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.
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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.
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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.
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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