168. Philantos, etc.-Goldsmith uses these names in the Vicar of Wakefield (Temple Classics), p. 130.

169. to pillage the dead.-Readers of Barnaby Rudge will remember how Dickens's Dennis the hangman clothes himself from the wardrobe of his clients (chapter 39).

169. upon Posterity.—After this, in the edition of 1765, followed:-" Mr Posterity. Sir, Nine hundred and ninety-nine years after sight hereof, pay the bearer, or order, a thousand pound's worth of praise, free from all deductions whatsoever, it being a commodity that will then be so very serviceable to him, and place it to the accompt of, etc."

170. A Description of Various Clubs.-This Essay first appeared in the Busy Body for 13th Oct. 1759. It is here reprinted from the Essays of 1766 (No. IV.).

170. Slaughter's Coffee House. This, which existed until 1842, stood in St Martin's Lane (No. 75), close to the southern corner of Great Newport Street. It was pulled down to make room for the prolongation of Cranbourn Street.

170. Ivy Lane.-Ivy Lane lies between Newgate Street and Paternoster Row. Here the fictitious Hum Drum Club of the Spectator (No. 9) held its meetings; and here also, at the King's Head, a "famous beefsteak house," from 1749 to 1756, the actual Ivy Lane Club of Johnson was wont to assemble (Hawkins's Life of Johnson, 1787, pp. 219, 360).

171. the Foundery.-This was a ruinous old building which, like Bedlam, was in Moorfields. It stood on the site of what was afterwards Providence Row, and had once been used as a foundry for cannon. Wesley leased it to preach in. It is first referred to in his Journal under 23rd July 1740 (“Our little company met at the Foundery, instead of Fetter Lane"); and it is often mentioned afterwards.

173. "Death and the Lady."-See Bell's Ballads of the Peasantry, 1857, p. 32; cf. also Vicar of Wakefield (Temple Classics), p. 100.

177. Sanconiathon, Manetho and Berosus.-Goldsmith afterwards used these in the Vicar of Wakefield (Temple Classics), p. 79.

177. Abel Drugger.-A character in Ben Jonson's Alchemist. It was a famous part of Garrick.

178. one ghost killed.-In Fielding's Tom Thumb, 1730, the ghost of Tom Thumb is killed by Lord Grizzle.

181. Tully, Socrates, and Cicero, It will be observed that this enlightened" society of moral philosophers" made three authors out of two.

182. Specimen of a Magazine in Miniature.-Apparently first printed in the Essays of 1765 (No IX.). 183. four extraordinary pages of letter-press.—Cf. pp. 6 and 71.

188. Asem, an Eastern Tale. Apparently first printed in the Essays of 1765 (No. XVI.).

198. A Reverie at the Boar's-Head. This first appeared in the February, March and April numbers of the British Magazine for 1760. It is here printed from the Essays of 1766 (No. XIX.).

199. Boar's-Head Tavern.-Goldsmith was in error in supposing that this old Shakespearian tavern was "still kept at Eastcheap." As a matter of fact, the original house was burned down in the Great Fire. It was rebuilt soon after, and was eventually pulled down in 1831.

215. at Primero.-A now unknown game of cards. Falstaff, in the Merry Wives of Windsor, Act. iv. Sc. 5, says he "never prospered since he forswore himself at primero."

218. Adventures of a Strolling Player.-This essay first appeared in the British Magazine for October 1760. It is here printed from the Essays of 1766 (No. XXI.). 218. about the hour.-St James's Park, and especially the walk between the Mall and the Park Wall, known as the Green, or Duke Humphrey's Walk, was a favoured resort of fasting persons, who were popularly said to be engaged in "counting the Trees for a Dinner" (Low Life [1752], p. 30).

219. pincushion-makers in Rosemary Lane.-Rosemary Lane, or Rag Fair, now Royal Mint Street, Whitechapel, is a haunt of dealers in old clothes. The puppet-show man probably sold his puppets to the pincushion-makers for the sawdust.

219. to be my three half-pence.-i.e. to subscribe, contribute, or "be good. for" my share. Cf. Tom Jones,

Bk. xv. ch. 12, "I said I would be my pot too." And
Burns's Auld Lang Syne, second stanza :—

"And surely ye'll be your pint stowp!
And surely I'll be mine!

And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne."

220. fondlings of nature.-Pets, darlings.. Cf. Vicar of Wakefield (Temple Classics), p. 12.

221. points of war.-A point of war is a strain of martial music. Cf. Tatler, No. 95, "We were alarmed with the noise of a drum, and immediately entered my little god son to give me a point of war."

230. Alderman Smuggler, "an old merchant," islike Sir Harry Wildair-one of the characters in Farquhar's comedy of The Constant Couple; or, a Trip to the Jubilee.

231. Supposed to be Written, etc.-Apparently first printed in the Essays of 1765 (No. XXV.).

231. Mr The. Cibber.-Theophilus Cibber, born in 1703, and drowned in 1758, on his way to Dublin, was the son of Colley Cibber, and, like his father, an actor. His second wife was Arne's sister, Susannah Maria Arne (see p. 46 ante), the famous tragic actress. Profligate and prodigal, he was always in debt and difficulty. Under the title of An Apology for the Life of Mr T. . . . C. . . . Comedian, a spurious biography of him was published in 1740. It is sometimes, but erroneously, ascribed to Henry Fielding.

232. paduasoy.-i.e. soie de Padoue (Padua), introduced into this country by the refugees after the revocation

of the Edict of Nantes.

235. On the Superabundance, etc.-This paper first appears in the Essays of 1766, pp. 229-34 (Essay xxvi.), from which it is here reprinted.

235. the last coronation.-i.e. that of George III., 22nd September 1761. Cf. Citizen of the World (Temple Classics), ii. pp. 221-26.

236. Mr Printer.—This, like the letter that follows, was addressed "To the Printer."

236. gowns of mazarine blue, edged with fur. — The writer, it will be remembered, was

council-man.

a common

240. To the Printer. This piece also first appears in the Essays of 1766, pp. 235-40 (Essay xxvii.), from which it is here reprinted.

240. the same common-council-man. signed "L. Grogan."

- This letter is

1

240. the coronation.-See note to p. 235.

241. Sudrick Fair.-Perhaps Southwark Fair. 241. Court of the Black King of Morocco.-See ante p. 73, and post, p. 242.

241. Sitting out all night. People had sat up a night and a day"-says Walpole of this coronation (Letter to Montagu, 24th September 1761).

Cf.

241. Anna Amelia Wilhelmina Carolina.-Goldsmith was fond of these catenations of royal names. Vicar of Wakefield (Temple Classics), p. 60, and Citizen of the World (Temple Classics), i. p. 268.

242. the last new almanack.-Addison's "Tory FoxHunter" loses his Almanack at the Masquerade (Free Holder, No. 44); and steel tobacco boxes are often lost in the Covent Garden Journal.

242. mobbed up in flannel night-caps.-Cf.

But when at home, at board or bed,

Five greasy nightcaps wrapp'd her head." Goldsmith's Double Transformation (Poems (Temple Classics), p. 91).

245. The Theatre, etc.—This first appeared in the Westminster Magazine for December 1772 (vol. i. p. 4), from which it is here reprinted. "The undertaking a comedy, not merely sentimental, was very dangerous," says Goldsmith's dedication to Johnson of She Stoops to Conquer; and this essay was obviously intended to pave the way for that play, which was produced at Covent Garden on 15th March 1773.

246. the weeping sentimental comedy.-This was the comédie mixte, or comédie larmoyante, introduced in France

by Nivelle de La Chaussée in 1733, and developed, not without colour from Richardson and Rousseau, by Voltaire, Diderot, Sedaine, and, in his earlier plays, by Beaumarchais. Passing in mid-career to England, it took the form of "sentimental comedy," its most popular exponents being Hugh Kelly, of False Delicacy, 1768, and Richard Cumberland, of the West Indian, 1771. Goldsmith's definition of this class of play is to be found at p. 249.

246. Le comique. See L'Art Poétique, chant iii., where the precept is borrowed from the Versibus exponi tragicis res comica non vult of Horace, Ars Poetica, 1. 89.

250. Humour at present seems to be departing from the Stage.—Cf. ch. xviii. of the Vicar of Wakefield (Temple Classics), p. 111: "the public think nothing about dialect, or humour," etc.

250. Tabernacle.-Probably Whitefield's Tabernacle in Tottenham Court Road. Cf. note to p. 171.

251. A Register of Scotch Marriages.-This letter, as its heading shows, was addressed to the Editor of The Westminster Magazine, in which it appeared in February 1773 (vol. i. p. 137), and from which it is here reprinted.

253. Rosemary Lane.-See note to p. 219; and cf. Act. v. of The Good-Natur'd Man, where Miss Macfag and her footman husband are said to " keep separate cellars in Hedge Lane." Like the assumed writer of this paper, the speaker in the play is a landlady, whose opinion is also that "Scotch marriages seldom turn out well."