=Motto.= "Yet we must go whither Numa and Ancus have gone
before."--Horace, _Epistles_, I. vi. 27.
=190=: 2. =Paper upon Westminster Abbey=, _Spectator_, No. 26. That
paper with this one perhaps show Addison, in two different moods, at
his very best.
=190=: 17. =The Widow Trueby's Water.= The "strong waters" of that
time, like many of the patent medicines of ours, owed their vogue
largely to the fact that they were made of distilled spirits. See
Addison's account of some of the quack medicines of the day in
_Tatler_, No. 224.
=191=: 11. =The sickness being at Dantzic.= The great plague there in
1709.
=191=: 14. =A hackney-coach.= Hackney-coaches, or carriages for hire
in the streets, were introduced into London during the latter half of
the seventeenth century. By Addison's time they had become common;
in 1710, by statute, the number to be licensed in London was fixed
at eight hundred. The fare was a mile and a half for a shilling. The
coachmen were an uncivil and pugnacious class, which accounts for Sir
Roger's preference for an elderly one. Graphic pictures of the manners
of coachmen may be found in Gay's _Trivia_, ii. 230-240, 311-315; iii.
35-50.
=192=: 10. =A roll of their best Virginia.= Tobacco for smoking was
made into ropes or short rolls, and had to be cut up for the pipe.
=192=: 16. =Sir Cloudesley Shovel.= A famous English admiral, who took
a prominent part in the great victory of the combined Dutch and English
fleets over the French, off La Hogue, in May, 1692. He was afterward
drowned at sea; but his body was recovered and buried in the Abbey. The
monument to Sir Cloudesley Shovel Addison, in No. 26, criticizes as in
bad taste, and with very good reason.
=192=: 18. =Busby's tomb.= Richard Busby (1606-1695), for fifty-five
years headmaster of Westminster school. He used to say that "the rod
was his sieve, and that whoever could not pass through that was no boy
for him." He persistently kept his hat on when Charles II came to visit
his school, saying it would never do for his boys to imagine there was
anybody superior to himself.
=192=: 23. =The little chapel on the right hand.= St. Edmund's, in the
south aisle of the choir.
=192=: 26. =The lord who had cut off the King of Morocco's head.= An
inscription recording this feat--probably legendary--formerly hung over
the tomb of Sir Bernard Brocas, who was beheaded on Tower Hill, 1400.
=193=: 1. =Cecil upon his knees.= William Cecil, Lord Burleigh,
Secretary of State to Queen Elizabeth. He is represented "on his knees"
at the magnificent tomb of his wife and daughter. This tomb, however,
is not in the chapel of St. Edmund, but in the adjoining chapel of St.
Nicholas.
=193=: 3. =Who died by the prick of a needle.= This story was formerly
told of Lady Elizabeth Russell, whose richly decorated tomb is in St.
Edmund's chapel.
=193=: 10. =The two coronation chairs.= In that chapel of Edward the
Confessor which is the heart of the Abbey. One chair is said to have
been that of Edward the Confessor; in it every sovereign of England
from Edward I to Edward VII has been crowned. The other was made for
Mary when she and her husband William were jointly crowned king and
queen of England.
=193=: 11. =The stone ... brought from Scotland.= The "stone of Scone,"
traditionally reputed to be that on which Jacob rested his head when
he had the vision of the ladder reaching up to heaven. It was brought
from Ireland to Scone in Scotland, and all Scottish kings were crowned
on it there till Edward I of England brought it to London in 1296, and
ordered it enclosed "in a chair of wood," and placed in the Abbey.
=193=: 25. =Edward the Third's sword.= "The monumental sword that
conquered France," as Dryden calls it, stands between the coronation
chairs.
=194=: 2. =The Black Prince.= Edward, Prince of Wales, eldest son of
Edward III, who died in 1376 before his father. He is buried, not in
the Abbey, but in the cathedral at Canterbury.
=194=: 8. =Touched for the evil.= Scrofula, called "king's evil,"
because it was supposed that it could be cured by the touch of a
legitimate sovereign. King William III, as he was king only by act
of Parliament, had not "touched"; but Queen Anne, unquestionably a
legitimate monarch, resumed the practice. Samuel Johnson was touched
by her in his infancy, but without effect. No sovereign after Anne
pretended to this power. The act of "touching" was accompanied by an
elaborate ceremony, the ritual for which continued to be included in
the Book of Common Prayer until 1719. For an account of the procedure,
see Ashton, _Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne_, Chap. xxx, pp.
325-326.
=194=: 12. =One of our English kings without an head.= Henry V. The
head of the effigy, which was of solid silver, was stolen in the reign
of Henry VIII, at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries.
=195=: 4. =His lodgings in Norfolk Buildings.= In II Sir Roger is said,
when in town, to "live in Soho Square," a more aristocratic quarter.
That paper was written by Steele; this by Addison.