The Tatler (Vol 4)

See No. 224.

163

See No. 109.

164

A small basin. Bacon speaks of utensils which will endure fire, such as "chafing-dishes, posnets, and such other silver dishes."

165

The cloths and gloves were to soften the skin; the Spanish wool and Portugal dishes for "complexions"; the plumpers for the cheeks. The black-lead combs were for darkening the hair. By ivory and box teeth, tooth-combs are probably intended (Dobson). Perhaps, however, the "teeth" are artificial teeth.

166

Cf. Steele's "The Tender Husband," act iii. sc. I: "Prithee, wench, bring me my black eyebrows out of the next room." Prior often refers to this subject-thus:

"The slattern had left in the hurry and haste Her lady's complexion and eyebrows at Calais;"

and when the kitten had stolen Helen's eyebrows, a trap was at once baited:

"If we don't catch a mouse to-night, Alas! no eyebrows for to-morrow!"

167

Turquoise.

168

The two shields on Oliver Cromwell's coins were vulgarly called "breeches," because they somewhat resembled vast trunk-hose.

169

See No. 240.

170

Lanterloo, lantrillou, or lanctreloo, a game at cards in which the knave of clubs is the highest card. Cf. lanturloo (Fr.), nonsense. The game is mentioned, says Strutt, in the "Complete Gamester" (1734). In a letter in the Spectator, No. 245, we find the following: "I would have these sports and pastimes not only merry, but innocent, for which reason I have not mentioned either whisk or lanterloo, nor indeed so much as one-and-thirty."

171

Cachou, for sweetening the breath.

172

A spiced custard pudding formerly a favourite dish in Devonshire. See Spectator, No. 109, and Gay's "Shepherd's Week" (Monday):

"White-pot thick is my Buxoma's fare."

173

A cosmetic.

174

On the black marble bust of the favourite slave of William III., at Hampton Court, there is a white marble collar, with a padlock. Contemporary advertisements show that negro servants often wore a collar bearing the name of their master. In No. 132 of the original issue of the Tatler there was this advertisement: "A black Indian boy, twelve years of age, fit to wait on a gentleman, to be disposed of at Denis's Coffee-house, in Finch Lane, near the Royal Exchange." The reward offered for the recovery of a runaway black servant rarely exceeded a guinea.

175

See No. 95.

176

Possibly Colonel Ambrose Edgworth, a great dandy, whom Swift calls "that prince of puppies" ("Journal to Stella," Oct. 17, 1710).

177

This lady is believed to have been the unfortunate Elizabeth Malyn, whose third husband was Charles, eighth Lord Cathcart. Her fourth husband was Colonel Hugh Macguire, who kept her in confinement for more than twenty years at Tempo, in Enniskillen. (See Miss Edgeworth's "Castle Rackrent"; and a pamphlet entitled "Tewin-Water; or, the Story of Lady Cathcart," by Mr. Edward Ford, of Old Park, Enfield.)

178

"Æneid," i. 315 seq.

179

"The Double Gallant; or, the Sick Lady's Cure," by Colley Cibber (1707).

180

Addison wrote on this subject in the Spectator (No. 37); and in 1714 Steele published "The Ladies' Library," in three volumes, a gathering from the most approved religious and moral writers.

181

Swift. This paper is mentioned twice in the "Journal to Stella," Nov. 30 and Dec. 14, 1710: "You are mistaken in all your conjectures about the Tatlers. I have given him one or two hints, and you have heard me talk about 'The Shilling.'" "No, the Tatler of 'The Shilling' was not mine, more than the hint, and two or three general heads for it. I have much more important business on my hands; and, besides, the ministry hate to think that I should help him, and have made reproaches on it; and I frankly told them I would do it no more. This is a secret, though, Madam Stella."

182

Threw with a jerk. Cf. Spectator, No. 77, "I saw him squir away his watch a considerable way into the Thames."

183

The two shields on Cromwell's shilling; see No. 245.

184

By John Philips (1676-1709), the author of "Cyder." The "Splendid Shilling" was published in 1705, after two unauthorised versions had appeared. Written in imitation of Milton, it describes, in mock-heroic strains, the miseries of a debtor in want of a shilling to buy food, clothes, wine, or tobacco.

185

See No. 132.

186

See No. 116.

187

See No. 103.

188

Charles Lillie; see No. 110.

189

The Masters in Chancery sat on the bench with the Lord Chancellor, but he was the sole judge of the court.

190

See Jeremy Collier's "Essays upon Several Moral Subjects" (1709), Part iv. pp. 205-236.

191

Here used for tragic writer.

192

"Macbeth," act ii. sc. 2.

193

"Essays," vi.: "Of Greatness."

194

No. 241.

195

Tickell says that Steele assisted in this paper.

196

See No. 250.

197

Mary Astell (see Nos. 32 and 166).

198

"Fables," iii. 17. 12. The correct reading is "stulta est gloria."

199

See No. 256.

200

"Sir R. Steele assisted in this paper" (Tickell).

201

Several popular editions of Mandeville's travels appeared in Queen Anne's reign.

202

The account of the adventures of this Portuguese traveller was published at Lisbon in 1614. An English translation by Henry Coggan appeared in 1663.

203

The germ of this paper on frozen voices may have been found in Rabelais (Book iv. chaps. lv. lvi.), or in Heylin's "Little Description of the Great World" (1629), p. 345.

204

"Hudibras," Part i. canto i. 148.

205

"Nec vox tentataque verba sequuntur" (Ovid, "Met." xi. 326).

206

Ovid, "Met." i. 746.

207

Mr. Overton, in his "Life in the English Church, 1660-1714," denies the truth of Macaulay's account of the condition of the clergy. He points out that the sons of many noble families were in the Church, and many clergymen of the highest standing were once domestic chaplains. But there was much "contempt of the clergy," as Eachard puts it, in his book published in 1670. Many enjoyed pluralities, which, of course, meant that a larger number than would otherwise have been the case were poor all their lives. Swift wrote: "I never dined with the chaplains till to-day; but my friend Gastrel and the Dean of Rochester had often invited me, and I happened to be disengaged: it is the worst provided table at court. We ate on pewter. Every chaplain, when he is made a dean, gives a piece of plate, and so they have got a little, some of it very old" ("Journal," October 6, 1711). See, too, Swift's "Project for the Advancement of Religion," and "Directions to the Waiting-Maid." Many private chaplains had salaries of £10 to £30 a year, with vales, and were called Mess Johns, trencher chaplains, and young Levites (Lecky's "History of England in the Eighteenth Century," i. 77, 78). Bishop Bramhall replied to Eachard in 1671, in "An Answer to a Letter of Inquiry," &c., and said that some gentlemen, at any rate, treated their chaplains with all proper respect. Edward Chamberlayne, on the other hand, in his "Angliæ Notitia" (1669), said that men thought it a stain to their blood to make their sons clergymen, and that women were ashamed to marry with any of them.

208

Oldham's "Satire addressed to a Friend that is about to leave the University."

209

"The last paper having been worked off in different presses, there are some errata in one set of them, which the reader is desired to correct," &c. (folio).

210

Virgil's words are, "Non nostrum inter vos tantas," &c.

211

See № 253.

212

Forster observed that Mr. Thomas Gules is the forerunner of Will Wimble, of the Spectator.

213

See vol. ii. p. 150.

214

See No. 259.

215

"At the sign of the Woolsack in Newgate Market, is to be seen a strange and wonderful thing, which is, an elm-board; being touched with a hot iron, it doth express itself as if it were a man dying with groans and trembling, to the great admiration of all hearers. It hath been presented before the King and his nobles, and hath given great satisfaction" (Advertisement of 1682, in Sloane MSS., 958).

216

In act ii. sc. 5, Bayes says, "Now here's an odd surprise: all these dead men you shall see rise up presently, at a certain note that I have made, in effaut flat, and fall a-dancing. Do you hear, dead men?"

217

"Steele, the rogue, has done the impudentest thing in the world: he said something in a Tatler, that we ought to use the word 'Great Britain,' and not 'England,' in common conversation; as, 'the finest lady in Great Britain,' &c. Upon this Rowe, Prior, and I sent him a letter, turning this into ridicule. He has to-day printed the letter, and signed it J. S., M. P., and N. R., the first letters of all our names. Congreve told me to-day, he smoked it immediately" (Swift's "Journal," December 2, 1710).

218

See No. 241.

219

See No. 237.

220

See No. 255.

221

See No. 254.

222

See No. 260.

223

Thomas Clement (see No. 261).

224

See Nos. 253, 256.

225

A makebate is breeder of quarrels. Swift says, "Outrageous party writers are like a couple of makebates who inflame small quarrels by a thousand stories."

226

In Defoe's "Apparition of Mrs. Veal," her deceased friend told Mrs. Bargrave that the dress she was wearing had been scoured.

227

It was a common practice to send servants to the theatre to keep seats for their employers.

228

Book ii. chap. xxvi.

229

Swift's "Tale of a Tub," sect. xi.

230

"You are mistaken in your guesses about Tatlers; I did neither write that on noses nor religion [No. 257], nor do I send him of late any hints at all" (Swift's "Journal," Jan. 1, 1711).

231

Notch or nick.

232

"Hudibras," Part i. canto i. 281. For Talicotius see note below.

233

Reading.

234

Hieronymus Fracastorius, physician and poet, and much commended for his elegance as a Latin Writer, was born in Verona in 1483, and died in that neighborhood, of an apoplexy, in 1553, at the age of seventy-one. He was a man of blameless life and engaging manners, which so endeared him to his friends and countrymen, that they erected a statue to his memory six years after his death. His "Syphilis," the book here alluded to, was printed with his other works in two volumes, at Padua, in 1735. There is a separate edition of his poetical works, printed at the same place in 1718. Fracastorius was born, it is said, with his lips so grown together that it was necessary to call in the assistance of a surgeon to separate them.

235

Gaspar Taliacotius (1546-1599) was a professor of physic and surgery at Bologna. In his "De Curtorum Chirurgia per Insitionem" he taught the art of grafting noses, lips, and ears, with the proper instruments and bandages. The only manner which he used and recommends for the reparation of maimed noses, &c., is skin.

236

A quack doctor whose advertisements may be found in the newspapers of the day.

237

Ovid, "Amor. El." ix. 1.

238

"Namque edepol si adbites proprius, os denasabit tibi Mordicus."

– "Captivi," act iii. sc. 4, II. 72-73.

239

See No. 258, ad fin. The following advertisement appeared in No. 252 of the Tatler: "Two hundred and fifty pounds to be paid on the baptizing of a child, being a new proposal by the Profitable Society; the payment of 2s. 6d. for a policy, and 2s. 6d. towards each claim, a title to the sum above-mentioned. Proposals of a 2d. society, where the contribution of 1s. entitled the contributor to £100, to be had gratis at the Wheat Sheaf, opposite to Tom's Coffee-house, Russell Street, Covent Garden."

240

"This ingenious penman was the son of a writing-master in King Street, Westminster, and lived at the Golden Pen, in Castle Street, near the Mews, Charing Cross. He succeeded Colonel Ayres, to whom caligraphy is much indebted for its improvement, in his house and business in St. Paul's Churchyard, and in some respects enlarged its glory. He died on a journey in 1727" (Massey, "Origin and Progress of Letters," 1763; Part ii. 103).

241

See Nos. 253, 256, and 259.

242

Then the last day of the year.

243

See Nos. 44, 45, 50, 115; and Spectator, Nos. 14, 372. Martin Powell (sometimes called Robert) was a cripple who came to London from Bath in 1710, and set up "Punch's Theatre" under the Piazza in Covent Garden. There he produced puppet plays, burlesquing the operas at the Haymarket. Defoe, or whoever was the author of the "Groans of Great Britain" (1711), lamented Powell's popularity, and said that he was rich enough to buy up all the poets of England. In 1715 Thomas Burnet wrote a satire on Robert Harley under the title of a "History of Robert Powell the Puppet-Showman."

244

Cf. Pope's "Epistle to Miss Blount, on her leaving the Town after the Coronation" (1715):

She went to plain-work, and to purling brooks,Old-fashioned halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks:She went from opera, park, assembly, play,To morning walks, and prayers three hours a day;To part her time 'twixt reading and bohea,To muse, and spill her solitary tea;Or o'er cold coffee trifle with the spoon,Count the slow clock, and dine exact at noon;Divert her eyes with pictures in the fire,Hum half a tune, tell stories to the squire;Up to her godly garret after seven,There starve and pray, for that's the way to heaven."

245

Games at cards. Pope wrote a poem called "The Basset Table."

246

Four o'clock was soon the fashionable hour. Mr. Dobson quotes from Swift's "Journal of a Modern Lady" (1728): —

"This business of importance o'er,And madam almost dressed by four,The footman, in his usual phrase,Comes up with 'Madam, dinner stays.'"

247

See Lucian's "Judicium Vocalium." Such words as σήμερον and σὺκον afterwards came to be spelled τήμερον and τὺκον.

248

Coal carried by sea from the colliery, as was then the case with all the coal used in London. In the country wood was burned; and Will Honeycomb, after his marriage to a farmer's daughter, said that had his steward not run away, he would still have been "immersed in sin and sea-coal" in London, with its smoke and gallantries (Spectator, No. 530).

249

Implied.

250

"Paradise Lost," v. 1.

251

Trajan Boccalini, lawyer and satirical writer, was born in 1556 at Loreto, and died in 1613. He is best known by his "News from Parnassus," a translation of which was revised and reissued by John Hughes in 1706.

252

Francis Guicciardini, politician and historian, was born at Florence in 1482. He died in 1540, and his lengthy "History of Italy" was published in 1561. An article on Guicciardini, by Mr. John Morley, appeared in the Nineteenth Century for November 1897.

253

Donne's "Sermons," ii. 239.

254

Sir Richard Baker's "Chronicle of the Kings of England" (1641) was a favourite authority with Sir Roger de Coverley (Spectator, No. 269).

255

Probably Swift (See No. 9).

256

"And spoke the hour-glass in her praise, quite out" (Gay, "Shepherd's Week," 1714).

257

No. 268.

258

See Nos. 28, 41, 60, 61, and 79.

259

A favourite place for duelling. See No. 31.

260

Jeremy Taylor's "Rule and Exercise of Holy Living and Dying" was published in 1650.

261

Perhaps Jabez Hughes, brother of John Hughes. A letter by the latter in No. 73 is signed "Will Trusty."

262

Cf. Spectator, No. 306, where a young lady who had been disfigured by smallpox, says, "I was taken off in the prime of youth, and according to the course of nature may have forty years' after-life to come."

263

See No. 245.

264

Rough-coated. In Pope's "Rape of the Lock" Belinda's dog is named Shock.

265

A compound of sweet substances, in which medicines could be concealed and thus be licked up without being noticed.

266

An impure oxide of zinc, used in soothing irritated surfaces on the flesh.

267

Betony was smoked to cure headache, vertigo, and sore eyes; coltsfoot, for coughs and lung affections (Miller's "Herbal," 1722).

268

See No. 263.

269

See No. 126. Full directions for making Hungary water, of various qualities, are given in Lillie's "British Perfumer," pp. 142-145.

270

Christmas.

271

Edward Lloyd's Coffee-house in Tower Street is first heard of in 1688; in 1692 Lloyd moved to Lombard Street, at the corner of Abchurch Lane. Periodical sales were held at his house, which was the resort of merchants and shipowners. The Society of Lloyd's was established in 1770.

272

The waiter (See No. 1).

273

See No. 264.

274

An image of a bull or cow was often stamped on a coin, which was thence called "bos."

275

No. 264.

276

Several passages from the "Advice to a Daughter," by George Savile, Marquis of Halifax, were used in Steele's "Ladies' Library" (1714).

277

Horace, I Sat. ix. 26.

278

There is a letter by Robin Harper on the same subject in Lillie's "Letters sent to the Tatler and Spectator," i. 326.

279

Congreve, "The Way of the World," act i. sc. 3.

280

A serge material.

281

College of Physicians.

282

Close lace made of gold, of silver, or silk.

283

Anthony Wood says that Nathaniel Vincent, D.D., chaplain-in-ordinary to Charles II, preached before him at Newmarket in a long periwig, &c., according to the then fashion for gentlemen; and that his Majesty was so offended at it, that he commanded the Duke of Monmouth, Chancellor to the University of Cambridge, to see the statutes concerning decency of apparel put in execution; which was done accordingly. Thiers, in his treatise of perukes, says that no ecclesiastic wore a peruke before the Restoration.

284

"Steele's last Tatler came out to-day. You will see it before this comes to you, and how he takes leave of the world. He never told so much as Addison of it, who was surprised as much as I; but, to say the truth, it was time, for he grew cruel dull and dry. To my knowledge he had several good hints to go upon; but he was so lazy, and weary of the work, that he would not improve them" (Swift's "Journal," Jan. 2, 1711). A curious pamphlet, called "The Friendly Courier: By way of Letters from Persons in Town to their Acquaintance in the Country, containing whatever is Curious or Remarkable at Home or Abroad. Numb. I. To be continued" (London, 1711), opens with an account of the discontinuance of the Tatler: "What should this great matter be, but that the old man, the philosopher, the humourist, the astrologer, the censor, the undertaker, the constellation-monger, the Tatler, should be no longer Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.; that he should have neither maid, dog, cat, pipes, or tobacco-box, in Sheer Lane; but one Richard Steele: from whence arises many fatal mischiefs," &c.

285

Addison.

286

See No. 56, &c.

287

Major-General Sherington Davenport, of Worfield, in Shropshire, was, at the time here spoken of, lieutenant-colonel of the first troop of Horse Guards; towards the end of April 1714, having fallen under the displeasure of the Court, he was ordered to sell his commission in favour of Brigadier Panton. Colonel Wood and Colonel Paget had orders at the same time to sell their companies in the Foot Guards ("Polit. State," vols. vii. and viii. p. 412). About a year after, in the end of February 1714-15, Major-General Davenport bought, it is said, the regiment of Colonel Jocelyn, in Ireland, for £4000 (Weekly Packet, February 26, 1714-15). – (Nichols.)

288

Brigadier Andrew Bisset was a native of Aberdeenshire, in North Britain. On the 25th of August 1717, he was appointed by George I. to the command of a regiment of foot, now called the 30th Regiment.

289

George, Lord Forbes, admiral and diplomatist, was born in 1685, and succeeded his father as third Earl of Granard in 1734. He died in 1765 (see No. 61, note). In 1710 Lord Forbes was a captain in the navy, and a brigadier in the 4th troop of Horse Guards. He was wounded at the battle of Villaviciosa on the 10th of December.

290

The story of the defence against angry sharpers afforded to Steele by Lord Forbes and his friends, has been told in a note to No. 115.

291

See the preface to the original collected edition, given in vol. i.

292

"Hamlet," act i. sc. 5.