SPECTATOR 125.
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19. St. Anne's Lane. Turning out of Aldersgate Street.
24. prickeared. A contemptuous term applied to Roundheads, in allusion to the effect produced by the shortness of their hair, and borrowed from its ordinary use as applied to mongrel dogs.
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7. prejudice of the land-tax. The land-tax was first levied in 1699 to pay for the French War. It was carried by Whig feeling in opposition to the Tory landholders.
the destruction of the game, which would proceed while the country gentlemen were occupied with their party differences.
19. sinks. Used transitively, lowers, diminishes. Cf. Shakespeare, Henry VIII., iii. ii. 383, 'A load would sink a navy.'
28. Plutarch, the great Greek moralist and biographer of the first century of our era. The quotation is from De Inimicorum Utilitate.
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2. that great rule. St. Luke, vi. 27, 'Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you.'
10. the regard of. A regard for.
19. an object seen in two different mediums. For instance, a straight stick partly immersed in water appears as if bent at the point at which it enters the water. The rays of light reflected from the position under water, by which we see that portion, are bent when they leave the water and enter the air in such a way as to make that part of the stick appear nearer to our eye than it would appear in air.
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4. postulatums. The word has now become Anglicized in a different form, postulate, plural postulates.
15. Guelfes and Gibellines. The opposing political parties in Germany and Italy from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. In Italy they were the adherents of the Pope and the Emperor respectively.
16. the League. The Holy League, formed in 1576, in the Roman Catholic interest.
17. unhappy. Unfortunate. Cf. Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors, IV. iv. 126, 'O most unhappy day!'