Endnotes + 

“Audire est operae⁠ ⁠… [laborent].” It is worth your while, ye that do not wish well to adulterers, to hear how they are hampered on all sides. —⁠Lib. i. Satires i. 2, 37 ↩ + 

“[Haec] metuat⁠ ⁠… deprensa.” The woman fears for her dowry, if she should be caught. —⁠Lib. i. Satires i. 2, 131 ↩ + 

“In the vain joys⁠ ⁠… sight.” A reference is here intended to the various shows which were common in London at this time. ↩ + 

“Though senseless⁠ ⁠… quaff.” That is, the well-dressed barbarians know Congreve’s name and power, such is his compelling art, although they are insensible to mirth except when they laugh and feel wise only when they have drunk to a surfeit. ↩ + 

“Arabella.” A generic name for the ladies who inspire the lyrical name of Congreve. ↩ + 

“William glorious in the strife.” The allusion is to Congreve’s “To the King, on the Taking of Namour.” ↩ + 

“In her own nest⁠ ⁠… changeling-kind.” An allusion to the fact that the cuckoo lays her eggs in the nest of another bird. ↩ + 

“The squire⁠ ⁠… undone.” “Buttered still,” that is, always heaped with loathsome flattery. ↩ + 

“declares for a friend and ratafia.” Ratafia was a liqueur flavoured with fruits. The term “friend” as here used indicates a man friend with whom one’s relations were not entirely unquestionable. ↩ + 

“continued in the state of nature.” Gone on in a natural course. ↩ + 

“the last canonical hour.” Canonical hours were hours prescribed by the canons when prayers might be said. ↩ + 

“Pancras.” The Church of St. Pancras in the Fields. ↩ + 

“Duke’s-place.” St. James’s Church, Duke’s-place, Aldgate, became notorious for the irregular marriages, under the name of Fleet marriages, that were to be purchased there. ↩ + 

“Dame Partlet.” Partlet or Pertelote, the name of the hen in Chaucer’s “Nonne Preestes Tale.” ↩ + 

“Rosamond’s Pond.” A famous meeting place of lovers, situated in the southwestern corner of St. James’s Park. ↩ + 

“the monster in The Tempest.” Caliban. ↩ + 

“commonplace of comparisons.” A collection of figures or quotations for the purposes of argument or conversation. ↩ + 

“cinnamon-water.” A drink composed of sugar, water, and spirit flavoured with cinnamon. ↩ + 

“he would slip you out of this chocolate-house.” He would slip out of this chocolate-house. This is an instance of the ethical dative. ↩ + 

“thou wo’t tell me.” The form wo’t is a contraction of woulds’t. Compare also sha’t, above. ↩ + 

“worse than a quaker hates a parrot.” Because the parrot is so talkative. ↩ + 

“than a fishmonger hates a hard frost.” The work of the fish pedlar was made very disagreeable by cold weather. ↩ + 

“the Mall.” A broad promenade in St. James’s Park, now the street known as Pall Mall. ↩ + 

“transcendently.” An affectation in the fashionable speech of the day. ↩ + 

“Penthesilea.” Queen of the Amazons. ↩ + 

“you have a mask.” Masks were commonly worn in the eighteenth century. ↩ + 

“like Mosca in The Fox⁠ ⁠… terms.” “To stand upon terms” is to dally over the terms of an agreement. Mosca in Ben Jonson’s comedy Volpone deceives the suitors of Volpone by making them believe that his master is about to die and make them his heirs. ↩ + 

“the beau monde.” The world of fashion. ↩ + 

“tift and tift.” A tift is a fit of perverse fretting, a humour. ↩ + 

“You are not⁠ ⁠… fools.” From the general trend of the conversation it would seem that course is here used in the sense of a course of treatment in which fools are the chief medicinal agent. ↩ + 

“like Solomon⁠ ⁠… hanging.” Such Biblical subjects often formed the basis for designs in tapestry. ↩ + 

“B’w’y.” A contraction of “God be with you.” ↩ + 

“Mopus.” A dull person. ↩ + 

“Spanish paper.” Used for the complexion. ↩ + 

“with a bit of nutmeg.” Nutmeg was much eaten in eighteenth-century England. ↩ + 

“like Maritornes⁠ ⁠… Quixote.” Maritornes is a chambermaid with whom Don Quixote persists in being in love. ↩ + 

“Quarles and Prynne.” Francis Quarles was a writer of sacred poems, author of Divine Emblems, one of the most popular works of the age. William Prynne was a lawyer and pamphleteer, author of Hisiriomastix, a savage attack upon the stage in the time of Charles I. ↩ + 

“The Short View of the Stage.” The full title is A Short View of the Profaneness and Immorality of the English Stage. This righteous attack on the abuses of the stage by Jeremy Collier caused a flutter among the playwrights and in time brought about a modicum of reform. Congreve was especially censured. ↩ + 

“Robin from Locket’s.” One of the drawers or waiters at Locket’s ordinary in Charing Cross. ↩ + 

“like a Long-lane penthouse.” Long-lane from West Smithfield to Barbican was occupied by the sellers of old clothes. A penthouse was here a species of continuous shed or arcade, covering the walk. ↩ + 

“the million lottery.” A lottery the prizes of which amounted to a million pounds in the advertisements. ↩ + 

“the whole court upon a birthday.” Because of the presents that custom demanded. ↩ + 

“Ludgate⁠ ⁠… Blackfriars⁠ ⁠… old mitten.” Ludgate was one of the better debtors’ prisons. It abutted on the precinct of Blackfriars. To angle with a mitten refers to the custom of imprisoned debtors who begged alms of passersby through a grating. Here doubtless a string was let down from an upper window with a mitten in which the benevolent passerby might put his farthing, subsequently to be drawn up. ↩ + 

“has a month’s mind.” To have an inclination to a thing. ↩ + 

“passe-partout.” Master-key. ↩ + 

“any chemist upon the day of projection.” The culmination of an experiment in alchemy, when the metals were supposed to be transmuted into gold was called a projection. ↩ + 

“drap de Berri.” Probably drap or étoffe de bêret, cloth of Berri, described as Russian, doubtless here a coarse cloth. ↩ + 

“ ’Tis like⁠ ⁠… on her hips.” Lacing under these conditions would cause the hips to increase in size. ↩ + 

“Rhenish wine tea.” Taken to reduce flesh. ↩ + 

“a discarded toast.” A lady who has ceased to be the reigning belle and subject of the toasts of her friends and suitors. ↩ + 

“I’ll take my death.” I hope to die if what I say is not true. ↩ + 

“in the main.” Main is here mean, the middle or tenor part, with which the other two harmonize. There is also a play on the more obvious meaning of the word. ↩ + 

“The ordinary’s paid for setting the psalm.” The ordinary was the chaplain of Newgate prison, whose duty it was to prepare condemned criminals for death. ↩ + 

“In the name of Bartlemew and his fair.” The fair of St. Bartlemew or St. Bartholomew was held in Smithfield every August. It was the great cloth fair of England and is here invoked by Witwoud because of the strange appearance of his brother. ↩ + 

“smoke him.” Torment, mock, tease him. ↩ + 

“thereafter, as ’tis meant.” Take as it (i.e. offence) is meant. ↩ + 

“a hare’s scut.” A hare’s short tail, equivalent to a fig for your service. ↩ + 

“Salop.” Shropshire, an inland county of England bordering on Wales. ↩ + 

“like a call of sergeant.” Sergeant appears here to have its earlier meaning, a servant. ↩ + 

“out of your time.” While you were still indentured to an attorney. ↩ + 

“Furnival’s Inn.” In Holborn, formerly one of the inns of Chancery, attached to Lincoln’s Inn. ↩ + 

“reckan.” Reckan (in the old editions rekin, absurdly modernized Wrekin) is the crane or iron bar from which hung the pots in the fireplace. ↩ + 

“Dawks’s Letter.” In 1696 Ichabod Dawks started his News-Letter. It was printed on good paper in imitation of writing with a space for the gentleman who sent it to his friends to write by hand matters of private business. ↩ + 

“Weekly Bill.” Several newspapers contained the word Weekly in their titles as The Weekly News, The Weekly Packet. ↩ + 

“If an how⁠ ⁠… abate.” If peace holds whereby taxes will be reduced. Sir Wilful speaks with provincial indirectness. ↩ + 

“ ’Tis like there may.” Very likely there is. ↩ + 

“rally their best friends to choose.” That is, make as much fun of them as they like. ↩ + 

“like a deputy-lieutenant’s hall.” That is, with all sorts of arms. The horns of the cuckold were often spoken of as armament. ↩ + 

“cap of maintenance.” A cap or hat which was a sign of high office, carried before a sovereign or person of high authority in a procession. ↩ + 

“I’ll set his hand in.” See him well started. ↩ + 

“how⁠ ⁠… lady?” Just what are your feelings toward your lady? ↩ + 

“Sir John Suckling.” A famous lyric and dramatic poet of the early seventeenth century. ↩ + 

“Thyrsis, a youth⁠ ⁠… train.” A line from a poem of Edmund Waller. ↩ + 

“I prithee⁠ ⁠… slight toy.” These and some of the following lines are Suckling’s. ↩ + 

“all a case.” It is all the same. ↩ + 

“Like Phoebus⁠ ⁠… boy.” A further line from the same poem by Waller. ↩ + 

“in things of common application.” In the affairs of everyday life. ↩ + 

“douceurs, ye sommeils du matin.” Sweetnesses, ye morning naps. ↩ + 

“hogs’ bones, hares’ gall⁠ ⁠… cat.” A playful exaggeration of some of the popular nostrums of the day. ↩ + 

“Barbados waters.” A cordial flavoured with orange-peel. ↩ + 

“an unsized camlet.” Camlet was a light stuff of wool and linen, formerly from the East. Unsized, that is, unstiffened, not sized. ↩ + 

“noli prosequi.” To be unwilling to prosecute. An acknowledgment by the plaintiff that he will not press a suit further. ↩ + 

“my dear Lacedemonian.” Applied to Petulant on account of his power as an “epitomizer of words” as Witwoud says. ↩ + 

“and Baldwin yonder.” The name of the fox in the beast-epic Reynard the Fox, also applied to the ass by Chaucer. ↩ + 

“A Gemini⁠ ⁠… you.” Gemini, the name for the twin stars Castor and Pollux was often used of pairs of things. ↩ + 

“Borachio.” A villain, follower of Don John, in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. Borachio is the Spanish term for a leather wine bottle, hence used for a drunkard. ↩ + 

“bastinadoed with broomsticks.” That is, beaten on the soles of the feet. ↩ + 

“Salopian.” An inhabitant of Salop or Shropshire. ↩ + 

“a ballad-monger.” A seller of ballads. In eighteenth-century London these were sold upon the streets by itinerant pedlars. ↩ + 

“Frisoneer gorget.” A piece of apparel for the neck, a kerchief, made of Frisoneer, perhaps the same word as Frison or frieze, a woollen stuff originally made in Friesland. The word Frisoneer does not apparently occur elsewhere. ↩ + 

“a cast servingman.” A servingman that has been discharged. ↩ + 

“and been put upon his clergy.” Forced to plead the benefit of the clergy, or privilege of exemption from capital punishment because of an ability to read and write. ↩ + 

“meddle or make.” Have anything to do with the affair. ↩ + 

“Abigails and Andrews.” Abigail was a common name for a lady’s maid; Andrew for a valet. ↩ + 

“Philander.” A lover in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso ruined by the lustful Gabrina. Here merely a lover with an uncomplimentary allusion to Foible. ↩ + 

“I’ll Duke’s-place you.” Marry you in a hurry as they do at Duke’s-place, Aldgate, where St. James’s Church was situated, a place notorious for irregular marriages. ↩ + 

“a Bridewell-bride.” A loose woman committed to a prison for vagrants and social criminals. The prison was supposed to stand over the well of St. Bride. ↩ + 

“a brass counter.” A small piece of metal used as a token and in accounting. ↩ + 

“in a quoif like a man-midwife.” The legal costume of the day included a hood. ↩ + 

“Doomsday Book.” A survey of England taken in 1086. ↩ + 

“cantharides.” A medicament used for blistering. ↩ + 

“the Temple.” One of the Inns of Court, where students at law were educated. ↩ + 

“exceeding the barbarity of a Muscovite husband.” The Russian was often used in the eighteenth century as the symbol of roughness and cruelty. ↩ + 

“from his Czarish majesty’s retinue.” An allusion to the visit of the Czar, Peter the First, three years before. ↩ + 

“while the instrument is drawing.” While the agreement is being drawn up. ↩ + 

“By’r Lady.” By Our Lady. ↩ + 

“o’ the quorum.” Certain justices of the peace whose presence was essential to constitute a bench. ↩ + 

“an old fox.” A colloquial name for a sword. ↩ + 

“a mittimus.” A command in writing to a jailer to keep the person in custody in close confinement; here the vellum upon which such an order might be written. ↩ + 

“bear-garden flourish.” A flourish suitable for a bear-garden. Bear-baiting formed one of the lowest types of amusement in seventeenth-century London. These places were the scenes of many brawls. ↩ + 

“Messalina’s poems.” Messalina was the wife of the emperor Claudian. Her name is constantly associated with incontinence. ↩ + 

“paid in kind.” In order to realize the full sense of this play upon words one must bear in mind that the idea of children was seldom separated from the word kind. ↩ + 