SPECTATOR 2.
Page 6.
5. Sir Roger de Coverley. For a discussion of the identity of Sir Roger and the other characters v. Appendix II, On the Spectator's Acquaintance. The name was suggested by Swift (Elwin).
7. that famous country-dance. Originated by the minstrels of Sir Roger of Calverley in the reign of Richard I. (Wills).
8. parts. Qualifications, capacities. Cf. Shakespeare, King Lear, i. iv. 285:
My train are men of choice and rarest parts.
17. Soho-Square, south of Oxford Street, was a fashionable place of residence. The name is derived from the cry 'So Hoe' in use when the Mayor and Corporation hunted the hare over the fields of that district.
In Spectator 329 Sir Roger says that he is staying in Norfolk-
Buildings.
19. a perverse beautiful widow. v. Appendix II.
22. Lord Rochester, the poet-wit, who died in 1680, was notorious as a leader of fashionable dissipation. In this connexion he is mentioned by Evelyn and Pepys.
Sir George Etherege, author of The Man of Mode and two other comedies, was the companion of Rochester in dissipation and notoriety. He died in 1691.
23. Bully Dawson. A notorious ruffian and sharper.
29. doublet. A coat reaching just below the waist, introduced from France in the fourteenth century.
Page 7.
9. justice of the Quorum. County justice, magistrate. Quorum was a prominent word in their commission of appointment.
10. quarter-session. The quarterly meeting of magistrates, at which cases sent up from petty sessions are tried. The word is now always used in the plural form, sessions, as in Spectator 126.
12. the game-act originated in the Game Laws of William the Conqueror. The first Game Act was passed in 1496, and the one in force at the time of Addison's writing in the reign of Anne. By these enactments a man was qualified to take out a licence to kill game by his birth or estate. The usual qualification was the possession of land to the value of 100 pounds per annum.
14. the Inner-Temple was originally the property of the Knights Templars. It was converted into Inns of Court in 1311, after the suppression of the military knighthoods.
17. humoursome. Whimsical, capricious. Cf. Shakespeare, 2 Henry IV., IV. iv. 34, 'As humorous as winter.'
20. the house. The fraternity of lawyers.
Aristotle and Longinus. Aristotle's Poetics and the essay 'On the Sublime' of Longinus are the basis of all classical criticism. Longinus was a critic of the third century. Addison probably knew him in Boileau's famous translation of 1674.
21. Littleton. Author of a famous book on Tenures. He died in 1481.
Coke. The famous seventeenth century jurist and Chief Justice. He is best known by his commentary on Littleton's Tenures.
28. Demosthenes. The famous Athenian orator of the fourth century B.C.
29. Tully. Marcus Tullius Cicero, the great Roman orator of the last century B.C.
31. wit. Understanding, perception. 'True wit consists in the resemblance of ideas' when that resemblance is 'such an one that gives delight and surprise to the reader.' (Dryden.) Cf. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, III. ii. 225:
I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth.
32. turn. Bent, proclivity.
34. taste of. Obsolete. Modern English, taste in.
Page 8.
5. the time of the play varied from about five o'clock to half-past six. Cf. Spectator 335, where Sir Roger leaves Norfolk Street at four o'clock for the play.
6. New-Inn. A square in Lincoln's Inn. Russel-Court. A turning out of Drury Lane.
7. turn. Short time.
8. periwig. The long curled dress wig introduced at the Restoration.
9. the Rose was the actors' tavern in Covent Garden.
18. the British common. The sea stands to Britain in the relation that the village common does to the village community.
Page 9.
5. Captain Sentry. v. Appendix II.
19. left the world. Retired from public life.
32. his own vindication. The claim he makes for himself.
Page 10.
9. humourists. Eccentrics. Cf. Ben Jonson, Prologue to The Alchemist:
Many persons more
Whose manners, now call'd humours, feed the stage.
11. Will Honeycomb. v. Appendix II.
20. habits. Clothes. Cf. Shakespeare, Hamlet, I. iii. 70:
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy.
30. the Duke of Monmouth was the natural son of Charles II., and was famous for his personal beauty and fine manners. He was executed in 1685 for pretending to the crown. Mention is made of him in the diaries of Evelyn and Pepys.
Page 11.
22. chamber-counsellor. A consulting lawyer, who does not conduct cases in the courts.
26. gone. Advanced.