=Motto.= "A wild beast spares his own kind."--Juvenal, _Satires_, xv.
159.
=65=: 13. =The opera and the puppet-show.= The absurd unrealities
of the Italian opera, then recently introduced into England, were a
subject of frequent sarcastic comment in _The Spectator_. "Audiences,"
says Addison, "have often been reproached by writers for the coarseness
of their taste; but our present grievance does not seem to be the want
of a good taste, but of common sense." For strictures on the opera, see
Nos. 1, 13, 18, 22, 29, 31.
=65=: 15. =Dress and equipage of persons of quality.= Perhaps he refers
to No. 16, in which the Spectator had ventured some criticism upon
muffs and garters and fringed gloves and other "foppish ornaments."
=65=: 19. =The city.= Technically "the city" is that part of London
north of the Thames from Temple Bar on the west to the Tower on the
east, and extending as far as Finsbury on the north, which constituted
the original walled city of London. It is the part of London under the
immediate control of the lord mayor and aldermen, and its residents
are "citizens." The trade and business of London was in Addison's time
almost entirely--and still is very largely--included in this area.
Sir Andrew Freeport, as a merchant, of course stands up for the city.
=66=: 4. =The wits of King Charles's time.= The comedies of the
writers of the time of Charles II--Farquhar, Wycherley, Congreve,
Vanbrugh--usually turn upon intrigue of which the wives and daughters
of citizens are the victims.
=66=: 6. =Horace= (65-8 B.C.) and =Juvenal= (_circa_ 60-140 A.D.), the
masters of Latin satire; =Boileau= (1636-1711), a French satirist and
critic.
=66=: 12. =Persons of the Inns of Court.= See _Spectator_, No. 21.
=66=: 25. =Fox hunters.= Whatever Mr. Spectator may have said in
private, it does not seem that he had thus far written any paper
disparaging fox hunters. A later essay, No. 474,--not written by
Addison,--is rather severe upon them. Addison's famous picture of the
Tory fox hunter is found in _The Freeholder_, No. 22.
=67=: 23. =Vices ... too trivial for the chastisement of the law, and
too fantastical for the cognizance of the pulpit.= This is an admirable
indication of the range and purpose of the Spectator's satire.
=68=: 16. =The Roman triumvirate.= Octavius, Antony, Lepidus. For the
account of their "debate," see Plutarch's _Life of Mark Antony_ or
Shakespeare's version of it in _Julius Cæsar_, iv. 1.
=68=: 27. =Punch.= One Robert Powell, a hunchbacked dwarf, kept a
puppet show, or "Punch's theatre," in Covent Garden. The speech of
Punch was often very broad. See Ashton's _Social Life in the Reign of
Queen Anne_, p. 215.