opinions against Charles
X., in 1844 took the part of monarchy and Louis Philippe. Genonde and
Jaquelin made the reverse change.
HAFIZ and Ferdusi, famous Persian poets: the former flourished in the
eleventh, the latter in the thirteenth century.
Hamilton, Count, friend of James II. and author of the Memoirs of
the Count de Grammont, the best picture of the English court of the
Restoration (1646-1720)
Hamilton’s Bawn, a tumble-down house in the north of Ireland which
inspired Swift to write an amusing Poem.
Hamilton, Gerard, M.P. for Petersfield, a man of somewhat despicable
character. The nickname was “Single-speech Hamilton.”
Hammond, Henry, Rector of Penshurst in Kent, and commentator on the New
Testament, the Psalms, etc.
Hardwicke, Lord, the Lord Chancellor (1737-56), whose Marriage Act
(1753) put an end to Fleet marriages.
Harte, Walter, poet, historian, and tutor to Lord Chesterfield’s son
(1709-74).
Hayley and Seward, inferior authors who were at one time very popular.
Hebert, Jacques Rene, editor of the violent revolutionary organ Pere
Duchesne; for opposing his colleagues he was arrested and guillotined
(1756-94).
Heliogabalus, made emperor of Rome by the army in 218; ruled moderately
at first, but soon abandoned himself to excesses of all kinds, and was
assassinated.
Helvetius, a French philosopher of the materialist school (1715-71).
Henry the Fourth, the famous French king, “Henry of Navarre”
(?1589-1610).
Hildebrand, Pope Gregory VII., who waged war against the vices of
society and the imperial tyranny over the Church.
Hilpa and Shalum, Chinese antediluvians (see Spectator, vol. viii.).
Hilpa was a princess and Shalum her lover.
Hoadley, Benjamin, a prelate and keen controversialist on the side of
civil and religious liberty (1676-1761).
Holkar, a Mahratta chief whose headquarters were at Indore.
Hosein, the son of Ali Hosein’s mother was Fatima, the favourite
daughter of Mahomet.
Houghton, Sir R. Walpole’s Norfolk seat.
Hunt, Mr., a well-to-do Wiltshire farmer, who after many attempts
entered Parliament in 1832.
Huntingdon, William, the S.S. “Sinner Save”; Huntingdon was one of those
religious impostors who professed to be the recipient of divine visions
and prophetic oracles.
Hydaspes, or Hytaspes, the Greek name for the river Jhelam in the
Punjab.
Hyphasis, the Greek name for the river Beds in the Punjab.
ILDEFONSO, ST., a village in Old Castile containing a Spanish royal
residence built by Philip V. on the model of Versailles.
JACOBINS, those holding extreme democratic principles. The name is
derived from an extreme Party of French Revolutionists who used to meet
in the ball of the Jacobin Friars.
Jaghires, landed estates.
Jauts, a fighting Hindoo race inhabiting the North-West Provinces.
Jefferson, Thomas, an American statesman, who took a prominent part in
struggle for independence, and became President, 1801 to 1807.
Jenkinson, one of Bute’s supporters, afterwards Earl of Liverpool.
Jomini, a celebrated Swiss military writer, who served in the French
army as aide-de-camp to Marshal Ney (1779-1869).
Monsieur Jourdain, the honest but uneducated tradesman of Moliere’s Le
Bourgeois Gentilhomme, whose sudden wealth lands him in absurd attempts
at aristocracy. 539
Justices in Eyre, i.e. in itinere, on circuit. In 1284 such were
superseded by judges of assize.
KLOPSTOCK, author of the German epic Messiah, and one of the pioneers of
modern German literature (1724-1803).
Knight of Malta, a play by Fletcher, Massinger, and another, produced
before 1619.
Knipperdoling, one of the leading German Anabaptists, stadtholder of
Munster, 1534-35, beheaded there in Jan. 1536.
LALLY, Baron de Tollendal, a distinguished French general in India who,
however, could not work harmoniously with his brother officers or
with his native troops, and was defeated by Eyre Coote at Wandewash in
January 1760. He was imprisoned in the Bastille and executed (1766) on a
charge of betraying French interests.
Las Casas, a Catholic bishop who laboured among the aborigines of
South America, interposing himself between them and the cruelty of
the Spaniards. Clarkson (ib.) was Wilberforce’s fellow-worker in the
abolition of slavery.
Latitudinarians, the school of Cudworth and Henry More (end of
seventeenth century), who sought to affiliate the dogmas of the Church
to a rational philosophy.
Law Mr., afterwards Edward (first) Lord Ellenborough.
Lee, Nathaniel, a minor play-writer (1653-92).
Legge, son of the Earl of Dartmouth. Lord Of the Admiralty 1746, of the
Treasury 1747, Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1754 (1708-64).
Lennox, Charlotte, friend of Johnson and Richardson, wrote The Female
Don Quixote and Shakespeare Illustrated.
Lenthal, Speaker, who presided at the trial of Charles I.
Leo, tenth pope (1513-21) of the name, Giovanni de Medici, son of
Lorenzo the Magnificent, and patron of art, science, and letters.
Lingard, Dr. Job., a Roman Catholic priest who wrote a history of
England to the Accession of William and Mary (d. 1851).
Locusta, a famous female poisoner employed by Agrippina and Nero.
Lothario, a loose character in Rowe’s tragedy of The Fair Penitent.
Lucan, the Roman epic Poet whose Pharsalia describes the struggle
between Caesar and Pompey and breathes freedom throughout.
Ludlow, Edmund, a member of the Court that condemned Charles I. An
ardent republican, he went into exile when Cromwell was appointed
Protector.
MACKENZIE, HENRY, author of The Man of Feeling and other sentimental
writings.
Maccaroni, an eighteenth-century term for a dandy or fop.
Maecenas, patron of literature in the Augustan age of Rome. Virgil and
Horace were largely favoured by him.
Malebolge, i.e. the place of darkness and horror--the eighth Of the
ten circles or pits in Dante’s Inferno, and the abode of barterers,
hypocrites, evil counsellors, etc.
Malwa, about 100 miles east from Baroda and nearly 350 miles north-cast
from Bombay.
Marat, Jean Paul, a fanatical democrat whose one fixed idea was
wholesale slaughter of the aristocracy; assassinated by Charlotte Corday
(1743-93).
Mariendal, in Germany. Turenne’s defeat here was an incident in the
Thirty Years’ War.
Marlborough, Nelson, Wellington, the first was made Prince of Mindelheim
by Emperor Joseph I, the second Duke of Bronte by Ferdinand IV., the
third Duke of Vittoria by Ferdinand VII.
Marli, a forest and village ten miles west from Paris, seat of a royal
(now presidential) country-house.
Marten, Henry, one of the most extreme and most conspicuous members of
the Parliamentary Party. Charles I insulted him in public and ordered
him to be turned out of Hyde Park (1602-80). The Marten mentioned on p.4
as guilty of judicial misfeasance was his father (1562?-41).
Mason, William, friend and biographer of Gray; wrote Caractacus and some
odes (1725-97).
Mathias, a noted Anabaptist who, with John of Leyden, committed great
excesses in the endeavour to set up a Kingdom of Mount Zion in Munster,
Westphalia (1535).
Maurice, Elector of Saxony (1521-23) and leader of the Protestants of
Germany against the Emperor Charles V.
Mayor of the Palace, the chief minister of the Kings of France between
638 and 742.
Mayor of the Palace, the name given to the comptroller of the household
of the Frankish kings. By successive encroachments these officials
became at length more powerful than the monarchs, whom they finally
ousted.
Mazarin(e) Cardinal, chief minister of France during the first eighteen
years of Louis XIV.’s reign.
Memmius, Roman Governor of Bithynia, distinguished for his rhetorical
and literary gifts, 270.
Merovingian line, a dynasty of Frankish kings in the sixth and seventh
centuries A.D. They were gradually superseded in power by their “Mayors
of the Palace,” and were succeeded by the Carolingians.
Middleton, Conyers, a Cambridge theologian who had some controversy
with Bentley; distinguished for his “absolutely plain style” of writing
(1683-50).
Miguel, Don, King of Portugal, whose usurpation of the throne, refusal
to marry Maria, daughter of Don Pedro of Brazil, and general conduct of
affairs, led to a civil war, as a result of which he had to withdraw to
Italy (1802-66).
Mississippi Scheme, a plan for reducing the French National Debt,
similar in folly and in downfall to the South Sea Bubble.
Mite, Sir Matthew (see Foote’s comedy, The Nabob).
Montague, Charles, Earl of Halifax, Chancellor of the Exchequer 1694;
First Lord of Treasury 1697; impeached by the Tories for peculation and
acquitted; Prime Minister 1714; reformed the currency.
Montezuma and Guatemozin, two of the native rulers of Mexico prior to
its conquest by Cortez in 1519.
Montezuma, Emperor of Mexico, seized by Cortez in 1519.
Moro, the, a strong fort at the entrance to the harbour of Havana, taken
after a hard struggle by the English under Admiral Sir George Pocock and
General the Earl of Albemarle in July 1762.
Moore, Dr., father of Sir John Moore, European traveller, and author of
the novel Zeluco.
Moorish Envoy, Algerine in Humphrey Clinker.
Mountain of Light, the Koh-i-noor, which after many adventures is now
one of the English crown jewels.
Mucius, a Roman, who, when condemned to the stake, thrust his right hand
unflinchingly into a fire lit for a sacrifice. He was spared and given
the name Scaevola, i. e. left-handed.
Murray, orator; afterwards Earl of Mansfield, and Lord Chief Justice
(1705-93).
NAPIER, COLONEL, served under Sir John Moore. Like Southey he wrote a
History of the Peninsular War.
Nimeguen, treaty of; by this it was agreed that France should restore
all her Dutch conquests, but should keep the Spanish conquest of
Franche-Comte, a clause which naturally incensed the Emperor and the
King of Spain.
Nollekens, Joseph, the eminent English sculptor, and friend of George
III. (1737-1823).
Nuzzurs, presents to persons in authority.
OATES, Bedloe, Dangerfield, in 1678 pretended to have discovered a
“Popish Plot” which aimed at overthrowing the King and Protestantism.
Odoacer, a Hun, who became emperor in 476 and was assassinated by his
colleague, Theodoric (ib.) the Ostrogoth in 493.
O’Meara, Barry Edward, Napoleon’s physician in St. Helena, and author of
A Voice from St. Helena; or, Napoleon in Exile.
Onomasticon, a Greek dictionary of antiquities, in ten books, arranged
according to subject-matter.
Onslow, Arthur, Speaker of the House of Commons from 1728 to 1761.
Oromasdes and Arimanes, Ormuzd and Ahriman, the embodiments of the
principles of good and evil respectively, in the Zoroastrian religion.
Oxenstiern, Chancellor to Gustavus Adolphus and the director of the
negotiations which led to the Peace of Westphalia and the close of the
Thirty Years’ War.
PAGE, SIR FRANCIS, a judge whose “reputation for coarseness and
brutality (e.g. Pope, Dunciad, iv. 2730) is hardly warranted by the few
reported cases in which he took part.” (1661?-1741).
Palais Royal, in Paris, formerly very magnificent.
Pannonia, roughly equivalent to the modern Hungary.
Pasquin, Anthony, a fifteenth-century Italian tailor, noted for his
caustic wit.
Pastor Fido, a pastoral play, composed in 1585 by Guarini on the model
of Aminta.
Patna, massacre of.
Peacock Throne, a gilded and jewelled couch with a canopy, described by
a French jeweller named Tavernier, who saw it in 1665, and possibly the
present throne of the Shah of Persia.
Perceval, Spencer, supported the Tory party, and became its leader in
1809; assassinated in the Commons Lobby, 1812.
Perwannahs, magisterial documents containing instructions or orders.
Peters, Hugh, a famous Independent divine and chaplain to the
Parliamentary forces, executed in 1660 for his alleged share in the
death of Charles 1. He was an upright and genial man, but somewhat
lacking in moderation and taste.
Petit Trianon, a chateau built for Madame du Barry by Louis XV, and
afterwards the favourite resort of Marie Antoinette. In a subsequent
edition Macaulay substituted Versailles.
Phalaris, a tyrant of Agrigentum in Sicily (sixth century).
Pigot, Governor of Madras when Clive was in Bengal, and also, as Lord
Pigot, in the time of Warren Hastings.
Pinto, Fernandez Mendez, a Portuguese traveller (d. 1583), who visited
the Far East and possibly landed in the Gulf of Pekin.
Politian, one of the early scholars of the Renaissance; patronized by
Lorenzo de Medici (1454-94).
Pontiff, that inglorious, Peter Marone (Celestine V.), who was tricked
into abdicating the papacy for Boniface VIII, and died in prison.
Porto Novo and Pollilore, where Coote defeated Hyder Ali in July and
August 1781, and so finished a long campaign in the Carnatic.
Powis, Lord, Edward Clive, created Earl of Powis in 1804.
Powle, a leading Politician and lawyer in the events connected with the
accession Of William III.
Prynne, William, a Puritan, who attacked the stage and the Queen’s
virtue, and suffered by order of the Star Chamber. In late life he
changed his opinions, was imprisoned by Cromwell, and favoured by
Charles II.
Pyrenees, treaty of the, closed the war between France and Spain (1660),
which had continued twelve years after the Peace of Westphalia was
signed. For the other treaties mentioned here see the essay on “The War
of the Spanish Succession,” in vol. ii.
RAPIN, a Huguenot who joined the army of William of Orange, and wrote a
Histoire d’Angleterre which surpassed all its predecessors.
Ricimer, a fifth-century Swabian soldier who deposed the Emperor Avitus,
and then set up and deposed Majorian, Libius Severus and Anthemius, and
finally set up Olybrius.
Rix dollar, a Scandinavian coin worth between three and four shillings.
Roe, Sir Thomas, an English traveller who, in 1615, went on an embassy
to Jehangir at Agra.
Rohilcund, north-west of Oude.
Rohillas, Mussulman mountaineers inhabiting Rohilcund (q.v.).
Russell, Lord William, the Hampden of the Restoration period. Fought
hard for the exclusion of James II. from the crown; unjustly executed
for alleged share in the “Rye House Plot” (1639-83). Algernon Sydney
(1621-83) was a fellow-worker and sufferer.
SACHEVERELL, Henry, a famous divine of Queen Anne’s reign, who
was impeached by the Whigs for forwardly preaching the doctrine of
non-resistance.
Sackville, Lord George, the general commanding the British cavalry at
Minden. Nervousness led to his disobeying a critical order to charge,
which would have completed the French rout, and he was court-martialled
and degraded.
Saint Cecilia, Mrs. Sheridan, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in this
character because of her love of, and skill in, music.
Salmacius, the Latin name of Claude de Saumaise an eminent French
scholar and linguist (1588-1653), whose Defence of Charles 1. provoked
Milton’s crushing reply, Defensio Pro populo Anglicano.
Sandys, Samuel, opposed Sir R. Walpole, on whose retirement he became
Chancellor of the Exchequer, and afterwards a peer.
Sattara, a fortified town c. one hundred miles southeast from Bombay.
Saxe, the foremost French general in the War of the Austrian Succession
(1696-1750.)
Scaligers, Julius Caesar S., a learned Italian writer and classical
scholar (1484-1558) and his son Joseph Justus S., who lived in France
and was also an eminent scholar.
Schedules A and B. In the Reform Act Of 1832 Schedule A comprised those
boroughs which were no longer to be represented, B those which were to
send one member instead of two.
Scroggs, the infamous Chief-Justice of the King’s Bench in the reign of
Charles II., impeached in 680, and pensioned by Charles.
Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1758 to 1768.
Seigneur Oreste and Madame Andromaque. See Racine’s Andromaque.
Settle, Elkanah. See Flecknoe and Settle.
Sidney, Algernon, condemned and executed on scanty and illegal evidence
on a charge of implication in the Rye House Plot of 1683.
Somers, President of the Council (1708-10) a great Whig leader (he had
defended the Seven Bishops) and patron of literature (1650-1716).
Spinola, Spanish marquis and general who served his country with all his
genius and fortune for naught (1571-1630).
Sporus, a favourite of Nero. Owing to his resemblance to that emperor’s
wife he was, after her death, dressed as a woman, and went through a
marriage ceremony with Nero.
Stafford, Lord, executed in 1680, on a false charge of complicity in
Oates’s Popish Plot.
Stanley, Mr., fourth Earl of Derby, the “Rupert of Debate.”
Stella, Esther Johnson, the daughter of one of Lady Giffard’s friends.
St. Martin’s Church, the site of the present G. P. 0., formerly a
monastery, church, and “sanctuary.”
Sudbury and Old Sarum, rotten boroughs, the one in Suffolk disfranchised
in 1844, the other near Salisbury in 1832.
Sudder Courts, courts of criminal and civil jurisdiction which, in
Macaulay’s day, existed alongside the Supreme Court, but which, since
1858, have with the Supreme Court, been merged in the “High Courts.”
Sunnuds, certificates of possession.
Surajah Dowlah, better Suraj-ud-daulah.
Swan River, in the S.W. of Australia, to which country the name of New
Holland was at first given.
Switzer, that brave, Ulrich Zwingli, the Swiss reformer, who fell at
Cappel in 1531.
TALLEYRAND, French diplomatist (1754-1831), rendered good service to
the Revolution, was influential under Buonaparte and Louis Philippe’s
ambassador to England.
Talma, Francis Joseph, a famous French actor of tragic parts, who passed
part of his life in England (1763-1826).
Talus, Sir Artegal’s iron man, who in Spenser’s Faery Queen, Book v.,
represents the executive power of State Justice.
Tamerlane, the Tartar who invaded India in 1398, and whose descendant,
Baber, founded the Mogul dynasty.
Tanjore, a district of Madras, noted for its fertility; ceded to the
East India Company by the Marathas in 1799. The town of Tanjore is about
300 miles south from Madras.
Temple, Lord Pitt’s brother-in-law. Cf. Macaulay’s severe description of
him in the second “Essay on Chatham.” (vol. v. of this edition).
Themis, Justice.
Theodosius, emperor of the East 378-395, and for a short time of the
West also. He partly checked the Goths’ advance.
Theramenes, Athenian philosopher and general (third century B.C.),
unjustly accused and condemned to drink hemlock.
Theseus, the, one of the most perfect statues in the “Elgin marbles,” of
the British Museum.
Thurtell, John, a notorious boxer and gambler (b. 1794), who was hanged
at Hertford on January 9th, 1824, for the brutal murder of William
Weare, one of his boon-companions.
Thirty-Ninth, i.e. the Dorsets.
Thyrsis, a herdsman in the Idylls of Theocritus; similarly a shepherd in
Virgil’s Eclogues; hence a rustic or shepherd.
Timoleon, the Corinthian who expelled the tyrants from the Greek cities
of Sicily (415-337 B.C.).
Tindal, Nicholas, clergyman and miscellaneous author (1687-1774).
Topehall, Smollett’s drunken fox-hunter in Roderick Random.
Torso, lit. “trunk,” a statue which has lost its head and members.
Torstenson, Bernard, pupil of Gustavus Adolphus, and General-in-Chief
of the Swedish army from 1641. He carried the Thirty Years’ War into the
heart of Austria.
Trapbois, the usurer in Scott’s Fortunes of Nigel ch. xvii.-xxv.
Trissotin, a literary fop in Moliere’s Les Femmes Savantes.
Turcaret, the title-character in one of Le Sage’s comedies.
Turgot, the French statesman (1727-81) who for two years managed the
national finances under Louis XVI., and whose reforms, had they not
been thwarted by the nobility and the king’s indecision, would have
considerably mitigated the violence of the Revolution.
Turk’s Head. The most famous coffeehouse of this name was in the Strand,
and was one of Johnson’s frequent resorts.
UGOLINO See Dante’s Inferno, xxxii., xxxiii.,
VANSITTART, was governor of Bengal in the interval between Clive’s first
and second administrations.
Vattel, the great jurist whose Droit des Gens, a work on Natural Law and
its relation to International Law, appeared in 1758.
Vellore, west of Arcot.
Verres, the Roman governor of Sicily (73-77 B.C.), for plundering which
island he was brought to trial and prosecuted by Cicero.
Virgil’s foot race. In Aeneid v. 325 ff it is told how Nisus, who was
leading, tripped Salius, his second, that his, friend Euryalus might
gain the prize.
WALDEGRAVE, Lord, Governor to George III. before the latter’s accession;
married Walpole’s niece.
Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland, the ablest commander on the Catholic
side in the Thirty Years’ War.
Warburg, like Minden 1759, a victory gained by Ferdinand of Brunswick
over the French (1760).
Watson, Admiral, made no protest against his name being signed, and
claimed his share of the profits.
Western, Mrs. See Fielding’s Tom Jones.
Whithed, Mr. W., Poet-laureate from 1757 to 1785; author of the School
for Lovers, etc.
Wild, Jonathan, a detective who turned villain and was executed for
burglary in 1725; the hero of one of Fielding s stories.
Williams, Sir Charles Hanbury, Ambassador to Berlin (1746-49), His
satires against Walpole’s opponents are easy and humorous (d. 1759).
Winnington. In turn Lord of the Admiralty, Lord of the Treasury, And
Paymaster of the Forces. He had infinitely more wit than principle.
Wood’s patent the permission granted to Wood of Wolverhampton to mint
copper coin for Ireland, which called forth Swift’s Drapier Letters.
YORKE, Attorney-General; Earl of Hardwicke (q.v.).
ZEMINDARS, landholders,
Zincke and Petitot, eighteenth and seventeenth century enamel painters
who came to England from the Continent.