190: 17. The Widow Trueby's Water. The "strong waters" of that time, like many of the patent medicines of ours, owed their vogue largely to the fact that they were made of distilled spirits. See Addison's account of some of the quack medicines of the day in Tatler, No. 224.
[191]: 11. The sickness being at Dantzic. The great plague there in 1709.
191: 14. A hackney-coach. Hackney-coaches, or carriages for hire in the streets, were introduced into London during the latter half of the seventeenth century. By Addison's time they had become common; in 1710, by statute, the number to be licensed in London was fixed at eight hundred. The fare was a mile and a half for a shilling. The coachmen were an uncivil and pugnacious class, which accounts for Sir Roger's preference for an elderly one. Graphic pictures of the manners of coachmen may be found in Gay's Trivia, ii. 230-240, 311-315; iii. 35-50.
[192]: 10. A roll of their best Virginia. Tobacco for smoking was made into ropes or short rolls, and had to be cut up for the pipe.
192: 16. Sir Cloudesley Shovel. A famous English admiral, who took a prominent part in the great victory of the combined Dutch and English fleets over the French, off La Hogue, in May, 1692. He was afterward drowned at sea; but his body was recovered and buried in the Abbey. The monument to Sir Cloudesley Shovel Addison, in No. 26, criticizes as in bad taste, and with very good reason.
192: 18. Busby's tomb. Richard Busby (1606-1695), for fifty-five years headmaster of Westminster school. He used to say that "the rod was his sieve, and that whoever could not pass through that was no boy for him." He persistently kept his hat on when Charles II came to visit his school, saying it would never do for his boys to imagine there was anybody superior to himself.
192: 23. The little chapel on the right hand. St. Edmund's, in the south aisle of the choir.
192: 26. The lord who had cut off the King of Morocco's head. An inscription recording this feat—probably legendary—formerly hung over the tomb of Sir Bernard Brocas, who was beheaded on Tower Hill, 1400.