Who ever asked the witnesses’ high race
Whose oath with martyrdom did Stephen grace?
p. 202 Pug. A quasi-proper name for a fox. cf. R.S. Surtees’ Ask Mamma (1857-8), xv. ‘Pug … turns tail and is very soon in the rear of the hounds.’
p. 202 silken Doctor. Oates pretended to have taken the degree of D.D. at the University of Salamanca.
The spirit caught him up! the Lord knows where,
And gave him his Rabbinical degree
Unknown to foreign university.—Absalom and Achitopbel, i.
Silken of course alludes to his black silk Doctor’s gown.
p. 202 Guinea for—no Feast. This and the following verses refer to a circumstance much talked of and well laughed at by the Tories. The Duke of York having been invited to dine with the Artillery Company at Merchant-Tailors’-Hall, on 21 April, 1682; an opposition dinner was impudently projected by the Shaftesbury party, to be held at Haberdashers’ Hall, and tickets were forthwith issued at one guinea each; for the purpose, as it was declared, of commemorating the providential escape of the nation from the hellish designs of the papists, etc. The King, however, issued a salutary order forbidding the meeting as an illegal one. This supplied the loyal party with new matter for ridicule and satire against the Whigs, who were considerably dejected by their disappointment.
p. 206 overtaken—with liquor. cf. Steele, Spectator, No. 420, Wednesday, 6 August, 1712. ‘I do not remember I was ever o’ertaken in drink.’
p. 206 wholesom Act. see supra. Vol. I, The Roundheads, Act v, II, p. 457, note: ‘p. 414, an act, 24 June.’
p. 207 Forty one. The year of the Grand Remonstrance and agitation for the suppression of Episcopacy.
p. 207 guttle. To flatter, to toady. The word is rare in this sense, generally meaning to guzzle. cf. parasitus.