NOTES. MR. BICKERSTAFF ON HIMSELF. No. 1. P. 1, 1. 7. Grecian Coffee-House. In the first number of The Tatler, published on Tuesday, April 12, 1709, Steele, when describing the character and aims of the new paper, states that "all accounts of gallantry, pleasure and entertainment shall be under the article of White's Chocolate House; poetry, under that of Will's Coffee-house; learning, under the title of the Grecian; foreign and domestic news, you will have from St. James's Coffeehouse; and what else I have to offer on any other subject shall be dated from my own apartment." The Grecian Coffee-house was situated in a small street off the Strand, known as Devereux Court, closed in 1843. It was the favourite resort of the more staid and learned men of the period. Here Sir Isaac Newton had drunk coffee, Addison was a constant visitor, and in later times Goldsmith played his flute. 1. 8. from an unknown hand; there is another letter, a charming one, from this country friend in No. 112 of The Tatler. 1. 14. bills of mortality: these were the earliest form of the record of births, deaths, and marriages in the British Isles, and were published weekly. In the Plague year, 1665, Pepys, in an entry under September, thus refers in his Diary to them, "To the Tower, and there sent for the weekly Bill and find 8,252 dead in all, and of these 6,978 of the Plague." It was not until 1836 that a reliable record was kept, when the Registrar-General's Department was instituted. The earliest attempt to compile such statistics is said to have been due to Cromwell, Henry VIII.'s minister. This passage then would mean, that Bickerstaff's name is more widely known than the mere record of his birth in the 'bills of mortality' could make it. 1. 18. out of a coffee-house, i.e. except from a coffee-house. The first coffee-house in England was not in London, but in Oxford, where a Jew named Jacobs established one; this was in 1650. Two years later Mr. Edwards, a merchant, brought with him from Smyrna to London a Syrian youth named Pasqua Rosee, to prepare coffee for his private consumption. Shortly afterwards he allowed Pasqua to start a coffee-house in St. Michael's Alley, Cornhill; and this was the first of those houses which rapidly became such centres of social life and political influence in the eighteenth century. Amongst the virtues which Pasqua, in his amusing advertisement, claims for the novel beverage are that "it much quickens the spirits, and makes the heart lightsome; it is good against sore eyes, and the better if you hold your head over it, and take in the steam that way." Pope refers to its exhilarating influence in his lines to Henry Cromwell: "While Coffee shall to British nymphs be dear, While fragrant steams the bended head shall cheer." 1. 20. to endeavour at the covering, to attempt to conceal or excuse. 1. 21. common, common-place. P. 2, 1. 1. a grotto; an Italian word derived through the Latin from the Greek кρUTтý (pron. kruptē), a vault. The artificial taste of the eighteenth century gave rise to a somewhat childish eccentricity in the matter of landscape gardening. Pope's garden at Twickenham is a well-known instance. Here, within the limited space of five acres, he had " a grove, an orangery, a wilderness, a mount, a bowling green," besides other features; but the favourite object of his attention was the famous 'grotto,' which was nothing but an underground tunnel, the walls of which were thickly covered with shells, stones, fossils, and other natural curiosities. 1. 3. Tom's, i.e. Tom's Coffee-house. One of the most popular of the many London coffee-houses. It was situated at No. 17 Russell Street, Covent Garden; the house did not disappear until 1865, although it had then long ceased to be a coffee-house. Will's, "The father of the modern Club." It was a coffeehouse kept by one William Urwin, and situated, like Tom's, in Russell Street. It was Dryden's favourite resort. Here he had the place of honour by the fire in winter, and on summer days he sat in a corner of the balcony overlooking the street; these places he called his "winter and summer seats. It was to this coffee-house that Pope, then only twelve years of age, was taken, in response to earnest entreaties, to see his great master Dryden, whom he afterwards described as a "plump man, with a down look, and not very conversible.' وو White's, i.e. White's Chocolate-house, established in 1698, in St. James's Street, and close to St. James's Palace. At this house the famous White's Club had its origin, which, after F Addison and Steele had passed away, developed into one of the greatest gambling clubs in the country. Amongst the original members were the Earl of Chesterfield, the noted letter-writer and Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and Colley Cibber, the only actor ever elected a member. Swift condemned it as "the bane of half the English nobility.” 1. 4. St. James's, a coffee-house frequented by the Whigs from the time of Queen Anne, until it was finally closed in 1806. When Mr. Spectator (Spectator, No. 403) goes his rounds of the coffee-houses to ascertain the truth about the report of the French king's death, he says, "that I might begin as near the fountain-head as possible, I first of all called in at St. James's where I found the whole outward room in a buzz of politics.' And so Steele selects it as a locality from which foreign news was to be obtained for The Tatler. This coffee-house was memorable later on as the place where Goldsmith's poem Retaliation originated, and was read by its author. Johnson, Garrick, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Burke, Goldsmith, and others dined here together. Goldsmith was generally the last of the party to appear, and on one occasion each member of the company wrote an epitaph on "the late Dr. Goldsmith." At their next meeting Goldsmith, in retaliation, produced his poem, in which he sketched the various members of the party. 1. 9. ingenious, the intellectual people, the wits. The word was often, at this period, confused with 'ingenuous.' 1. 11. Isaac Bickerstaff. For origin of this name, see Introduction. 1. 12. justified, vindicated, defended. Cf. Milton, Par. Lost, I.: assert Eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men. 1. 18. a complete set. The Tatler was published on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, the days upon which our ancestors could post their letters for the country; and thus the paper contained the latest news for the country subscribers. See Introduction. 1. 19. lucubrations, a clumsy word from the Latin lucubro (connected with lux light), to work by candle-light; hence, a work composed by lamp-light, or in retirement, was called a lucubration. 1. 28. the vulgar, i.e. the generality of people. The word has changed its meaning since the eighteenth century. Then it meant no more than the people,' and preserved its close relationship with its Latin original, vulgus, the multitude, having no suggestion of vulgarity. 1. 29. the frolic, i.e. gay and thoughtless people. The word frolic was originally an adjective, and was borrowed from the Dutch in the sixteenth century (vrolijk, merry). It is now obsolescent as an adjective, less rare as a substantive, but common as a verb. For its use as an adjective, cf. Milton, L'Allegro, "The frolic wind that breathes the wind"; and Scott, Lady of the Lake, ""Tis now a seraph bold with touch of fire, 1. 35. elegant, refined; from Lat. eligo, to select. P. 3, 1. 10. advices, communications. 1. 13. impertinence, an unpleasant or intrusive element. The word properly means an irrelevancy, from Lat. in and pertineo, not to belong to. 1. 25. It is remarkable, etc. The conclusion of this essay is particularly interesting, as, while ostensibly a sketch of the imaginary Isaac Bickerstaff's life, it contains an outline of Steele's own career, and should be studied from this point of view. For further allusions to personal incidents see following Essay. 1. 31. taw, a Dutch word for a special kind of marble. Dutch marbles were in former days in much repute. 1. 32. barbarously used, severely punished. Steele (Spectator, No. 157), in after years, vigorously protested against the cruel floggings to which schoolboys were subject in the eighteenth century. "Men were flogged into drill and discipline, they were flogged into courage, they were flogged into obedience; boys were flogged into learning, 'prentices into diligence; women were flogged into virtue. Father Stick has still his disciples, but in the last century he was king" (Besant, London). 1. 34. false concords, i.e. grammatical errors in his Latin exercises. Steele himself did not enter the Charterhouse until his thirteenth year, i.e. in 1684. 1. 35. the University. Steele did not matriculate at Christ Church, Oxford, until in his eighteenth year. Addison, who was his junior by six weeks, entered Magdalen College, Oxford, at the early age of fifteen. Steele, like Isaac Bickerstaff, left without taking a degree, and, like him too, immediately enlisted on leaving the University. See Introduction. P. 4, 1. 3. the occult sciences, the principal being astrology and alchemy. The former, an application of astronomical facts for purposes of prediction, had its origin in the East in very remote times, the Egyptians and Chaldeans, and later the Romans, being noted experts. The first half of the seventeenth century saw an extraordinary revival of the superstition. James I., Charles I., and even Oliver Cromwell are said to have consulted astrologers. It is worth noticing that Morin, the last of the great astrologers, died in 1656, ten years after the supposed birth of Isaac Bickerstaff, who is stated to have been sixty-four years of age in 1709, and was therefore born in 1646. Alchemy was the art by which it was pretended that gold and silver could be made out of the baser metals, the so-called philosopher's stone being the agent in the imposture. It is an interesting fact in this connection that Steele himself, before he married for the first time in 1705, was actually engaged in making chemical experiments in pursuit of the philosopher's stone (see Aitken's Life of Steele, Vol. 1., p. 143). 1. 4. Oliver Cromwell. The Protector died on the 3rd of September, 1658, and was buried in Henry VII.'s beautiful chapel in Westminster Abbey. After the Restoration, Charles II. directed that the body should be disinterred and hung on a gallows at Tyburn. After this the remains, with the exception of the head, were buried at the foot of the gallows. The head was fixed upon a pole at Westminster Hall. Very recently (1895) a head, stated on good grounds to have been that of Oliver Cromwell, has been brought to light in London: a portion of an iron spike which had been thrust through the skull is still present. 1. 7. conjurer, used here in its original sense of wizard, magician. Cf. Beaumont and Fletcher, The Woman-Hater: "Now do I Sit like a conjurer within my circle, And these the devils that are raised about me. 1. 10. Dick's coffee-house, in Fleet Street, called so after Dick Turner, the proprietor. The house itself was an old one. It was originally the printing office where Richard Tottel, printer to Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, published, in 1557, the first English collection of songs and sonnets, better known as Tottel's Miscellany. It was in this house that Cowper, the poet, many years after, developed his first attack of insanity. He here read a letter in a newspaper which he imagined had been written with the object of driving him to commit suicide. The Trumpet. See Essay 9 and notes. Sheer-lane, otherwise spelled Shire-lane, near Temple Bar. MEMORIES OF HIS CHILDHOOD. No. 2. P. 4, 1. 17. no relish of their being, no pleasure in life. 1. 23. instances, proofs, evidence. 1. 25. manes, the spirits. It was the name generally applied by the Romans to souls when separated from the body. The |