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.