I suppose myself to be alluding here to a very oppressive statute, passed to clip the wings of such gentlemen as Mr. Snap, by which it is enacted that, in actions for slander, if the jury find a verdict under forty shillings, e. g. as in the case in the text, for one farthing, the plaintiff shall be entitled to recover from the defendant only as much costs as damages, i. e. another farthing; a provision which has made many a poor pettifogger sneak out of court with a flea in his ear. Since this was written, a still more stringent statute hath been made, which, 'tis to be hoped, will put down the nuisance.
Note 11 [Page 196].
"Can the author of Ten Thousand a-Year," asked some anonymous person during its original appearance—"point out any class of Dissenters who allow their members to frequent theatres?" The author believes that this is the case with Unitarians—and also with many of the members of other Dissenting congregations—especially the younger members of even the stanchest Dissenting families.
Note 12 [Page 212].
This fearful-looking word, I wish to inform my lady-readers, is an original and monstrous amalgamation of three or four Greek words—[Greek:κυανο-χαιτ-ανθρωπο-ποιων:kyano-chait-anthrôpo-poiôn]—denoting a fluid "which can render the human hair black." Whenever a barber or perfumer determines on trying to puff off some villanous imposition of this sort, strange to say, he goes to some starving scholar, and gives him half-a-crown to coin a word like the above; one which shall be equally unintelligible and unpronounceable, and therefore attractive and popular.
Note 13 [Page 243].
"Vitas hinnuleo me similis, Chloë,
Quærenti pavidam——
Matrem.
—— et corde et genibus tremit."—Hor. i. 23.
Note 14 [Page 264].
See ante, [p. 138].