p. 230 betauder. The meaning of this word (=to bedizen with tawdry finery) is plain. As it is only found here, the N.E.D. suggests it may be a nonce-verb.
p. 230 Spanish Paint. Rouge, cf. Lady Wishfort in The Way of the World (1700);—’I mean the Spanish paper, idiot. Complexion, darling, paint, paint, paint.’—Act iii, 1.
p. 230 prew. Prim, modest. A very rare, affected little word.
p. 230 rant. To be boisterously merry, cf. Farquhar, The Constant Couple (1700), Act iv, 1:—’Clincher jun. I’ll court, and swear, and rant, and rake and go to the jubilee with the best of them.’
p. 233 seditiously petitioning. In allusion to the vast number of petitions which Shaftesbury procured from the counties in support of the Exclusion Bill. The rival factions, ‘Petitioners’ and ‘Abhorrers’ were the nucleus of the two great parties, Whigs and Tories.
p. 236 Tuberose. The most fashionable perfume of the day. cf. Etheredge’s The Man of Mode (1676), Act v, 1:—’Belinda. I … told them I never wore anything but orange-flowers and tuberose.’
p. 245 hits. A stroke of luck; an opportunity.
p. 246 ignoramus. The partial verdict of the Middlesex Grand Jury ignoring the bill of the indictment against Shaftesbury, 24 November, 1681. It is frequently alluded to by Dryden, Mrs. Behn, and the Tory writers.
p. 248 Albany. James (II), Duke of York and Albany.
p. 249 Polanders. Shaftesbury aspired to be chosen King of Poland in 1675 when John Sobieski was elected to that Throne. This piece of foolish ambition and a certain physical infirmity, to wit, an abscess that in order to preserve his life had to be kept continually open by a silver pipe, got him the nickname of Count Tapsky. In The Medal (March, 1682) Dryden speaks of ‘The Polish Medal’, and Otway’s Prologue to Venice Preserv’d (1682) ridicules Shaftesbury’s regal covetings thus:—