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: II. 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: I. 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: II. 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.

1954. 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: II. 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: I. 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: I. 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 neck cloth 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 Iwith a widow!" But Addison, just about this time, did know how that was himself. See Introduction.

།