NOTES.

Page 1. 1710-11. Before 1752 it had long been customary to give two numbers for the year for dates between January I and March 25; the legal year beginning with the latter, popular reckoning with the former date. An act, passed in 1751, settled the difficulty by introducing the Gregorian Calendar.

P. 1, ll. 2, 3. a black or a fair man. So named from the color of his hair or complexion. Cf. note to p. 23, l. 18.

P. 3, 1. 15. voyage to Grand Cairo. This has the double effect of showing the whimsical humour of the Spectator, and of ridiculing a half-century's controversy over the exact measurement of the Great Pyramid. The Spectator, in No. 8, proposed to wear at the next masquerade the suit he used at Grand Cairo. Imagery from Alcairo or Memphis, near by, occurs frequently in literature, several times in Paradise Lost, i. and ii.

P. 3, 1. 25-p. 4, 1. 7. Will's, Child's, etc. Coffee-houses were places of such general resort that commonly the earliest news was distributed, and the most instructive popular discussions heard, there. Beside the loungers who happened in, certain houses became noted for a particular class of frequenters; politics, however, being a common topic of discussion among them all.

Will's was on the west side of Bow street, at the corner of Russell street, and took its name from William Urwin, the landlord. Dryden had a chair reserved for him near the fireplace in winter, which was carried into the balcony for him in summer.

"In Covent-Garden tonight going to fetch home my wife I stopped at the great coffee-house there, where I never was before; where Dryden, the poet, I knew at Cambridge, and all the wits of the town."- Pepys' Diary, Feb. 3, 1663-4.

In The Tatler Steele dated his literary news from Will's coffeehouse.

Child's was in St. Paul's Churchyard; and being near the Cathedral, the College of Physicians, and the Royal Society, it became especially a resort for clergymen and scientists.

resort.

St. James's, the headquarters of The Spectator, was a Whig Steele dated his foreign and domestic news from St. James coffee-house, and it was frequented by the most distinguished company. Of a domestic occasion there Swift says: "This evening I christened our coffee-man Elliot's child: where the rogue had a most noble supper, and Steele and I sat among some scurvy company over a bowl of punch.”—Journal to Stella, Nov. 19, 1710.

The Grecian was the first coffee-house in London, and the last survivor. It was in Devereux Court, opened by a Greek in 1652, and, either by its excellent coffee or its proximity to the Temple, drew a learned company; whence Steele, in The Tatler, dated from the Grecian his essays on learned subjects.

The Cocoa-tree was a Tory rival to the St. James. "A Whig," wrote Defoe, "would no more go to the Cocoa-tree or Ozinda's than a Tory would be seen at St. James."

Jonathan's, in Change Alley, was the original of the present Stock Exchange.

Coffee-houses were frequented by loungers and idlers of all classes, as well as by the busy and intelligent. "Pray, sir," says Aimwell to Gibbet, in Farquhar's Beaux' Stratagem, "ha'nt I seen your face at Will's coffee-house?" The robber's reply is, "Yes, sir; and at White's too." They represented popular feeling so well that Addison and Steele found much of their best material by frequenting them.

Note whatever is mentioned to show the uses of coffee-houses, habits of their frequenters, etc.

P. 4, ll. 20, 21. Whigs and Tories. The Tories represented the landed, the Whigs the moneyed interest. The Whigs wished to prosecute a vigorous foreign war, and inclined to a parliamentary or republican form of government. The Tories wished to emphasize and develop the landed interests, and adhered to a belief in the

"Divine right of kings." To-day, though the details vary, the Tories, or Conservatives, still favour national development, with centralization of government as its chief feature, while the Whigs, or Liberals, favour development by extending commercial relations and maintaining a commercial supremacy.

What members of the Spectator's Club especially represent these opposite sides?

Note the occurrence of passages here and there contrasting the moneyed or commercial and the landed interests; and speaking of Great Britain as the Trading Nation.

What do you infer The Spectator's real position in politics to have been?

P. 6, 1. 4. in a club. This is the Spectator's Club, the subject of No. 2. Cf. Introduction, xiv.

"I cannot forbear entertaining myself with the idea of an imaginary historian describing the reign of Anne the First, and introducing it with a preface to his reader, that he is now entering upon the most shining part of the English story.

66

Among the several persons that flourished in this glorious reign, there is no question but such a future historian, as the person of whom I am speaking, will make mention of the men of genius and learning, who have now any figure in the British nation. For my own part, I often flatter myself with the honourable mention which will then be made of me; and have drawn up a paragraph in my own imagination that I fancy will not be altogether unlike what will be found in some page or other of this imaginary historian.

"It was under this reign,' says he, 'that The Spectator published those little diurnal essays which are still extant. We know very little of the name or person of this author, except that he was a man of a very short face, extremely addicted to silence, and so great a lover of knowledge that he made a voyage to Grand Cairo for no other reason but to take the measure of a pyramid. His chief friend was one Sir Roger de Coverley, a whimsical country knight and a Templar, whose name he has not transmitted to us. He lived as a lodger at the house of a widow woman, and was a

great humourist in all parts of his life. This is all we can affirm with any certainty of his person and character. As for his speculations, notwithstanding the several obsolete words and obscure phrases of the age in which he lived, we still understand enough of them to see the diversions and characters of the English nation in his time; not but that we are to make allowance for the mirth and humour of the author, who has doubtless strained many representations of things beyond the truth. For, if we interpret his words in their literal meaning, we must suppose that women of the first quality used to pass away whole mornings at a puppet-show: that they attested their principles by their patches: that an audience would sit out an evening to hear a dramatical performance written in a language which they did not understand: that chairs and flower-pots were introduced as actors upon the British stage: that a promiscuous assembly of men and women were allowed to meet at midnight in masks within the verge of the court; with many improbabilities of the like nature. We must, therefore, in these and the like cases, suppose that these remote hints and allusions, aimed at some certain follies which were then in vogue, and which at present we have not any notion of. We may guess, by several passages in the speculations, that there were writers who endeavoured to detract from the works of this author; but as nothing of this nature is come down to us, we cannot guess at any objections that could be made to his paper. If we consider his style with that indulgence which we must show to old English writers, or if we look into the variety of his subjects, with those several critical dissertations, moral reflections,'

"The following part of the paragraph is so much to my advantage, and beyond anything I can pretend to, that I hope my reader will excuse me for not inserting it." — Spectator, No. 101.

P. 6, 11. 7, 8. Little Britain. See "Little Britain" in Irving's Sketch-Book.

P. 7, 1. 3. Compare description of Sir Roger and Sir Andrew, according to note on p. 4, ll. 21, 22.