33. Norfolk-Buildings, in Norfolk Street, Strand, were originally the property of the Howards. For Sir Roger's residence, v. also Spectator 2, p. 6, 1. 17.
SPECTATOR 335.
Page 122.
9. the Committee was a play by Sir Robert Howard, 1662, the motive of which is ridicule of the Puritans.
12. Distressed Mother, an adaptation by Ambrose Philips of Racine's Andromaque, had been produced on March 17.
15. at the end of the dictionary, where biographical notices of famous persons used to be inserted.
18. the Mohocks. Ever since the Restoration the streets of London had been infested at night with bands of dissolute young men who assaulted and injured men and women by wounding and beating them. No sort of mischief came amiss to them; they effected endless damage by the breaking of windows, and so forth, and a favourite diversion consisted in binding a woman in a barrel, and rolling it down Snow Hill or Ludgate Hill. Their name was derived from the Mohawks, a tribe of North American Indians, and was used to denote savages in general. An especially flagrant outbreak of this Hooliganism was in progress at this time (v, Spectator 324, 332), and on March 17 a royal proclamation against the Mohocks had been issued.
20. black, v. note on p. 1, 1. 9.
21. Fleet Street ran beside the river Fleet, which is now covered over.
22. put on. Hastened.