=Motto.= "But other six and more call out with one voice."--Juvenal,
_Satires_, vii, 167.
=51=: 2. =Sir Roger de Coverley.= "The still popular dance-tune from
which Addison borrowed the name of Sir Roger de Coverley in _The
Spectator_, is contained in Playford's _Division Violin_, 1685; in
_The Dancing Master_ of 1696, and all subsequent editions."--Chappell,
_Popular Music of the Olden Time_.
Steele says it was Swift who made the happy suggestion of calling the
old knight by the name of the popular dance.
=51=: 4. =Country-dance.= This seems to be the original form of which
contre-dance and contra-dance are perversions, naturally arising from
the fact that in such dances the men and women stand in lines facing
each other.
=51=: 14. =Soho Square.= Since the time of Charles II this had been a
fashionable quarter of London, but fell into comparative disfavour as a
place of residence before the close of the eighteenth century.
We do not hear again of this town residence of Sir Roger; he is
considered as a country gentleman, who only makes short visits to
London, and then lodges in Norfolk buildings off the Strand.
=52=: 1. =My Lord Rochester and Sir George Etherege.= John Wilmot, Earl
of Rochester (1647-1680), and Sir George Etherege (1634-1694) enjoyed
some little reputation as poets and more notoriety as rakes during
the reign of Charles II. Etherege had considerable dramatic ability;
but both men covered with a veneer of fine manners essentially vulgar
lives, and both died drunkards.
=53=: 2. =Bully Dawson.= "A swaggering sharper of Whitefriars."--Morley.
=53=: 2. =Inner Temple.= The Inns of Court are legal societies in
London which have the exclusive right of admitting candidates to the
bar, and provide instruction and examinations for that purpose. There
are four of these Inns of Court,--Lincoln's Inn, Gray's Inn, the Middle
Temple, and the Inner Temple. The last two derive their names from
the fact that they occupy buildings and gardens on the site formerly
belonging to the military order of Knights Templar, which was dissolved
in the fourteenth century. The famous Temple Church is the only one
of the buildings of the great Knights Templar establishment that now
remains. We hear but little of the Templar in the following papers;
Steele did not find the character as interesting as it might have been
expected he would.
=53=: 8. =Aristotle= (384-322 B.C.), the greatest of Greek philosophers
in his influence upon later thought, was also perhaps the greatest,
as he was the first, of literary critics. The Templar probably cared
quite as much for Aristotle's _Rhetoric_ and _Poetics_ as for his
philosophical works.
=53=: 9. =Longinus= (210-273) was the author of a treatise _On the
Sublime_, more admired two centuries ago than it is to-day.
=53=: 9. =Littleton.= Sir Thomas Littleton (1402-1481), a noted English
jurist, author of a famous work in French on _Tenures_.
=53=: 10. =Coke.= _The Institutes of Sir Edward Coke_ (1552-1634),
a reprint and translation of Littleton's book, with copious
comment,--hence popularly known as _Coke on Littleton_,--are a great
authority upon the law of real property.
=53=: 17. =Tully.= Marcus Tullius Cicero.
=53=: 29. =Exactly at five.= In the Queen Anne days the play began
at six, or often as early as five. The Templar is going to the Drury
Lane Theatre. He passes New Inn, which was one of the buildings of the
Middle Temple, crosses the Strand, and through Russell Court reaches
Will's Coffee-house, where he looks in for coffee and the news, and he
has his shoes rubbed and his wig powdered at the barber's by the Rose
Tavern, which stood just beside the theatre.
=54=: 6. =Sir Andrew Freeport.= Steele's Whig sympathies may be seen in
this picture of the intelligent and enterprising merchant. The trading
classes of England belonged then almost entirely to the Whig party;
the landed aristocracy, on the other hand, country squire and country
parson, were almost always Tories. See note on p. 242.
=54=: 22. =A penny got.= This would seem to be the source of Franklin's
Poor Richard's maxim, "A penny saved is a penny earned."
=57=: 6. =Hoods.= The hood was an important article of woman's attire
at this time. See Addison's delightful paper, _Spectator_, No. 265.
=57=: 12. =The Duke of Monmouth.= The natural son of Charles II, who,
during the reign of James II, in 1685, invaded England and attempted to
seize the crown; but was defeated in the battle of Sedgemoor,--the last
battle fought on English soil,--taken prisoner, and executed on Tower
Hill. He was a young man of little ability; but his personal beauty
and engaging manners won him many friends. See the portrait of him as
Absalom in Dryden's _Absalom and Achitophel_, 29, 30:
"His motions all accompanied with grace,
And Paradise was opened in his face."
=58=: 23. =R.= One of Steele's signatures. See note, p. 219.