1. 19. Gordian knot, the knot of bark by which the pole of the chariot dedicated to Zeus by Gordius, king of Phrygia, was fastened to the yoke so tightly that it baffled every endeavour to untie it. An oracle had declared that whosoever should untie it would reign over all Asia, and Alexander the Great on coming to Gordium, and being unable to loosen it, cut it with his sword and applied the oracle to himself.

...

11. 24, 5. we could not discover tongue, i.e. it was evident that the tongue of the coquette never expressed the real feelings of her heart.

11. 28-30. did not descend... eye, in the case of the heart before us for dissection, these nerves had no connection with the brain but solely with the eye, i.e. such sentiments of love, hatred, etc., as actuated the coquette during her lifetime were caused by impressions made on her sight, not on her intelligence.

11. 35, 6. Rosamond's Bower, the bower of Fair Rosamond, the mistress of Henry II., which could only be approached through a variety of labyrinths made for the purpose of concealment, and which was itself formed of several apartments one within the other to render the discovery of its inmate still more difficult.

P. 100, 1. 5. a flame-coloured hood, a hood of bright orange colour, such as the coquette was fond of wearing in her lifetime; the colour is probably an allusion to the flames of love which she sought to kindle in the hearts of men.

1. 19. nicely, closely, accurately.

1. 20. turns, peculiarities.

1. 29. salamandrine, a salamander was a kind of lizard, supposed to be a fire-extinguisher, and hence is used of any being able to live in fire without being consumed.

1. 31. or so much as singed, or even of being singed, i.e. affected by fire in the slightest degree.

11. 34-6. it gave... vapour, i.e. it showed in its explosion that it had nothing real or substantial about it.

VISIT TO WESTMINSTER ABBEY. No. 329.

P. 101, 1. 16. Baker's Chronicle, Sir Richard Baker (1558-1645) was author among other works of a 'Chronicle of the kings of England from the time of the Romans' government unto the death of King James,' 1643.

1. 17. Sir Andrew Freeport, see Essay No. 2.

1. 20. under his butler's hands, being shaved by his butler.

1. 29. against... gravel, as a precaution against the stone or gravel, diseases of the kidneys and the bladder, the stone being only the gravel in an exaggerated form.

P. 102, ll. 1, 2. I could have wished... sooner, because in that case he would not have drunk it. the virtues of it, its medicinal properties.

1. 7. the sickness, the plague of 1709; the, the well-known sickness, the sickness par excellence; cp. "I am alone the villain of the earth," A.C. iv. 6; "Where they feared the death, they have born life away," H. V. iv. 1. 181. Sometimes also prefixed to proper names to give emphasis.

11. 7-10. of a sudden... it, this being a ruse to get rid of the servant's presence in order to go on with his story about the widow; turning short, breaking off and turning suddenly: hackney coach, these coaches, the precursors of the modern 'cab,' first came into use in the seventeenth century, public locomotion in London up to that time being chiefly by water; a 'hackney' is a horse let out for hire, but the origin of the word is uncertain.

1. 17. jointure, estate settled on a woman at her marriage to become hers at her husband's death.

11. 17, 8. the whole country... her, everybody in his neighbourhood was anxious that he should marry her.

1. 19. engaged, not in the common colloquial sense of affianced, but bound by affection to the lady referred to in Essay No. 2.

1. 31. a roll, tobacco then being sold in that form.

1. 32. their best Virginia, the plantations in Virginia then, as now, producing the best tobacco.

P. 103, 1. 2. Sir Cloudesly Shovel, see account of the monument, p. 20, 11. 25 et seqq.

1. 5. Dr. Busby, for fifty-five years head-master of Westminster School; well known by the story of his having kept his cap on when Charles the Second visited the school, saying that it would never do for the boys to think any one superior to himself.

1. 9. our historian, the verger, or official, who conducted them over the Abbey and gave them the history of the various monuments, etc.

11. 10, 1. the lord... head, most probably referring to the monument to Sir Palmer Fairhorne, in the south aisle of the nave, with an epitaph by Dryden in which he is described as drawing his "well-fleshed sword" against the Moors. He never actually cut off the King of Morocco's head, but was for some years governor of Tangiers and often fought against his majesty. In the Dictionary of National Biography it is stated

that a Turk's head was included in his arms, and this may account for Addison's expression.

1. 13. the statesman Cecil, Cecil, Lord Burleigh, Secretary of State in the reign of Edward the Sixth, but more prominently known as Lord High Treasurer in that of Elizabeth.

11. 15, 6. that martyr... needle, the figure shown as this martyr was that of Elizabeth, daughter of John, Lord Russell, second son of the second earl of that name. our interpreter, the 'historian' of 1. 9, i.e. the verger.

1. 22. coronation chairs, the earlier of these two chairs is that in which all the kings of England, since Edward the First, have been crowned; the later one was made for the coronation of Mary, wife of William the Third.

11. 23, 4. the stone... them, this is the sacred stone, originally at Scone in Scotland, on which the Scotch kings were crowned. Edward the First, after defeating Baliol in 1296, brought it to England, and it was subsequently inserted in an oak chair, which has ever since been used for the sovereign's coronation.

1. 25. Jacob's Pillow, the pillar erected by Jacob at Bethel, consisting of the stone which he had used for a pillow on the night in which God appeared to him in a dream and foretold the future greatness of his race; see Genesis, xxviii. 10-22.

11. 29, 30. pay his forfeit, for having seated himself in the coronation chair. ruffled, put out, annoyed.

1. 31. trepanned, ensnared, beguiled, trapped; from O.F. trappan, a snare or trap for animals. The word should be spelt trapan, but has been confused with trepan, a small cylindrical saw used in removing a piece of a fractured skull, from Gk. труπâν, to bore.

11. 34, 5. it would go hard... them, he would manage by some means or other to get a piece of the wood of one of the chairs to make a tobacco-stopper out of it; a tobacco-stopper, a piece of wood, ivory, metal, used for pressing down the tobacco in the bowl of a pipe.

1. 36-P. 104, 1. 1. Edward the Third's sword. "Between the [coronation] chairs, leaning against the screen, are preserved the state shield and sword of Edward III., which were carried before him in France. This is the monumental sword that conquered France,' mentioned by Dryden: it is 7 feet long and weighs 18 lbs." (Hare, Walks in London, ii. 335); pummel, the nob at the end of the hilt, but here used for the hilt itself.

1. 7. touched for the Evil, here again the Evil, like "the sickness," above, for the well-known evil, 'the king's evil,' as it was otherwise called, the scrofula. The belief in the sovereign's power to cure this disease dates backward from the days of

Edward the Confessor and continued even to the time of Johnson, who in 1712 was taken to be touched' by Queen Anne. Cp. Macb. iv. 3. 140-156, where the process is described.

11. 8, 9. there was... reign, there was matter of much interest in the exciting occurrences of that reign.

1. 13. beaten silver, hammered silver, solid silver fashioned by the hammer into the shape of a head.

1. 14. Some Whig, see note, p. 28, 11. 9, 10.

1. 18. of shining, of showing to advantage the industry and intelligence with which he had studied his Chronicle.

1. 20. in him, in his Chronicle.

1. 31. Norfolk-buildings, in Soho Square; cp. p. 6, 1. 6, where he is said to have a house in that Square.

SIR ROGER AT THE THEATRE. No. 335.

P. 105, 11. 6, 7. the new tragedy, The Distrest Mother, a version of Racine's Andromaque by Ambrose Philips (1671-1749), to the reading of which the Spectator had been taken by Will Honeycomb as related in No. 290.

1. 8. these twenty years, for twenty years or more; used indefinitely.

1. 9. the Committee, by Sir Robert Howard, brother-in-law of Dryden, printed in 1665.

1. 15. at the end of the dictionary, where in former days biographical notices of famous personages were given.

1. 17. the Mohocks, bands of ruffians who infested the streets at night, plundering men and insulting women. They took their name from a tribe of North-American Indians.

1. 19. lusty, vigorous, stalwart.

1. 20. Fleet Street, so called from the river Fleet which in former days ran through London openly, but now is covered over and discharges itself through the sewers.

1. 21. mended their pace, increased their speed. put on, made an effort by walking faster.

11. 27, 8. I might have... design, I might have given them as much trouble to catch me as a clever fox gives the huntsmen, if that was what they intended.

P. 106. 1. 3. threw them out, baffled them in their efforts to catch me; hounds when they lose the scent of the game are said to be "thrown out."

1. 4. doubled the corner, eluded them by getting round the corner, as a fox or hare turns and twists to escape the hounds.

1. 7. Captain Sentry, see p. 8, 1. 17, etc.: make one of us, be of our party, accompany us.

1. 15. battle of Steenkirk, fought in 1692 between the French and William the Third, Prince of Orange.

1. 17. good oaken plants, stout oak cudgels.

1. 21. convoyed, escorted, conducted in safety, as a man-of-war convoys a fleet of merchant vessels in time of war.

1. 31. tragic audience, audience that had come to witness a tragedy.

1. 32. Pyrrhus, or Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, one of the heroes in the Trojan war who was concealed in the wooden horse filled with armed men, introduced within the walls of Troy. At the taking of the city he killed Priam, and when the Trojan captives were distributed among the victors, Andromache, widow of Hector, was assigned to him.

1. 33. a better strut, a more dignified manner of walking; the word strut is generally used of a pompous gait.

P. 107, 1. 2. One while, at one moment. concerned, troubled, anxious.

1. 3. Hermione, daughter of Menelaus and Helen. She had been promised in marriage to Orestes before the Trojan war; but Menelaus after his return home married her to Pyrrhus. On Orestes claiming her and being refused, he stirred up the Delphians against Pyrrhus who was slain in the tumult. Hermione afterwards married Orestes.

1. 10. to have to do with, here in the sense of wooing her; with an allusion to his own wooing, see Essay No. 2.

11. 10, 1. Pyrrhus his, "His was sometimes used, by mistake, for 's, the sign of the possessive case, particularly after a proper name, and with especial frequency when the name ends in s"... (Abbott, § 217).

1. 12. do if you can, hinting that Pyrrhus would find it very difficult to give up the widow.

11. 18, 9. Should your people... understood? intimating his idea that in so lofty a production as a tragedy the actors were not expected, always to use language that could be understood by ordinary people, but to indulge in flights of bombast above the intelligence of their audience.

1. 21. very luckily, because otherwise he would have gone on talking in a way that would have provoked the amusement and ridicule of those in his neighbourhood. begun, though frequent in former days as a past tense, has now given way to began.'