Chapter XII: Part II: | Indulgence (7)

=115=: 5. =Great vulgar.= The phrase is from the second line of Cowley's translation of the _Odi profanum_ of Horace, above mentioned:

"Hence, ye profane! I hate ye all,
Both the great vulgar and the small."

But Steele's sentence is certainly obscure.

=116=: 11. =If e'er ambition did my fancy cheat=, etc. These lines are Cowley's own, and are inserted in the essay on _Greatness_.

XIV. LABOUR AND EXERCISE

=Motto.= "That there may be a sound mind in a sound body."--Juvenal, _Satires_, x. 356.

=117=: 21. =Ferments the humours.= It was an old medical notion that in the body there are four _humours_ or fluids,--blood, phlegm, choler, and bile,--and that health depended upon the due proportion and mixture of these humours. This conception influenced popular language, after it was in great part discarded by more accurate medical knowledge. It will be noticed throughout this paper that Addison's hygiene is better than his physiology.

=117=: 28. =Refining those spirits.= The name animal spirits was given to a subtle fluid which, according to ancient medical notions, permeated the body and served in some way as the medium of sensation and volition. In its looser and more recent use the phrase means little more than nervous energy or sometimes physical vivacity.

=118=: 3. =The spleen= was supposed to be the seat of melancholy or fretfulness, hence was often used for the melancholy itself.

=118=: 5. =Vapours.= The blues, especially used of women.

=120=: 8. =Dr. Sydenham.= Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689), the most noted physician of his time, surnamed "the English Hippocrates."

=120=: 12. =Medicina Gymnastica=, _or a Treatise concerning the Power of Exercise_, by Francis Fuller, published in 1704.

=120=: 14. =Exercise myself an hour every morning.= It may be doubted whether Mr. Addison kept up this healthful practice. At all events, like most of the fat club goers of the age, he gave evidence in his later years of the need of more vigorous physical exercise, and he died at the early age of forty-seven.

=120=: 23. =A Latin treatise of exercises.= _Artis Gymnasticae apud antiquos_, by Hieronymus Mercurialis, Venice, 1569.

XV. SIR ROGER GOES A-HUNTING

This paper and XXX of the present collection were written by Eustace Budgell. This sanguine, brilliant, but ill-starred young man was a cousin of Addison's, an Oxford graduate, and a writer of considerable promise. He was introduced to public life by Addison, whom he accompanied as clerk when Addison went to Ireland as secretary. For a time Budgell was a member of the Irish Parliament, and seemed to have a successful career in prospect both in politics and in letters; but he became involved in unfortunate financial speculations, especially in the notorious South Sea Bubble, was guilty of forgery in his efforts to extricate himself, and finally, in despair, drowned himself in the Thames.

=Motto.= "Cithaeron calls aloud and the dogs on Mount Taygetus."--Virgil, _Georgics_, iii. 43.

Cithaeron and Taygetus were mountains, the one in Boeotia and the other in Laconia.

=121=: 18. =The Bastile= (modern spelling, Bastille). The famous prison, for prisoners of state, in Paris; destroyed at the beginning of the French Revolution, July 14, 1789. The 14th of July is still a national holiday in France.

=123=: 19. =Midsummer Night's Dream=, iv. 1. 124.

=126=: 20. =Threw down his pole.= Such of the hunters as followed the chase on foot usually carried long vaulting poles, by the aid of which they could leap hedges, ditches, or miry places, and thus, by going cross country, often keep as close to the dogs as the mounted huntsmen. See Ashton's _Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne_, Chap. xxiii.

=127=: 7. =Pascal.= Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), French geometrician and philosopher, and one of the most acute thinkers of his century. His later years were passed in the celebrated community of Port Royal, where his metaphysical and religious works were written. After his death, a number of fragmentary papers intended for a work in defence of Christianity, which he did not live to finish, were collected and published under the title _Pensées de M. Pascal sur la Religion_ (Thoughts of Pascal upon Religion). It is from the seventh section (_Misère de l'homme_) of this work that the quotation in the text is taken.

=127=: 27. =Too great an application to his studies in his youth.= Pascal wrote a famous Latin treatise on Conic Sections at the age of sixteen, invented a calculating machine at the age of nineteen, and before he was twenty-one was accounted one of the first mathematicians of the world. But he says that from the age of eighteen he never passed a day without pain.

=128=: 10. =Lines out of Mr. Dryden.= John Dryden (1631-1700), the representative English poet of the last half of the seventeenth century. The lines quoted are from his Epistle XV, to his cousin of the same name as himself, John Dryden of Chesterton, a robust, fox-hunting bachelor. The epistle is a good example of Dryden's masculine common-sense.

XVI. THE COVERLEY WITCH

=Motto.= "They make their own visions."--Virgil, _Eclogues_, viii. 108.

=129=: 9. =The subject of witchcraft.= The Spectator was less credulous, on this matter of witchcraft, than most of his contemporaries. The witchcraft craze in Salem, Massachusetts, occurred in 1692; only a few years before this paper was written, two women had been hanged in Northampton, England, for witchcraft; and as late as 1716 a certain Mrs. Hicks and her daughter were executed in Huntingdon for selling their souls to the devil, etc. The statute of James I, 1603, punishing witchcraft by death, was not repealed until 1736; and the belief in witchcraft continued to be common long after that, not only among the ignorant, but among the educated. John Wesley, on most matters a man of very sound practical judgement, writes in his _Journal_ as late as 1770: "I cannot give up to all the Deists in Great Britain the existence of witchcraft till I give up the credit of all history, sacred and profane. And at the present time I have not only as strong but stronger proofs of this from eye and ear witnesses than I have of murder; so that I cannot rationally doubt of one any more than the other." And Samuel Johnson, when questioned by Boswell on the matter, while he would "not affirm anything positively upon the subject," reminded Mr. Boswell that in support of witchcraft "You have not only the general report and belief, but many solemn, voluntary confessions." (Boswell's _Life of Samuel Johnson_, April 9, 1772.)

For an account of the kind of evidence used against alleged witches, see a case cited in Ashton's _Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne_, Chap. x.

=130=: 19. =Otway.= Thomas Otway (1651-1685), the best tragic dramatist of the Restoration period. The passage is from his tragedy, _The Orphan_, ii. 1.

=131=: 8. =Carried her several hundreds of miles.= In accordance with the superstition that a witch rode through the air at night on a broomstick. Other superstitions are referred to in the following lines.

=131=: 15. =Take a pin of her.= Because bewitched people were frequently said to be tormented with pins, or to be made to vomit pins. The pins that figured so conspicuously in the Salem witchcraft trials may still be seen in the Museum there.

=132=: 5. =A tabby cat.= A black cat was traditionally supposed to be a favourite form in which Satan embodied himself, and hence a constant figure in all witchcraft stories.

=132=: 15. =Advising her, as a justice of peace.= This sentence admirably indicates Sir Roger's half belief in the preternatural powers of the old woman, and his anxiety to avoid any trouble that would oblige him to come to a conclusion in the matter.

=132=: 24. =Trying experiments with her.= Because, if she floated, she was accounted a witch; if she sank, she was probably innocent, and they might pull her out.

XVII. SIR ROGER TALKS OF THE WIDOW

=Motto.= "In [his] side is fixed the fatal arrow."

--Virgil, _Æneid_, iv. 73.

XVIII. MANNERS IN THE COUNTRY

=Motto.= "The city they call Rome, I had been foolish enough, Melibæus, to suppose like this town of ours."--Virgil, _Eclogues_, i. 20.

=140=: 11. =The fashionable world is grown free and easy.= This tendency in manners began to be more marked after the Restoration, 1660. Some reaction toward a more formal and elaborate courtesy in the world of fashion could be seen about the middle of the eighteenth century, under the influence of such men as Lord Chesterfield.

For some account of manners in the Queen Anne time, see Ashton, _Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne_, Chaps. vii, viii; Trail's _Social England_, Chaps. xvi, xvii. For telling contemporary satire, see Swift's _Polite Conversation_.

=143=: 2. =Red coats and laced hats= were fashionable twenty years before Addison was writing. In 1711 the coat was likely to be of some more quiet color, though in great variety of shades. At just this time the skirts were "wired" to make them stand out--as may be seen by a reference in _Spectator_, No. 145. The laced hat had been replaced by a low-crowned, black felt hat, with very wide brim, which was looped up or "cocked." For the variety of shapes into which the dandy would cock his hat, and other information on the hat, see _Spectator_, No. 319.

=143=: 4. =The height of their head-dresses.= The head-dress had evidently been much lowered within a few years. Addison, in _Spectator_, No. 98, declares that "within my own memory I have known it rise and fall about thirty degrees." In the latter half of the century, about 1775, it again attained proportions even more startling than in Addison's day.

XIX. SIR ROGER AT THE ASSIZES

=Motto.= "A jovial companion on the way is as good as a carriage."--Publius Syrus, _Maxims_.

=144=: 9. =Assizes.= The periodical sessions held by at least one of the superior judges in every county in England. For a brief but clear description of the English judicial system, see Woodrow Wilson's _The State_, sections 731-745.

=144=: 16. =Just within the Game Act.= This act, passed in the reign of James I, provided that no person who had not an income of forty pounds a year, or two hundred pounds' worth of goods and chattels, should be allowed to shoot game. The law continued in force until 1827.

=144=: 23. =Petty jury.= The twelve men selected to determine cases, civil or criminal, in court, according to the evidence presented to them; called petty (or petit) jury to distinguish them from the _grand jury_, whose principal function is to decide whether the evidence against a suspected person is sufficient to warrant holding him for trial by a petty jury.

=144=: 27. =Quarter sessions.= A criminal court held by the justices of the peace once a quarter in an English county.

=145=: 20. =Much might be said on both sides.= Sir Roger's decision has passed into a proverb.

=146=: 12. =A look of much business and great intrepidity.= One of Addison's best bits of description.

=147=: 19. =The Saracen's Head.= In early days, before city streets were numbered, not only inns but shops usually were designated by some sign painted or carved at the door. In the case of inns this practice still survives, and most English inns of the county towns bear the name of some object that once served as a sign, as the Angel (Lincoln), the Fountain (Canterbury), the Bull (Cambridge), the Three Swans (Salisbury). Ever since the time of the Crusades the head of a Saracen, or Turk, had been a favourite sign. Readers of Boswell's _Life of Samuel Johnson_ will recall the Turk's Head Tavern in Gerrard Street, London, where the most famous of clubs used to meet.

XX. THE EDUCATION OF AN HEIR

=Motto.= "Learning improves native genius, and right training strengthens the character; but bad morals will bring to shame the best advantages of truth."--Horace, _Odes_, iv. 33.

=149=: 23. =A story I have heard.= Addison probably invented this story, and he certainly thought well of it himself. On the same day this paper was printed he sent to his friend Edward Wortley Montague a letter beginning thus: "Being very well pleased with this day's _Spectator_, I cannot forbear sending you one of them, and desiring your opinion of the story in it. When you have a son, I shall be glad to be his Leontine, as my circumstances will probably be like his." The tone of discouragement in the last clause is explained by Addison's statements, later in the letter, that he has recently lost large sums of money, "and what is worse than all the rest, my mistress." The Countess of Warwick was evidently not smiling upon him just then, and Addison saw himself in the future--if not like Leontine, a widower--a bachelor in humble circumstances.

=149=: 27. =Like a novel.= The word _novel_ was introduced into English in the sixteenth century as a name for the Italian _novelle_, or short tales, translations of which were then very numerous in England. In Addison's time it was still used to designate a short story as distinguished from the longer romances like those in the _Ladies Library_ (V of this volume). The modern novel, an extended narrative of real life, with careful plot usually having for its central motion the passion of love, was not yet written in English. It is usually said to begin with the work of Richardson and Fielding, 1740-1750.

=150=: 14. =Gazette.= The official journal of the government. Steele, it will be remembered, had been gazetteer from May, 1707, to October, 1710, when the Whigs went out of power.

=150=: 23. =According to Mr. Cowley.= "You would advise me not to precipitate that resolution [of retiring from public life] but to stay a while longer with patience and complaisance, till I had gotten such an estate as might afford me (according to the saying of that person whom you and I love very much and would believe as soon as another man) 'cum dignitate otium.' That were excellent advice to Joshua, who could bid the sun stay too. But there is no fooling with life when it is once turned beyond forty. The seeking for a fortune then is but a desperate after-game."--Cowley's Essay, _The Danger of Procrastination_. Also see note, p. 234.

=150=: 29. =Of three hundred a year=, _i.e_. yielding an income of three hundred pounds a year.

=152=: 19. =Inns of Court.= See note, p. 221.

XXI. WHIGS AND TORIES

=Motto.= "This thirst of kindred blood, my sons, detest,
Nor turn your force against your country's breast."

--Virgil, _Æneid_, vi. 832. Dryden's tr.

=155=: 1. =The malice of parties.= Party feeling had perhaps never been more bitter in England than just at this time; and it was probably all the more bitter and personal because there were no very clear questions at issue between the two parties. Swift, writing in the Tory _Examiner_ a few months before the date of this paper (November 16, 1710), says, "Let any one examine a reasonable honest man, of either side, upon those opinions in religion and government, which both parties daily buffet each other about, he shall hardly find one material point in difference between them." The principal questions upon which Whig and Tory had once actively differed, and still continued to differ in theory, were two. The first was the nature of the monarchy and its relation to the other parts of the government. The extreme Tories held that the king had a divine right to his throne, by hereditary succession; that this was indefeasible, and implied the duty of unconditional obedience from the subject. The extreme Whigs held that the king was the creation of the people, and held his office purely by act of Parliament. But it would have been difficult to find many such extreme Tories or extreme Whigs. The doctrine of the divine right of kings had been practically refuted by the Revolution of 1688; if there were any such right, then the crown belonged, not to Anne, but to the Pretender, son of James II. On the other hand, few Whigs would have denied that the monarchy was an essential part of the English system of government, and not the mere creature of parliament.

The other and more important subject of difference between the two parties was the relation of the Church to the State and to Dissent. The Tories were Churchmen, and held that the interests of the Church and of religion demanded more constant and detailed attention from the State, and more stringent measures to repress dissent. They always called themselves the Church party; Queen Anne never called them anything else. The Whigs, on the other hand, though many of them were good Churchmen, apprehended less danger from dissent and were more liberal toward it. The Dissenters themselves, of course, were all Whigs.

There was, however, another difference between the two parties quite as important as any speculative question, and daily growing more important. As was stated in the Introduction, the most significant social fact in the England of the first half of the eighteenth century is the growth of a great middle, commercial class, who were gaining wealth rapidly and filling up the towns. At the bottom of much political controversy between 1700 and 1715 was the undefined jealousy between this class and the landed class. It was trade against land, new wealth against old aristocracy, town against country. For this commercial class almost to a man were Whigs; the landed gentry and their dependants, country squires and country parsons, almost to a man, were Tories.

This jealousy became extremely bitter about 1710. During all the reign of Anne, England had been engaged in the great war of the Spanish succession, the real object of which was to prevent the virtual union of the crowns of France and Spain. The war was heartily supported from the first by the Whigs, but opposed, or only languidly supported, by the Tories. A successful war is always popular, and strengthens the party that favours it most; accordingly, through the earlier years of the reign, when the English general Marlborough was winning his famous victories, the Whigs had everything their own way, and by (1708) the government was entirely in their hands. But as the war, however successful, seemed no nearer ending, and its burdens began to press more heavily, Tory opposition strengthened, and party feeling grew more and more intense. The financial load fell mostly on the Tory or landed class; for, as the Tories said, so soon as ever a trading Whig could get a thousand pounds, he put it into government securities, which he had to pay no tax upon, while the land had to pay him a handsome rate of interest. This opposition to the Whigs, strengthened by a feeling that the cause of the church and of religion was endangered by Whig supremacy, grew to such volume that in the memorable elections of (1710) the Whigs were defeated, and a Tory majority brought into the Commons. The Whig ministers were dismissed; Marlborough, the great general, a little later was recalled from the army; and finally the queen took the unprecedented step of creating twelve new Tory peers, and so making a Tory majority in the House of Lords also.

It was in these stormy years that _The Spectator_ appeared. In the tumult of partisan controversy Addison succeeded in keeping his paper out of the strife. He was a pronounced Whig himself, and his preferences are plainly enough to be seen even in these papers; but he sincerely deprecated the rancorous tone of party writing, and he wisely refused to allow _The Spectator_ to become the organ of a party. Steele had more difficulty in restraining his pen, and finally retired from _The Spectator_ rather than remain quiet on public questions.

=155=: 4. =Roundheads and Cavaliers.= The Puritans, during the term of the Civil War, were nicknamed Roundheads because they wore their hair short (as everybody does now), instead of allowing it to fall over their shoulders as was the fashion with the Royalists or Cavaliers.

=155=: 6. =St. Anne's Lane.= Probably the lane of that name in Westminster, near the Abbey.

=155=: 12. =Prick-eared cur.= A dog with pointed ears. The epithet was applied to the Puritans, because they wore their hair short, and their ears were not covered by long locks.

=156=: 4. =Tend to the prejudice of the land-tax.= Sir Roger naturally finds the mischiefs of parties to come mostly from the Whigs, who support the war, and so raise the land tax.

=156=: 25. =Plutarch.= The Greek historian and moralist, born about 46 A.D. His _Lives_ are perhaps the most interesting work of biography in the world. The quotation in the text is from his other principal work, the _Morals_.

=157=: 5. =That great rule.= _Luke_ vi. 27-29.

=157=: 8. =Many good men ... alienated from one another.= It is probable Addison had especially in mind his own old friendship with Swift, which had grown very chill of late on account of their political differences. As early as December 14, 1710, when he began to be intimate with the new Tory ministry, Swift writes in the _Journal to Stella_, "Mr. Addison and I are as different as black and white, and I believe our friendship will go off by this damned business of party." A month later, January 14, 1711, he says, "At the coffee-house talked coldly awhile with Mr. Addison; all our friendship and dearness are off; we are civil acquaintances, talk words, of course, of when we shall meet, and that is all."

=158=: 26. =Guelphs and Ghibellines.= The two great political parties in Italy, fiercely opposed to each other from the middle of the twelfth to the end of the fifteenth century. The Guelphs or popular party, supported the pope; the Ghibellines, or aristocratic party, the emperor.

=158=: 27. =The League.= The Holy Catholic League, formed in France, 1546, to resist the claims of Henry IV to the throne, and check the advance of Protestantism.

XXII. WHIGS AND TORIES--_Continued_

=Motto.= "Trojan or Rutulian, it shall be the same to me."--Virgil, _Æneid_, x. 108.

=161=: 24. =Diodorus Siculus.= A Greek historian of the first century, born--as the name implies--in Sicily. He wrote a _Historical Library_, of which only a part is preserved.

=162=: 19. =The spirit of party reigns more in the country.= Here speaks the Whig prejudice of Addison; Sir Roger himself might have thought differently.

=162=: 29. =Tory fox hunters.= See Addison's account of a typical Tory fox hunter in _The Freeholder_, No. 22.

=164=: 23. =Fanatic.= The term was frequently applied to the Puritans, and later to Dissenters.

XXIII. SIR ROGER AND THE GIPSIES

=Motto.= "They find their constant delight in gathering new spoils, and living upon plunder."--Virgil, _Æneid_, vii. 748.

=166=: 2. =Set the heads of our servant-maids so agog=, _i.e_. by telling their fortunes.

=166=: 6. =Crosses their hands with a piece of silver.= It was customary to make the sign of the cross upon the hand of the gipsy with the coin given him--probably with a view to avert any evil influence from such doubtful characters.

=166=: 23. =A Cassandra of the crew.= Cassandra, daughter of Priam, king of Troy, had been given by Apollo the gift of prophecy; but the god, afterward offended by her, rendered the gift futile by decreeing that she should never be believed.

XXIV. THE SPECTATOR DECIDES TO RETURN TO LONDON

=Motto.= "Once more, ye woods, farewell."--Virgil, _Eclogues_, x. 63.

=171=: 2. =Spring anything to my mind.= The metaphors in this and the following lines are drawn from the chase. To "spring" is to rouse game from cover; to "put up" has much the same meaning.

=171=: 6. =Foil the scent.= When a variety of game is started, and their trails cross, the dogs become confused and cannot follow any one.

=171=: 14. =My love of solitude, taciturnity.= See paper I of this volume.

=171=: 28. =White Witch.= Called "white" because doing good; most witches were believed to practise a black art.

=172=: 10. =Some discarded Whig.= Discarded, or he would not have been staying in the country among Tories.

=173=: 19. =Stories of a cock and a bull.= Any idle or absurd story. The phrase in this form or in the other now more common, "a cock-and-bull story," has been common in English for nearly three hundred years; but its origin is not known.

=173=: 25. =Make every mother's son of us Commonwealth's men.= Sir Andrew Freeport, it will be remembered, was a pronounced Whig, and the Whigs were charged with having inherited the doctrines and traditions of the Commonwealth.

XXV. THE JOURNEY TO LONDON

=Motto.= "We call that man impertinent who does not see what the occasion demands, or talks too much, or makes a display of himself, or does not have regard for the company he is in."--Cicero, _De Oratore_, ii. 4.

=174=: 5. =Ready for the stage-coach.= By 1710 coaches ran regularly between London and most larger towns in England. The best were called "flying-coaches," were drawn by six horses, and sometimes made eighty miles a day. They did not run at night. The fare was about three pence the mile.

=174=: 7. =The chamberlain= was the chief servant of an inn.

=174=: 9. =Mrs. Betty Arable.= The title _Mrs_. was applied to unmarried ladies, the term _Miss_ being reserved for young girls and for people who misbehaved themselves.

=174=: 13. =Ephraim, the Quaker.= The name was frequently applied to Quakers, because Ephraim "turned his back in battle." See _Psalm_ lxxviii.

=177=: 26. =The right we had of taking place.= Roads were very narrow, and two coaches meeting often found it difficult to pass; hence disputes of the coachmen as to the right of way.

XXVI. SIR ROGER AND SIR ANDREW IN ARGUMENT

=Motto.= "I recall the argument, and remember that Thyrsis was vanquished."--Virgil, _Eclogues_, vii. 69.

=179=: 9. =The old Roman fable.= The fable of the Belly and the Members, told in Livy, Bk. ii, Chap. xxxii; retold by Shakespeare in _Coriolanus_, i. 1. 99.

=179=: 13. =The landed and trading interest.= See note, p. 242.

=180=: 3. =Carthaginian faith.= _Punica fides_, a phrase used by the Romans to characterize the treachery of the Carthaginians.

=183=: 21. =Throws down no man's enclosure, and tramples upon no man's corn=, as country gentlemen do when hunting over the grounds of their neighbours or their tenants.

=184=: 22. =His family had never been sullied by a trade.= It will be remembered that Sir Roger was sensitive on this point. See IX, p. 89.

XXVII. SIR ROGER IN LONDON

=Motto.= "Simplicity, in our age most rare."

--Ovid, _Ars Amoris_, i. 241.

=185=: 15. =Gray's Inn Walks.= The walks and gardens of Gray's Inn (see note, p. 221) were a favourite resort.

=185=: 18. =Prince Eugene.= Eugene of Savoy (1663-1736), a famous Austrian general. He had fought side by side with Marlborough through several campaigns in the great War of the Spanish Succession that was now drawing to a close. At this time Marlborough had just been dismissed from his command in the army (see p. 244), and the English Tory ministry were making negotiations for a peace. Prince Eugene visited London to urge the continuance of the war and the restoration of Marlborough, but his mission was futile.

=186=: 5. =Scanderbeg.= Corrupt form of Iskander (Alexander) Bey; a noted Albanian chief, whose name was George Castriota, born 1404. He won many victories against the Turks.

=186=: 24. =Out of Dr. Barrow.= See VI, p. 79. Dr. Isaac Barrow (1630-1677) was one of the most eloquent divines of his age.

=187=: 1. =Tobacco stopper.= A small plug, made of wood or bone, to pack the tobacco in the bowl of a pipe.

=188=: 14. =The late Act of Parliament=, the _Act to repress Occasional Conformity_, passed 1710. By the Test Act of 1673 it was required of every person filling any civil office that he should take the sacrament, at certain times, according to the forms of the Church of England. The object, of course, was to exclude all Romanists and all Dissenters from office. But it was found that many Dissenters did not feel themselves forbidden by conscience to take the sacrament occasionally from the hands of a priest of the Church of England, if only so they could qualify for office. A bill to prevent this "Occasional Conformity" was warmly urged through all the earlier years of the reign of Anne; but so long as the Whigs were in power, it was impossible to pass it. When the Tories came in, in 1710, they naturally passed it at once.

=188=: 19. =Plum-porridge.= Extreme Dissenters looked with disfavour upon all Christmas festivities as savouring of Romish observance.

=188=: 28. =The Pope's Procession.= November 17, the anniversary of the accession of Queen Elizabeth, was long celebrated by parades and processions in which the pope and Catholic traditions were turned into ridicule. These parades were often the occasion of popular tumult; but, in 1711, some of the more violent Whigs planned an especially offensive demonstration, which had to be suppressed by the authorities. Swift writes on the evening of the day: "This is Queen Elizabeth's birth-day" [he was in error there; it was not her birth, but her accession, that was celebrated], "usually kept in this town by apprentices, etc.; but the Whigs designed a mighty procession by midnight, and had laid out a thousand pounds to dress up the pope, devil, cardinals, Sacheverel, etc., and carry them with torches about, and burn them.... But they were seized last night, by order of the secretary; you will have an account of it, for they bawl it about the streets already. They had some very foolish and mischievous designs; and it was thought they would have put the rabble upon assaulting my lord treasurer's house, and the secretary's; and other violences. The militia was raised to prevent it, and now, I suppose, all will be quiet."--_Journal to Stella_, November 17, 1711.

Addison naturally rather minimizes the disturbance by the absurd question of Sir Roger.

=189=: 10. =Baker's Chronicle.= See note, p. 226. The _Chronicle_ was a favourite authority with Sir Roger; in the next paper we find him quoting it at length.

=189=: 16. =Squire's.= A coffee-house in Holborn, near Gray's Inn, specially frequented by the benchers of the inn.

=189=: 23. =The Supplement.= A newspaper of the time, issued on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

XXVIII. SIR ROGER IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

=Motto.= "Yet we must go whither Numa and Ancus have gone before."--Horace, _Epistles_, I. vi. 27.

=190=: 2. =Paper upon Westminster Abbey=, _Spectator_, No. 26. That paper with this one perhaps show Addison, in two different moods, at his very best.

=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.

=193=: 1. =Cecil upon his knees.= William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, Secretary of State to Queen Elizabeth. He is represented "on his knees" at the magnificent tomb of his wife and daughter. This tomb, however, is not in the chapel of St. Edmund, but in the adjoining chapel of St. Nicholas.

=193=: 3. =Who died by the prick of a needle.= This story was formerly told of Lady Elizabeth Russell, whose richly decorated tomb is in St. Edmund's chapel.

=193=: 10. =The two coronation chairs.= In that chapel of Edward the Confessor which is the heart of the Abbey. One chair is said to have been that of Edward the Confessor; in it every sovereign of England from Edward I to Edward VII has been crowned. The other was made for Mary when she and her husband William were jointly crowned king and queen of England.

=193=: 11. =The stone ... brought from Scotland.= The "stone of Scone," traditionally reputed to be that on which Jacob rested his head when he had the vision of the ladder reaching up to heaven. It was brought from Ireland to Scone in Scotland, and all Scottish kings were crowned on it there till Edward I of England brought it to London in 1296, and ordered it enclosed "in a chair of wood," and placed in the Abbey.

=193=: 25. =Edward the Third's sword.= "The monumental sword that conquered France," as Dryden calls it, stands between the coronation chairs.

=194=: 2. =The Black Prince.= Edward, Prince of Wales, eldest son of Edward III, who died in 1376 before his father. He is buried, not in the Abbey, but in the cathedral at Canterbury.

=194=: 8. =Touched for the evil.= Scrofula, called "king's evil," because it was supposed that it could be cured by the touch of a legitimate sovereign. King William III, as he was king only by act of Parliament, had not "touched"; but Queen Anne, unquestionably a legitimate monarch, resumed the practice. Samuel Johnson was touched by her in his infancy, but without effect. No sovereign after Anne pretended to this power. The act of "touching" was accompanied by an elaborate ceremony, the ritual for which continued to be included in the Book of Common Prayer until 1719. For an account of the procedure, see Ashton, _Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne_, Chap. xxx, pp. 325-326.

=194=: 12. =One of our English kings without an head.= Henry V. The head of the effigy, which was of solid silver, was stolen in the reign of Henry VIII, at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries.

=195=: 4. =His lodgings in Norfolk Buildings.= In II Sir Roger is said, when in town, to "live in Soho Square," a more aristocratic quarter. That paper was written by Steele; this by Addison.

XXIX. SIR ROGER AT THE PLAY

=Motto.= "I bid the skilful poet find his models in actual life; then his words will have life."--Horace, _Ars Poetica_, v. 327.

=195=: 11. =The Committee.= A play by Sir Robert Howard, brother-in-law of Dryden. It was a satire on the Puritans, which explains its reputation as "a good Church of England play."

=195=: 14. =This distressed mother.= The "new tragedy" Sir Roger went to see was an adaptation by Addison's friend, Ambrose Phillips, of Racine's _Andromaque_, and bore the title _The Distressed Mother_.

=196=: 1. =The Mohocks.= A company of young swaggerers who roamed the streets of London at night, committing various insults upon belated passers. They were specially bold at just this time. Swift has several entries in the _Journal to Stella_ about them. March 12: "Here is the devil and all to do with these Mohocks.... My man tells me that one of the lodgers heard in a coffee-house, publicly, that one design of the Mohocks was upon me if they could catch me; and though I believe nothing of it, I forbear walking late." March 16. "Lord Winchelsea told me to-day at court that two of the Mohocks caught a maid of old Lady Winchelsea's, at the door of their house in the park, with a candle and had just lighted out somebody. They cut all her face and beat her without provocation." March 18. "There is a proclamation out against the Mohocks. One of those that was taken is a baronet." March 26. "Our Mohocks go on still, and cut people's faces every night, but they shan't cut mine. I like it better as it is." Further facts about them may be found in _Spectators_, Nos. 324, 332, 347. For a full account, see Ashton's _Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne_, Chap. xxxvi.

=196=:23. =That we may be at the house before it is full.= The play usually began at five o'clock.

=197=:1. =Battle of Steenkirk=, August 3, 1692, in which the English were defeated by the French. The battle gave name to a kind of loose cravat or neckcloth for men, introduced from Paris, which was fashionable for years, called a "steenkirk" or "steinkirk," because its careless style suggested the eagerness with which the victorious French gentlemen rushed into battle half dressed.

=197=:18. =Pyrrhus=, the son of Achilles. In the play, Andromache, the "widow" of Hector, and "the distressed mother" of young Astyanax, after the fall of Troy is the captive of Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus wooes her, promising that if she become his wife, her son Astyanax shall be made king of Troy. She at last consents, secretly resolving to kill herself before the marriage can be consummated. But Hermione, betrothed to Pyrrhus, maddened with jealousy, incites the Greeks to rebellion against Pyrrhus, with the result that just as Astyanax has been proclaimed king, Pyrrhus is slain by Orestes, Hermione takes her own life, and Orestes goes mad.

=198=:4. "=You can't imagine, sir, what 'tis to have to do with a widow!=" But Addison, just about this time, _did_ know how that was himself. See Introduction.

=198=: 13. =Your dramatic rules.= Perhaps the knight has in mind the dramatic "unities" of time, place, and subject; but his next sentence shows that he has no very definite rules in mind. He only knows that Mr. Spectator has been writing some learned papers of late on the drama and poetry; and he cannot see why a play so simple as this admits any laboured criticism.

=198=: 21. =Are now to see Hector's ghost.= Because at the beginning of the fourth act Andromache proposes to visit the tomb of Hector.

=199=: 15. =The old fellow in whiskers.= Perhaps Phenix, a friend of Pyrrhus.

XXX. WILL HONEYCOMB'S EXPERIENCES

=Motto.= "The greedy lioness the wolf pursues,
The wolf the kid; the wanton kid, the browse."

--Virgil, _Eclogues_, ii. 63. Dryden's tr.

=202=: 24. =Miss Jenny.= Notice the use of the epithet "Miss"; the day before Will Wimble would have said "Mistress Jenny." See note on p. 248.

=203=: 21. =The book I had considered last Saturday=, in _Spectator_, No. 357, April 19, 1712. It was one of the famous series of papers on Milton's _Paradise Lost_.

=203=: 23. =The following lines.= _Paradise Lost_, x. 888-908. They are not quoted quite accurately.

XXXI. SIR ROGER AT VAUXHALL

=Motto.= "Their gardens are maintained by vice."

--Juvenal, _Satires_, i. 75.

=205=: 9. =Spring Garden.= A famous garden and pleasure resort (more commonly called Fox Hall or Vauxhall Gardens), on the south side of the Thames, near where the Vauxhall bridge now spans the river. There was a large garden covering about eleven acres, with arbours, walks shaded by day and lighted at night by lamps festooned from the trees, a miniature lake, booths for the sale of refreshments, and a large central "rotunda" for music. First opened in 1661, Vauxhall was a favourite place of resort all through the eighteenth century; all the lighter literature of that century contains frequent references to it. The Gardens were not finally closed until 1859. For fuller account, see Besant's _London in the Eighteenth Century_, Chap. iv.

=205=: 19. =Temple Stairs.= A boat-landing near the Temple gardens. The most pleasant way of getting from the east of London to the west, in Addison's time, was by boat on the river.

=206=: 16. =La Hogue.= See note on Sir Cloudesley Shovel, p. 251.

=206=: 29. =How thick the city was set with churches.= The "city" is that part of London originally enclosed by a wall, and extends from the Tower on the east to Temple Bar on the west. Temple Bar was the gateway over that great thoroughfare which is called Fleet Street on the east side of it, and the Strand on the west side. The Bar was demolished in 1878, and its site is marked by a rather ugly monument surmounted by the arms of the city of London.

=207=: 4. =The fifty new churches.= The Tories had been brought into power in 1710 very largely by the popular cry, "The Church is in danger." (See note, p. 249.) Accordingly, one of the first acts of the House of Commons, in 1711, was to vote the building of fifty new churches in London.

=208=: 4. =Mahometan paradise=, because the chief attraction of the Mahometan heaven is the houris, "the black-eyed," whose beauty never grows old.

=208=: 28. =Member of the quorum.= A justice of the peace.

XXXII. THE DEATH OF SIR ROGER

The first number of _The Bee_, a weekly paper set up in 1733, by Addison's friend, Budgell, contains the following statement: "Mr. Addison was so fond of this character [Sir Roger de Coverley] that a little while before he laid down _The Spectator_ (foreseeing that some nimble gentleman would catch up his pen the moment he quitted it), he said to an intimate friend, with a certain warmth in his expression which he was not often guilty of, 'By G----, I'll kill Sir Roger, that nobody else may murder him.' Accordingly the whole _Spectator_, No. 517, consists of nothing else but an account of the old knight's death, and some moving circumstances which attended it."

It seems probable that about this time both Steele and Addison were thinking of bringing _The Spectator_ to a close, and this was the first of a series of papers which should dismiss all the members of the Spectator Club. In No. 544--the last of this volume--Captain Sentry succeeds to Sir Roger's estate, and passes from notice; in No. 549 the old clergyman is reported dead, and Sir Andrew Freeport gives up his business and retires into the country to make ready for the end; in No. 555 the Spectator makes his parting bow, and the volume closes.

=Motto.= "Alas for piety and ancient faith."

--Virgil, _Æneid_, vi. 878.

=211=: 16. =The quorum.= The justices of the peace for the county.

=212=: 9. =The Act of Uniformity=, passed in 1662, provided that all ministers should declare their unfeigned assent to everything in the Book of Common Prayer, and should use it at morning and evening service. The Act threw more than two thousand ministers out of their livings, and united all Dissenters against the Church. Of course Tories, like Sir Roger, held it to be a wise and necessary measure, of utmost importance to the security and stability of the Church.

=212=: 17. =Rings and mourning.= It was customary to give by will mourning rings and mourning gloves and hat bands to a large number of friends. They would be worn, of course, by such of the friends as attended the funeral services; but not afterward. See Ashton's _Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne_, Chap. iv.

XXXIII. CAPTAIN SENTRY AS MASTER OF COVERLEY HALL

=Motto.= "No one ever had a scheme of life so well arranged but that circumstances, or age, or experience, would bring him something new, and teach him something more: so that you find yourself ignorant of the things you thought you knew, and on experience you are ready to give up what you supposed of the first importance."--Terence, _Adelphi_, v. 4.

=216=: 11. =Colonel Camperfelt.= Colonel Kemperfeldt, the father of the admiral who was lost in the _Royal George_, has often been supposed to be the model from which the character of Captain Sentry was drawn.

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