SPECTATOR 116.
Page 48.
25. the Bastile. The State prison in Paris, which was destroyed by the mob in 1789 (v. Coleridge's poem on this subject, and the stirring description in Dickens' Tale of Two Cities, II. xxi.).
Page 49.
20. Budgell has somewhat defaced the character of Sir Roger by this touch, and by the inhuman humanity of p. 52, 1. 18.
24. managed. Broken in. Cf. Shakespeare, Richard II., III. iii. 179:
Wanting the manage of unruly jades.
25. stone-horse. Stallion.
26. staked himself. Impaled himself on a stake in jumping.
29. beagles. Small hounds formerly employed in hunting the hare. Cf. White's Selborne, Letter VI, 'One solitary grey hen was sprung by some beagles in beating for a hare.' They are now superseded by harriers, which are still sometimes called by their name.
30. Stop-hounds. So called because when one of them found the scent he stopped and squatted 'to impart more effect to his deep tones, and to get wind for a fresh start' (Wills).
32. mouths. Voices. Cf. Shakespeare, Henry V., II. iv. 70:
For coward dogs
Most spend their mouths when what they seem to threaten
Runs far before them.
33. cry. Pack. Cf. Shakespeare, Coriolanus, III. iii. 120,
'You common cry of curs.'
34. nice. Fastidious. Cf. Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, v. ii. 219, 'We'll not be nice; take hands.'
Page 50.
5. counter-tenor. Alto.
8. iv. i. 124. Shakespeare was not in Budgell's day so common a reservoir of quotations as he has since become. Dryden had appreciated him, but he was in general very little known, even among men of letters.
15. Hunting in July must have entailed great loss on the farmers before it was forbidden by the Game Laws of 1831.
17. pad. v. note on p. 12, 1. 31.
19. rid. v. note on p. 24, 1. 17.
20. benevolence. In its literal meaning of goodwill.
25. rid. Now obsolete: ridden.
Page 51.
7. chace. v. note on p. 46, 1. 22.
35. took. Betook herself to. Cf. Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors, v. i. 36:
Run, master, run; for God's sake, take a house!
Page 52.
2. chiding. Barking. Cf. Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream, iv. i. 120:
Never did I hear
Such gallant chiding.
10. his pole. The huntsman followed on foot, carrying a long leaping-pole, which permitted him to keep a straighter course than he could have done on horseback, owing to the state of the country.
26. Monsieur Paschal, the great French philosopher of the seventeenth century, who died in 1662.
Page 53.
12. habit. State, condition.
17. But the Spectator's hunting has only consisted of watching the chase from a rising ground!
24. Epistle to John Dryden, 73-4, 88-95.