XXIV. The Spectator decides to return to London
Motto. "Once more, ye woods, farewell."—Virgil, Eclogues, x. 63.
[171]: 2. Spring anything to my mind. The metaphors in this and the following lines are drawn from the chase. To "spring" is to rouse game from cover; to "put up" has much the same meaning.
171: 6. Foil the scent. When a variety of game is started, and their trails cross, the dogs become confused and cannot follow any one.
171: 14. My love of solitude, taciturnity. See paper I of this volume.
171: 28. White Witch. Called "white" because doing good; most witches were believed to practise a black art.
[172]: 10. Some discarded Whig. Discarded, or he would not have been staying in the country among Tories.
[173]: 19. Stories of a cock and a bull. Any idle or absurd story. The phrase in this form or in the other now more common, "a cock-and-bull story," has been common in English for nearly three hundred years; but its origin is not known.
173: 25. Make every mother's son of us Commonwealth's men. Sir Andrew Freeport, it will be remembered, was a pronounced Whig, and the Whigs were charged with having inherited the doctrines and traditions of the Commonwealth.