A Book of English Prose Part 13

28 _as his was who when Rome, etc_.: this story is told by Livy, as an instance of the undaunted spirit of the Romans during the Punic war.

_mewing_ properly means 'moulting.' Milton apparently uses it in the sense of 'renewing by the process of moulting.'

29 _engrossers_: wholesale buyers; here used metaphorically of those who, by curtailing the liberty of book-printing, would 'buy up' the stock of knowledge and dole it out as they thought fit.

30 _he who takes up arms for coat and conduct_: this refers to Charles I's exaction of a tax for the clothing and conducting (i.e. conveying) of troops.

_his four n.o.bles of Danegelt_: a n.o.ble was a coin worth 6s. 8d.

Danegelt was originally the land-tax raised by Ethelred the Unready to buy off the Danes; the word was afterwards used of any unpopular tax, here of Charles I's imposition of ship-money, resisted by Hampden.

_In this unhappy battle_: the battle of Newbury, Sept. 20, 1643, in which the advantage was on the whole with the King against the Roundheads.

33 _vacant_: i.e. open, unclouded.

_addresses to his place_: i.e. to his office. Falkland was Secretary of State to Charles I.

40 _Phalaris_: a Sicilian tyrant of the sixth century B.C., famous for his cruelties. The Greek poet Stesichorus was a contemporary of his.

42 Samuel Pepys, from whose diary this extract (slightly abridged) is taken, wrote solely for his own private amus.e.m.e.nt, troubling himself very little about style or grammar. He held a post in the Navy Office, and his work did not often allow him to take a day in the country, such as he here describes.

46 Defoe's _Captain Singleton_ is an imaginary account of the adventures of certain pirates in different parts of the world. In the extract here given they are lying in Chinese waters. 'William,' one of their crew, has gone ash.o.r.e to trade with some Chinese merchants.

47 _thieves' pennyworths_: 'things sold at a robber's price,' i.e.

below their real value.

55 _composures_=compositions.

56 _the Great Mogul_: the Emperor of Hindostan.

_Muscovy_=Russia, of which Moscow was formerly the capital.

57 _the old philosopher_: Socrates; see Hooker's reference to the anecdote on page 17 of this book.

_degree_: i.e. of lat.i.tude and longitude.

62 _whereas the ladies now walk, etc_.; this was written in 1711, when ladies wore very large 'hoops,' or crinolines.

65 Tom Jones, the hero of Fielding's novel of that name, takes some friends to see Hamlet, acted by Garrick. Partridge, is a timorous ex-schoolmaster, without experience of the theatre.

77 _redans_: projecting fortifications.

_the talus of the glacis_: the pitch of the outer slope of an earthwork.

_banquettes_: the raised way running along the inside of a rampart.

78 _chamade_: a signal given by drum, announcing surrender.

79 _a new reign_: George II died on October 25, 1760.

80 _a rag of quality_: Horace Walpole was a younger son of Sir Robert Walpole (Earl of Orford).

81 _the Duke of c.u.mberland_: second son of George II.

_a dark brown adonis_: a kind of wig.

_the Duke of Newcastle_: the Prime Minister.

83 Goldsmith's _Citizen of the World_ consists of a series of letters on European manners and customs, purporting to be written by a Chinaman who has never before visited England.

86 _whatever accidentally becomes indisposed, etc_.; i.e. whoever falls out with the authorities.

87 _There never was a period, etc_.: this was written in 1777, during the American War of Independence.

90 'Puss' was Cowper's tame hare.

92 The initials at the foot of the letter are those of William Cowper and Mary Unwin, a friend of the poet's.

99 _David Garrick_: the celebrated actor (1717-1779).

100 Frank Osbaldistone, the hero of Scott's novel _Rob Roy_, goes to Yorkshire on a visit to his uncle, Sir Hildebrand Osbaldistone, whom he has never seen. As he approaches his destination he falls in with a young lady on horseback, who turns out to be Diana Vernon, a niece of Sir Hildebrand's. The period of the story is early in the eighteenth century.

106 _The 'Festin de pierre'_: Moliere's play, in which the hero, Don Juan, rashly invites the statue of a man he has murdered to dine with him. The invitation is unexpectedly accepted.