[126b] Addison speaks of a fine flaxen long wig costing thirty guineas (Guardian, No. 97), and Duumvir’s fair wig, which Phillis threw into the fire, cost forty guineas (Tatler, No. 54)
[127a] Swift’s mother, Abigail Erick, was of a Leicestershire family, and after her husband’s death she spent much of her time with her friends near her old home. Mr. Worrall, vicar of St. Patrick’s, with whom Swift was on terms of intimacy in 1728–29, was evidently a relative of the Worralls where Mrs. Swift had lodged, and we may reasonably suppose that he owed the living to Swift’s interest in the family.
[127b] The title of a humorous poem by Lydgate. A “lickpenny” is a greedy or grasping person.
[128a] Small wooden blocks used for lighting fires. See Swift (“Description of the Morning”),
“The small-coal man was heard with cadence deep,
Till drowned in shriller notes of chimney-sweep;”
and Gay (Trivia, ii. 35),
“When small-coal murmurs in the hoarser throat,
From smutty dangers guard thy threatened coat.”
[128b] The Tory Ministers.
[129b] Thomas Southerne’s play of Oroonoko, based on Mrs. Aphra Behn’s novel of the same name, was first acted in 1696.