9. tire-woman: a lady's maid. 10. crimp: an obsolete game of cards. = II. Cupid and Veny: familiar names for lapdogs. Veny Venus. 12. skuttle: a mincing, affected method of walking. 13. Indamora: the name of a captive queen in Dryden's Aurengzebe. PAGE 154. 14. Nicolini: Nicolino Grimaldi (1673–1726), an Italian opera singer who came to England in 1708 and was immensely popular with English society. 15. mobs: the word may signify either a type of loosely fitting cap much worn at the time, or negligé attire in general. The latter meaning appears in the following phrase from Spectator 302: "wrapping gowns and dirty linen, with all that huddled economy of dress which passes under the general name of a mob." 16. dumb man: Duncan Campbell (1680?-1730), a dumb astrologer and fortune teller much in demand in the early eighteenth century. He is the subject of one of Defoe's pamphlets. PAGE 155. 17. an uncertain author: probably William Browne (1591-1643?), best known as a writer of pastoral poetry. The lines have, however, been attributed to Ben Jonson. Each subject with the best address and wit. 2. Gratian: Baltasar Gracián (d. 1658), a Spanish Jesuit, the author of an important and influential treatise on style. 3. sensitive: pertaining to the senses as opposed to the mind. PAGE 160. 4. Livy: Titus Livius (59 B.C.-17 A.D.), the historian of the early days of Rome. 5. Sallust: Roman historian (86–34 B.C.); his two chief works dealt with the conspiracy of Catiline and the Jugurthine War. PAGE 161. 6. Tacitus: Roman historian (cir. 55-cir. 117 A.D.). PAGE 162. 7. Corneille, etc.: all of these writers were Frenchmen of the age of Louis XIV. Corneille (1606–1684) and Racine (1639–1699) were writers of tragedy; Molière (1622–1673) was the most eminent of French comic dramatists; La Fontaine (1621–1695) was the greatest of French fabulists; La Bruyère (1645–1696) was an essayist and social critic; Boileau (1636– 1711), Le Bossu (1631–1680), and the Daciers — André (1651–1722) and his wife Anne (1654–1720) - were literary critics. 8. Longinus: Diogenes Cassius Longinus (cir. 210-273 A.D.), a Greek writer and statesman, to whom has been attributed one of the best-known critical works of antiquity, a treatise On the Sublime. 9. forced conceits: extravagantly ingenious or far-fetched comparisons and illustrations. Antipathy to "conceits" was one of the distinguishing marks of the "classical" movement in English poetry. Cf. Spectator 62, in which Addison contrasts "mixed wit," or conceit, with "that beautiful simplicity which we so much admire in the compositions of the ancients." 10. Gothic on this word see note 5 to page 94. II. I entertained the town for a week: May 7 to May 12, 1711. See Spectator 58–63. PAGE 163. 12. I have ... examined the works of the greatest poet: Addison's papers on Milton appeared in the Spectator on Saturdays from No. 267 to No. 369. 13. an essay on The Pleasures of the Imagination: see Nos. 411-421. ON RAILLERY 1. Motto: Cicero, Epistolæ ad Familiares vii, 1: I have writ this, not through the abundance of leisure, but of love towards thee." PAGE 164. 2. Calisthenes: the original of this "character" has been supposed to be Addison. PAGE 166. 3. Mr. Congreve's "Doris : William Congreve (1670-1729), though he wrote some society verse of the type quoted by Steele, is best known as a comic dramatist, the author of four of the most brilliantly witty comedies of the Restoration school. PAGE 167. ON GARDENS 1. Motto: Horace, Odes III, iv, 5–8: Or airy frenzies cheat My mind well pleased with the deceit ! I seem to hear, I seem to move, And wander through the happy grove, Where smooth springs flow, and murmuring breeze Does wanton through the waving trees. 2. your thoughts upon some of our English gardens: see Spectator 414. 3. kitchen and parterre: kitchen-garden (or vegetable garden) and flower garden. PAGE 168. 4. plats of willow: plots or patches. 5. treillages: trellises. 6. Wise and London: a celebrated firm of London gardeners, largely responsible for the vogue in England of the formal Dutch garden, against which the present essay was one of the earliest protests. PAGE 169. 7. the Pindaric manner: in the manner of Pindar (cir. 522-443 B.C.), the Greek lyric poet. What his "manner" was conceived to be in the early eighteenth century appears in the following sentence from Spectator 160 (by Addison): "Pindar was a great genius of the first class, who was hurried on by a natural fire and impetuosity to vast conceptions of things, and noble sallies of imagination." PAGE 170. 8. that vernal delight which you have somewhere taken notice of: see Spectator 393. THE RAMBLER The text of the Rambler given here is based upon the last edition revised by Johnson, as reprinted by Chalmers in British Essayists (1803). PAGE 171. THE FOLLY OF ANTICIPATING MISFORTUNES 1. Motto: Horace, Odes III, xxix, 29–32: PAGE 174. But God has wisely hid from human sight The dark decrees of future fate, And sown their seeds in depth of night; When mortals search too soon, and fear too late. - Dryden. 2. old Cornaro: Luigi Cornaro, an Italian writer on health, the author of a treatise on temperance and sobriety (1588). PAGE 175. 3. Taylor: Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667), an eloquent English divine and religious writer; his chief works are Holy Living and Holy Dying. THE MISERY OF A FASHIONABLE LADY IN THE COUNTRY 1. Motto: Horace, Epistles I, i, 23: "How heavily my time revolves along." PAGE 178. 2. At last economy prevailed: economy" is used here in the sense of domestic management. THE CITIZEN OF THE WORLD Goldsmith's Chinese letters were originally published in the Public Ledger, a newspaper edited by John Newbery, between January 24, 1760, and August 14, 1761. They were reissued in book form in 1762. The present text is that of the third edition (1774). PAGE 180. THE CHINESE PHILOSOPHER IN ENGLAND I. a factor at Canton: a commercial agent. PAGE 182. FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND I. a paltry piece of painting: signs were still largely used in the middle of the eighteenth century to designate houses. PAGE 192. THE CHARACTER OF BEAU TIBBS 1. mandarine: a toy representing a grotesque seated figure in Chinese costume. PAGE 194. A VISIT TO A LONDON SILK MERCHANT 1. as they say in Cheapside: a phrase equivalent to "as they say among us merchants." Cheapside is a street in the City, or business section of London. CHARLES LAMB "Old Of the essays included in this selection, "Detached Thoughts," China," ," "Poor Relations," and "The Superannuated Man" were first collected in the Last Essays of Elia (1833); all the others were included in the Essays of Elia (1823). A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT OF THE BEHAVIOUR OF MARRIED PEOPLE PAGE 198. I. free of the company: having the rights and privileges of membership in the guild. 2. bring our spices, myrrh, and incense: probably an allusion to the gifts of the Magi to the infant Jesus; see Matthew ii, 11. 3. "Like as the arrows," etc.: see Psalm cxxvii, 4–5. PAGE 199. 4. per se of themselves, because of their own individuality. PAGE 200. 5. One daisy differs not much, etc.: probably a recollection of 1 Corinthians xv, 41. PAGE 201. 6. humorist: an eccentric person. 7. "decent affection and complacent kindness": from Douglas, I, i, 43, a tragedy by John Home (1722-1808). PAGE 203. 8. Morellas cultivated dark cherries, named after a town in Spain. VALENTINE'S DAY I. Archflamen: a flamen was a Roman priest devoted to the service of a particular god, |