p. 277 I saw how. Tom is quoting these four lines from stanza vii of The Disappointment vide Vol. vi. The same poem, yclept The Insensible, appears in various editions of Rochester’s Works, and is attributed to the Earl. The Disappointment is again the title of another poem which directly precedes The Insensible.
p. 278 Enter Sensure. cf. Shadwell’s The Miser (1672), Act iv, where Squeeze escaping from Mother Cheatley’s house is exposed by being found to have donned Letrice’s red silk stocking in mistake for his own. It is said that when Shaftesbury’s house was searched for incriminating papers a lady of some little notoriety was found concealed under his bed, p. 281 the City-Charter. The Charter of the City of London was broken by the Crown in 1683. cf. Dryden’s _Prologue to the King & Queen … upon the Union of the Two Companies _spoken at Drury Lane, 16 November, 1682:—
When men will needlessly their freedom barter
For lawless power, sometimes they catch a Tartar;
(There’s a damned word that rhymes to this, call’d Charter.)
p. 282 Crape-Goivnorums. Clerics. Bailey (1755) defines crape as a “sort of thin worsted stuff of which the dress of the clergy is sometimes made”, cf. Speculum Crape-Gownsorum; or, A Looking-Glass for the young Academicks (1682). An unpublished satire (Harleian MS.), The Convocation (1688), has:—
Whole Troops of Crape Gowns with Curtains of Lawn
In the Pale of the Church together are drawn.
p. 282 Association. When Shaftesbury was apprehended and sent to the Tower in 1681, the project of an “Association” was discovered amongst his papers. The satire is very mordant here. There is a caustic pasquil entitled Massinello, or a Satyr against the Association and the Guildhall Plot. Dedicated to the Salamanca (No) Doctor, 1683. Cf. Dryden’s Prologue to the King and Qucen, spoken at the opening of their Theatre, Drury Lane, upon the Union of the Two Companies, 16 November, 1682:—
How Pennsylvania’s air agrees with Quakers,
And Carolina’s with Associators:
Both e’en too good for madmen and for traitors.
p. 289 Chitterling. Originally the smaller intestines of beasts, as of the pig, but here used as equalling “catgut”. A rare example.
p. 290 Discoverer. A name given to those who belonged to Titus Oates’ gang and feigned to have knowledge of and discover the Popish Plot.
p. 294 mump’d. tricked. Dutch mompen = to cheat. A very common expression.