[178] Pyrrhus. Son of Achilles, to whom Hector’s widow, Andromache, had fallen as his share of the plunder of Troy.
[179] Pyrrhus his. This use is due to a wrong idea that the possessive termination is an abbreviation of his.
[180] Astyanax. Son of Hector and Andromache (and subject of one of the most touching passages in Homer).
[181] Smoke. A slang word, equivalent to the modern rag.
No. 383. Tuesday, May 20
Criminibus debent hortos.
Juv. Sat. i. ver. 75.
A beauteous garden, but by vice maintain’d.
As I was sitting in my chamber and thinking on a subject for my next Spectator, I heard two or three irregular bounces[182] at my landlady’s door, and upon the opening of it, a loud cheerful voice inquiring whether the Philosopher was at home. The child who went to the door answered very innocently, that he did not lodge there. I immediately recollected[183] that it was my good friend Sir Roger ’s voice; and that I had promised to go with him on the water to Spring Garden[184], in case it proved a good evening. The Knight put me in mind of my promise from the bottom of the staircase, but told me that if I was speculating[185] he would stay below till I had done. Upon my coming down I found all the children of the family got about my old friend, and my landlady herself, who is a notable prating gossip, engaged in a conference with him; being mightily pleased with his stroking her little boy upon the head, and bidding him be a good child, and mind his book.
We were no sooner come to the Temple stairs, but we were surrounded with a crowd of watermen offering us their respective services. Sir Roger, after having looked about him very attentively, spied one with a wooden leg, and immediately gave him orders to get his boat ready. As we were walking towards it, “You must know,” says Sir Roger, “I never make use of any body to row me, that has not either lost a leg or an arm. I would rather bate him a few strokes of his oar[186] than not employ an honest man that has been wounded in the Queen’s service. If I was a lord or a bishop, and kept a barge, I would not put a fellow in my livery that had not a wooden leg.”
