The Tatler (Vol 4)

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.'"