15. Guelfes and Gibellines. The opposing political parties in Germany and Italy from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. In Italy they were the adherents of the Pope and the Emperor respectively.
16. the League. The Holy League, formed in 1576, in the Roman Catholic interest.
17. unhappy. Unfortunate. Cf. Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors, IV. iv. 126, 'O most unhappy day!'
SPECTATOR 126.
Page 89.
7. such persons, that. Mixed construction: all persons that or such persons as. Frequent in Shakespeare; cf. Measure for Measure, II. ii. 147:
Such things
That want no ear but yours.
16. retainers. Followers, adherents.
28. Diodorus Siculus, a Greek historian of the last century B.C. The citation is from his universal history, a work in forty books, i. 35. 7.
30. Ichneumon. An animal belonging to the same family as the civets. The Egyptian ichneumon, known also as Pharaoh's cat, was held sacred among the ancient Egyptians because of its propensity for destroying crocodiles' eggs, but unfortunately for Addison's illustration, it is now proved that the degenerate ichneumon does actually 'find his account' in feeding upon the eggs which he breaks, whether they be those of crocodiles or merely of the barn-door fowl.