annually on November 17, the anniversary of the accession of Queen
Elizabeth, to relieve the feelings of the Anti-Papal party. This
year a particularly riotous procession had been prepared, but it was
prevented by the seizure of all the images and accessories by the police
in the middle of the preceding night.
17. _Baker's Chronicle_. Sir Richard Baker, who died in 1645, was
the author of _A Chronicle of the Kings of England_. The
observations which Sir Roger applied to Prince Eugene had not, of
course, been written with regard to him.
23. _Squire's_. v. Appendix I.
25. _waited on_. Attended. Cf. Shakespeare, _Two Gentlemen of
Verona_, III. ii. 96:
We'll wait upon your grace till after supper.
30. _the Supplement_ was 'an alternative edition of _The
Postboy_, by Jacob Abellius, a postscriptorian, otherwise Boyer.'
(Fox Bourne.)
SPECTATOR 329.
Page 118.
5. _my paper upon Westminster Abbey_. _Spectator_ 26.
8. _promised another paper upon the Tombs_. 'I have left the
repository of our English kings for the contemplation of another day.'
Page 119.
3. _the sickness_. The plague, which was at Dantzick in 1709.
5. _a hackney-coach_. A coach let out on hire, the precursor of the
modern cab. The hackney-coach was introduced into London in 1625, and in
1715 their number had to be restricted to seven hundred. Cf. p. 105, 1.
22, _hackney-boat_.
15. _engaged_ in my affections, not betrothed. Cf. p. 13, 1. 13.
34. _Sir Cloudesly Shovel_, the admiral, who was wrecked off the
Scilly Isles in 1707.
Page 120.
2. _Dr. Busby_, the famous flogging head master, who ruled Westminster
School for fifty-five years, 1640-95.
6. _the little chapel on the right hand_. St. Edmund's Chapel.
9. _the lord who had cut off the king of Morocco's head_, or who was
supposed to have done so on the evidence of his crest.
'a Moor's head orientally crowned,' was Sir Bernard Brocas, a knight of
the fourteenth century.
12. _the statesman Cecil_, in the Chapel of St. Nicholas. Lord
Burleigh was Secretary of State to Edward VI., and Lord High Treasurer
to Queen Elizabeth.
14. _that martyr to good housewifery, who died by the prick of a
needle_. Elizabeth Russell, whose effigy is sculptured with one
finger extended, in reality to direct attention to the death's-head at
her feet. Cf. Goldsmith, _The Citizen of the World_, Letter xiii.,
in which the guide to the Abbey 'talked of a lady who died by pricking
her finger; of a king with a golden head, and twenty such pieces of
absurdity'.
21. _the two coronation chairs_. The ancient chair was made for
Edward I. to enclose the stone of Scone, which he had brought from
Scotland. It was the sacred coronation stone of the Scottish kings, and
was supposed to have come originally from Palestine. Unfortunately for
this theory it consists of Scotch sandstone, and, as Wills remarks, 'Sir
Roger's question was extremely pertinent.' All succeeding sovereigns
have been crowned on this chair and stone. It is now railed in, but in
Addison's time it was a source of revenue to the guides, who demanded a
fine of any person who should sit in it. The second chair was made for
the coronation of William III. and Mary.
24. _Jacob's pillar_, or pillow, v. Genesis, xxviii. 11, 18, and
22.
30. _trepanned_. In the two earliest editions spelt _trapanned_,
that is, _entrapped_. In later editions its spelling was influenced
by the word _trepan_, a surgical operation.
Page 121.
1. _Edward the Third's sword_. A mighty weapon, seven feet long and
weighing eighteen pounds, in the Chapel of Edward the Confessor.
8. _touched for the evil_. _The evil_ is scrofula. Cf. the use
of _the sickness_, p. 119, 1. 3, for the plague. It was long held
to be cured by the royal touch. Dr. Johnson remembered being taken to
London to be touched by Queen Anne when he was a small child. She was
the last sovereign who practised touching for the evil. Cf. _Macbeth_,
IV. iii. 140-56.
_Henry the Fourth's_ tomb is at Canterbury Cathedral, Henry III. is
probably intended.
10. _fine reading in the casualties of that reign_. In Baker's
_Chronicle_ the chapter on _The Reign of King Henry IV_ contains
a paragraph entitled _Casualties happening in his time_, relating the
appearance of a 'blazing star', a visit of the Devil 'in the likeness of a
Gray Friar', a flood, a fire, and finally a winter so severe 'that almost
all small birds died through hunger'.
12. _the figure of one of our English kings without an head_. The
effigy of Henry V. was made of oak covered with silver, but the head was
of solid silver, and was stolen at the time of the dissolution of the
monasteries, 1536-9.
33. _Norfolk-Buildings_, in Norfolk Street, Strand, were originally
the property of the Howards. For Sir Roger's residence, v. also
_Spectator_ 2, p. 6, 1. 17.
SPECTATOR 335.
Page 122.
9. _the Committee_ was a play by Sir Robert Howard, 1662, the motive
of which is ridicule of the Puritans.
12. _Distressed Mother_, an adaptation by Ambrose Philips of Racine's
_Andromaque_, had been produced on March 17.
15. _at the end of the dictionary_, where biographical notices of
famous persons used to be inserted.
18. _the Mohocks_. Ever since the Restoration the streets of London
had been infested at night with bands of dissolute young men who
assaulted and injured men and women by wounding and beating them. No
sort of mischief came amiss to them; they effected endless damage by the
breaking of windows, and so forth, and a favourite diversion consisted
in binding a woman in a barrel, and rolling it down Snow Hill or Ludgate
Hill. Their name was derived from the Mohawks, a tribe of North American
Indians, and was used to denote savages in general. An especially
flagrant outbreak of this Hooliganism was in progress at this time (v,
_Spectator_ 324, 332), and on March 17 a royal proclamation against
the Mohocks had been issued.
20. _black_, v. note on p. 1, 1. 9.
21. _Fleet Street_ ran beside the river Fleet, which is now covered
over.
22. _put on_. Hastened.
24. _to hunt me_. The View Hallo was a favourite and doubtless a
very amusing pastime of the Mohocks. The person elected to share in the
game was run down and surrounded by a circle of sportsmen, who kept him
rotating like a top by pricking him with their swords. Cf. _Spectator_
332.
26. _in King Charles the Second's time_ the marauders were known as
Muns and Tityre-Tus.
Page 123.
8. _about four o'clock_. For the time of the play, v. note on p. 8,
1. 5.
14. _the battle of Steenkirk_, 1692, in which the French defeated
the allies under William III.
16. _oaken plants_. Cudgels.
22. _the pit_ was the resort of the critics and people of fashion.
30. _Pyrrhus_, son of Achilles, was one of the warriors who entered
Troy in the wooden horse. He killed Priam, and was given Andromache, the
widow of Hector, as his share of the spoil. The play goes on to depict
how Hermione, daughter of Menelaus and Helen, was forced by her parents
to marry him, and how in consequence her lover Orestes raised the
Delphians and killed him.
31. _the King of France_, whom Sir Roger regards as the leader of
fashion.
32. _a better strut_. By reference to an advertisement of the play
in the _Spectator_ for March 17, we learn that the happy possessor
of this strut was a certain Mr. Booth.
Page 124.
9. _Pyrrhus his_. This form of the possessive was in frequent use,
especially after proper names ending in _s_.
21. _begun_. Obsolete in prose; now _began_.
25. _the widow_. Andromache.
27. _Astyanax_, the son of Hector and Andromache.
35. _a very remarkable silence_. For an account of the talking and
disturbance that usually went on, v. _Spectator_ 45 and 240.
Page 125.
6. _Pylades_, the close friend of Orestes.
9. _the old fellow in whiskers_. Phoenix, counsellor to Pyrrhus, a
minor character.
12. _smoke_, make a butt of, amuse themselves with. Cf. modern
schoolboy slang, _roast_.
26. _justling_. Hustling, jostling. Cf. Shakespeare, _Tempest_,
III. ii. 29, 'I am in case to justle a constable.'
SPECTATOR 359.
Page 126.
16. _that once_. We should say _that for once_.
Page 127.
13. _I had formerly boarded with a surgeon_, and so was presumably
not a strong man.
14. _Put_. A Devonshire word, the old _wretch_.
19. _waited upon_. Visited.
22. _Lion's-Inn_. An old Inn of Court, destroyed in 1863.
Page 128.
5. _spindle_. Thin like the stick with which the thread is twisted
in spinning.
21. _the book I had considered last Saturday_. The Tenth Book of
_Paradise Lost_. Addison's famous criticism of this poem, which
appeared in the Saturday issue of the _Spectator_ from January 5 to
May 3, 1712, was written before Milton had come into his kingdom.
23. _the following lines_. _Paradise Lost_, x. 888-908.
SPECTATOR 383.
Page 129.
20. _bounces_. Rough, disorderly knocks.
26. _Spring-Garden_, The new gardens at Vauxhall, not the old
Spring Gardens in Whitehall. They are mentioned by Pepys as a place of
bad repute.
Page 130.
7. _The Temple Stairs_ were the landing stairs in the grounds of the
Temple. Although there was much wheeled traffic in London the river
remained a very favourite highway.
14. _bate him_. Let him off, remit him. Cf. Shakespeare, _Tempest_,
I. ii. 250:
Thou didst promise
To bate me a full year.
22. _Faux-Hall_. The new Spring-Garden took this name from Foukes
de Breant, who married the Countess of Albemarle. It is the scene of the
matchless Letter XLVI in Fanny Burney's _Evelina_, and the subject
of many allusions in literature.
24. _at La Hogue_. The original issue reads in _Bantry Bay_,
where the French fleet defeated the English in 1689. The memory of La
Hogue, where the French were defeated in 1692 by the English and Dutch,
would be more pleasing to the public.
31. _London Bridge_. Not the bridge now standing, which dates from
1825, but the old bridge built in the thirteenth century.
32. _the seven wonders_. The Pyramids, the walls and hanging
gardens of Babylon, the tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnassus, the temple of
Diana at Ephesus, the Colossus of Rhodes, the statue of Jupiter by
Phidias at Olympia, and the Pharos of Alexandria.
33. _true Englishman_. A phrase made popular by Defoe's _True-
born Englishman_, 1701.
Page 131.
4. _Temple-Bar_. The old gateway between the Strand and Fleet Street,
where traitors' heads used to be exhibited. _On this side_ would be
the western side, outside the city.
6. _the fifty new churches_. By the Act of 1710 a duty was imposed
on coal for this and other purposes.
15. _knight of the shire_, v. note on p. 26, 1. 18.
22. _put_. v. note on p. 127, 1. 14.
23. _Thames ribaldry_. The waterway was famous for its verbal
interchange, some of which has been recorded by Taylor the Water-Poet,
Tom Brown, Swift and Dr. Johnson, and of which the amenities of our
omnibus-drivers are but a Bowdlerized version.
34. _Mahometan paradise_. A paradise of the senses.
Page 132.
4. _your nightingale_, v. note on p. 98, 1. 25.
8. _a mask_. A woman in a mask.
16. _hung beef_. Beef preserved in salt or spices
SPECTATOR 517.
Page 133.
5. _sensibly_. Keenly. Cf. Shakespeare, _Hamlet_ IV. v. 150:
And am most sensibly in grief for it.
13-14. _promoting an address ... in which he succeeded_. Urging the
adoption of an address which actually was adopted.
27. _you was_. A very frequent use.
29. _country_. Country-side, neighbourhood. Cf. Shakespeare, _Merry
Wives of Windsor:_
He's a justice of peace in his country.
Page 134.
14. _a lightning before death_. These words occur in Shakespeare,
_Romeo and Juliet_, V. iii. 90.
33. _peremptorily_. Authoritatively, positively. Cf. Shakespeare, I
_Henry IV_, II. iv. 472:
Peremptorily I speak it, there is virtue in that Falstaff.
Page 135.
7. _Quorum_, v. note on p. 7, 1. 9.
16. _quit-rents_. Charges on the estate.
23. _joyed himself_. Enjoyed himself, been cheerful.
Page 136.
3. _Act of Uniformity_. Acts of Uniformity were passed in 1549, 1558,
1662, and 1706.
APPENDIX I
ON COFFEE-HOUSES
The first English coffee-house was opened in Oxford in 1650, and by the
beginning of the eighteenth century the coffee-house had become the
regular resort of every Londoner who could afford to pay the twopence
for the dish of the beverage which admitted him to its society. Men of
similar tastes assembled at the same house, so that gradually each of
the principal coffee-houses became a centre for a particular kind of
society. Thus _Will's_ (p. 3, 1. 17), at the corner of Russell
Street and Bow Street, Covent Garden, which had been Dryden's favourite
coffee-house, became the haunt of the wits and men of letters; it was
from here that Steele dated his articles on poetry for the
_Tatler_. _St. James's_ (p. 3, 1. 22) in St. James's Street,
was frequented by politicians and men of fashion; it was a Whig house,
and the head quarters of the _Tatler's_ foreign and domestic news
(cf. _Spectator_ 403). _The Grecian_ (p. 3, 1. 25), Devereux
Court, Temple, was the oldest of all the London coffee-houses; here
gathered the barristers of the Temple, and here the _Tatler_ finds
the material of his papers on learning, while men from the Exchange
assembled at _Jonathan's_ (p. 3, 1. 29) in Exchange Alley, and
doctors, clerics, and men of science from the Royal Society at
_Child's_ (p. 3, 1. 19), in St. Paul's Churchyard. Coffee-houses
were very numerous; we find mention within the limits of these papers of
two others, _Jenny Mann's_ (p. 24, 1. 24), in the Tilt-Yard,
Charing-Cross, and _Squire's_ (p. 117, 1. 23), in Fulwood's Rents,
Holborn, and Ashton gives the names of between four and five hundred,
while three thousand are known to have existed in 1708.
There were also a few chocolate-houses, notably _White's_ and the
_Cocoa-Tree_ (p. 3, 1. 25), the Tory centre, both in St. James's
Street. _White's_ was a great gambling-house; Steele dated from it
his articles on Gallantry, Pleasure, and Entertainment, and its
destruction by fire, which took place in 1723, is depicted as the scene
of Plate VI of Hogarth's _The Rake's Progress_, in which the Rake
ruins himself by gaming.
APPENDIX II
ON THE _SPECTATOR'S_ ACQUAINTANCE
Various suggestions have been made concerning the identity of the
characters drawn in these papers. Tradition reported that Sir Roger was
drawn from Sir John Pakington or Packington, Knight of Worcester. This
theory was maintained by Tyers in 1783, but has been conclusively
disproved by Wills. Mr. R. E. H. Duke has made an exhaustive study to
show that his original was Richard Duke, of Bulford, near Milston, where
Addison's early years were spent.
For the prototype of Sir Andrew Freeport Mr. Henry Martin has been
suggested. He was one of the authors of _The British Merchant_; he
contributed No. 180, and probably other papers, to the _Spectator_.
Rumour has also identified Will Honeycomb with Pope's friend, Colonel
Cleland; Captain Sentry with Colonel Kempenfeldt, father of Admiral
Kempenfeldt of the Royal George; and Will Wimble with Thomas Morecraft,
a Yorkshire gentleman introduced to Addison by Steele. Will Wimble
seems, however, to be more nearly akin to the Hon. Thomas Gules of the
_Tatler_ (256), who 'produced several witnesses that he had never
employed himself beyond the twisting of a whip, or the making of a pair
of nut-crackers, in which he only worked for his diversion, in order to
make a present now and then to his friends'; [Footnote: Cf. p. 20, I, 13
and p. 21, II, 2-11.] and the imaginary nature of Will Honeycomb's
existence is sufficiently indicated by the style in which Addison's
eighth and supplementary volume of the _Spectator_ is dedicated to
him.
The same questionable authority has given to the perverse widow the name
of Mrs. Catharine Bovey, or Boevey, of Flaxley Abbey, Gloucestershire,
to whom Steele dedicated the second volume of the Ladies' Library.
It is, however, very doubtful that the characters of the
_Spectator_ were drawn from individual persons. Budgell certainly
says of Theophrastus that he 'was the Spectator of the age he lived in;
he drew the pictures of particular men', but Tickell, who was Addison's
friend and literary executor, speaks expressly of 'the feigned person of
the Author, and of the several characters that compose his club', and
the Spectator himself in two papers exhorts every reader 'never to think
of himself or any one of his friends or enemies aimed at in what is
said', [Footnote: _Spectator_ 34] for 'when I draw a faulty
character I ... take care to dash it with such particular circumstances
as may prevent all such ill-natured applications.' [Footnote:
_Spectator_ 262] The characters are almost certainly created by the
Spectator's genius out of the material gathered from his observation of
many men.
APPENDIX III
ON THE DEATH OF SIR ROGER
After Sir Roger's visit to town we hear no more of him until the club
is startled by the receipt of his butler's letter announcing his death.
Some of his admirers have devised a sentimental reason for his decease.
In Budgell's _Bee_ we read that "Mr. Addison was so fond of this
character that a little before he laid down the _Spectator_
(foreseeing that some nimble gentleman would catch up his pen the moment
he quitted it) he said to our intimate friend with a certain warmth in
his expression, which he was not often guilty of, 'I'll kill Sir Roger
that nobody else may murder him'" Dr. Johnson follows Budgell, and
assigns to Addison Cervantes' reason, who finds himself obliged to kill
Don Quixote, 'being of opinion that they were born for one another, and
that any other hand would do him wrong.'
But there was a more inevitable reason for the death of the knight. Six
more weeks saw the end of the original _Spectator_, the joint
production of Addison and Steele, and their creators were now engaged in
disposing of their characters in various ways. Chalmers remarks that
'The killing of Sir Roger was sufficiently accounted for without
supposing that Addison despatched him in a fit of anger; for the work
was about to close, and it appeared necessary to close the club.'
APPENDIX IV
ON THE _SPECTATOR'S_ POPULARITY
The great vogue of the _Spectator_ gives some measure of its
extraordinary influence. Already in the tenth number we read that the
daily circulation is three thousand, and later, in _Spectator_ 124,
Addison writes: 'My bookseller tells me the demand for these my papers
increases daily.' Of particular papers we know that twenty or thirty
thousand were sold, and Mr. Forster estimates that these numbers must be
multiplied by six to represent a corresponding popularity in our day.
On July 31, 1712, Addison wrote: 'This is the day on which many eminent
authors will probably publish their last words.' On August 1 the Stamp
Tax came into operation, and every half-sheet periodical paid a duty of
a half-penny. The price of the _Spectator_ rose to twopence, and
only half the former number of copies were sold, yet towards the close
of the seventh volume about ten thousand copies were being issued daily.
After publication the papers were collected and issued in eight volumes,
and nine or ten thousand copies of this first edition were sold at the
price of a guinea a volume.