[68]: 16. The Roman triumvirate. Octavius, Antony, Lepidus. For the account of their "debate," see Plutarch's Life of Mark Antony or Shakespeare's version of it in Julius Cæsar, iv. 1.
68: 27. Punch. One Robert Powell, a hunchbacked dwarf, kept a puppet show, or "Punch's theatre," in Covent Garden. The speech of Punch was often very broad. See Ashton's Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne, p. 215.
V. A Lady's Library
Motto. "She had not accustomed her woman's hands to the distaff or the skeins of Minerva."—Virgil, Æneid, vii. 305.
[69]: 13. Leonora. A letter from a Leonora, perhaps the lady of this paper, is to be found in Spectator, No. 91.
[70]: 4. Great jars of china. The craze for collecting china was then at its height. It is satirized by Steele in Tatler, No. 23, and by Addison in No. 10 of The Lover.
70: 17. Scaramouches. The Scaramouch is a typical buffoon in Italian farces; the name is derived from Scaramuccia, a famous Italian clown of the last half of the seventeenth century.
70: 20. Snuff box. This indicates that the habit of snuff taking had been adopted by fine ladies. It would seem, however, to have been a new fashion, at all events with ladies. See Steele's criticism upon the habit in Spectator, No. 344. For curious facts with reference to the use of tobacco in the Queen Anne time, see Ashton, Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne, Chap. xvii.
[71]: 3. Looking into the books, etc. The humour consists largely, of course, in the odd miscellany of books suited "to the lady and the scholar."
71: 9. Ogilby's Virgil, the first complete translation of Virgil, 1649.