ABSOLUTE, Sir Anthony, a leading character in Sheridan’s play of The Rivals
A darker and fiercer spirit, Jonathan Swift, the great Tory writer (1667-1745)
Agbarus or Abgarus, the alleged author of a spurious letter to Jesus Christ. Edessa is in Mesopotamia
Alboin, King of the Lombards, 561-573, he invaded Italy as far as the Tiber
Alcina, the personification of carnal pleasure in the Orlando Furioso
Aldus, the famous Venetian printer (1447-1515), who issued the Aldine editions of the classics and invented italic type
Alfieri, Italian dramatist, and one of the pioneers of the revolt against eighteenth-century literary and society models (1749-1803)
Algarotti, Francesco, a litterateur, friend of Voltaire. Frederic made him a count (1764)
Alnaschar, see “The History of the Barber’s Fifth Brother,” in the Arabian Nights
Alva, Duke of, the infamous governor of the Netherlands (1508-82)
Amadeus, Victor, “the faithless ruler of Savoy,” who for a bribe deserted Austria, whose troops he was commander-in chief of for France, in 1692
Arbuthnot, Dr., author of the History of John Bull, friend of Swift and Pope (1679-1735)
Arminius, a German who, as a hostage, entered the Roman army, but afterwards revolted and led his countrymen against Rome (d. 23 A.D.)
Armorica, France between the Seine and the Loire, Brittany
Artevelde, Von., Jacob v. A. and Philip, his son, led the people of Flanders in their revolt against Count Louis and his French supporters (fourteenth century)
Ascham, Roger, and Aylmer, John, tutors of Queen Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey respectively
Athalie, Saul, Cinna, dramas by Racine Alfieri, and Corneille respectively
Atticus, Sporus, i.e. Addison and Lord John Hervey, satirized in Pope’s Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot
Attila, King of the Huns, the “Scourge of God” who overran the Roman Empire but was finally beaten by the allied Goths and Romans (d. 453)
Aubrey, John, an eminent antiquary who lost a number of inherited estates by lawsuits and bad management (1624-97)
BADAJOZ and St. Sebastian, towns in Spain captured from the French during the Peninsular War
Bastiani, was at first one of the big Potsdam grenadiers; Frederic made him Abbot of Silesia
Bayes, Miss, with reference to the name used in The Rehearsal, by George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, to satirize Dryden, the poet-laureate
Bayle, Pierre, author of the famous Dictionnaire Historique et Critique; professor of philosophy at Padua and at Rotterdam (1647-1706)
Beauclerk, Topham, Johnson’s friend, “the chivalrous T. B., with his sharp wit and gallant, courtly ways” (Carlyle), (1739-80)
Beaumarchais, see Carlyle’s French Revolution. As a comic dramatist he ranks second only to Moliere. He supported the Revolution with his money and his versatile powers of speech and writing. He edited an edition de luxe of Voltaire’s works (1732-99)
Behn, Afra, the licentious novelist and mistress of Charles II. (1640-89), who, as a spy in Holland, discovered the Dutch plans for burning the Thames shipping
Belle-Isle, French marshal; fought in the Austrian campaign of 1740 and repelled the Austrian invasion of 1744 (d. 1761)
Beloe William, a miscellaneous writer, whose version of Herodotus, so far from being flat, is, while “infinitely below the modern standard in point of accuracy, much above modern performance in point of readableness” (Dr. Garnett), (1756-1817)
Bender, 80 miles N.W. from Odessa, in S. Russia
Bentley, Richard, master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and an eminent philologist (1662-1742)
Bettesworth, an Irishman, lampooned in Swift’s Miscellanies
Betty Careless, one of Macaulay’s inventions which sufficiently explains itself
Betty, Master, a boy-actor, known as the Infant Roscius. Having acquired a fortune he lived in retirement (1791-1874)
Black Frank, Johnson’s negro servant, Frank Barber
Blackmore, Sir Richard, a wordy poetaster (d. 1729), who was the butt of all contemporary wits
Blair, Dr. Hugh, Scotch divine an critic, encouraged Macpherson to publish the Ossian poetry (1718-1800)
Blatant cast, the, does not really die. See the end of Faery Queen vi.
Bobadil and Beseus, Pistol and Parolles, braggart characters in Jonson’s Every Man in His Humour, Beaumont and Fletcher’s King and no King, Shakespeare’s Henry V., and All’s Well that Ends Well, respectively
Boileau, Nicholas, the great French critic, whose Art of Poetry long constituted the canons of French and English literary art (1636-1711)
Bolt Court, on the N. side of Fleet Street. Johnson lived at No. 8 from 1777 till his death in 1784
Borodino, 70 miles west from Moscow, where the Russians made a stand against Napoleon, 1812
Boscan, a Spanish imitator of Petrarch Alva’s tutor; served in Italy (1485-1533)
Bourne, Vincent, an usher at Westminster School, mentioned early in the “Essay on Warren Hastings,”
Boyle, Hon. Charles, edited the Letters of Phalaris which gave rise to the famous controversy with Bentley, for which, see the essay on Sir William Temple (vol. iii. of this edition)
Bradamante, in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, a Christian lady who loves the Saracen knight, Ruggiero
Brothers, Richard, a fanatic who held that the English were the lost ten tribes of Israel (1757-1824)
Brownrigg, Mrs., executed at Tyburn (1767) for abusing and murdering her apprentices
Bruhl, Count, the favourite of Augustus III. of Saxony who enriched himself at the risk of ruining his master and his country.
Bucer, Martin, a German reformer who mediated between Luther and Zwingli, and became Professor of Divinity at Cambridge (1491-1551)
Buchanan, George, Scottish scholar and humanist; tutor to Mary Queen of Scots and James VI. (1506-82)
Burn, Richard, an English vicar compiled several law digests among them the Justice of the Peace, (1709-85)
Burnet, Gilbert, bishop of Salisbury, supported the claims of William of Orange to the English throne, and wrote the History of my Own Times (1643-1715)
Button’s, on the south side of Russell Street, Covert Garden succeeded Will’s as the wits’ resort
Butts, Dr. physician-in-ordinary to Henry VIII. (d. 1545) and one of the characters in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII.
CACUS, the mythological giant who stole the oxen of Hercules
Camaldoli, Order of, founded by St. Romauld, a Benedictine (eleventh century) in the Vale of Camaldoli among the Tuscan Apennines
Cambray, Confederates of, the pope, the emperor. France and Spain who by the League of Cambray combined to attack Venice
Campbell, Dr. John, a miscellaneous political and historical writer (1708~75)
Capreae, or Capri, a small island nineteen miles south from Naples, the favourite residence of Augustus and Tiberius, and the scene of the latter’s licentious orgies
Capuchins, a branch of the monastic order of the Franciscans
Carlile, Richard, a disciple of Tom Paine’s who was repeatedly imprisoned for his radicalism. He worked especially for the freedom of the Press (1790-1843)
Carter, Mrs., a distinguished linguist and translator of Epictetus
Casaubon, Isaac, Professor of Greek at Geneva Curator of the Royal Library at Paris, Prebendary of Canterbury: a famous sixteenth-century scholar (1559-1614),
Catinat, French marshal in charge of the 1701 Italian campaign against Marlborough’s ally, Prince Eugene of Savoy
Cave, Edward, printer, editor, publisher, and proprietor of the Gentleman’s Magazine (1691-1754)
Chatelet, Madame du, Voltaire’s mistress, c 1733-47 (d. 1749)
Chaulieu, Guillaume, a witty but negligent poetaster (1639-1720)
Chaumette, Pierre, a violent extremist in the French Revolution who provoked even Robespierre’s disgust; guillotined, 1794
Childs, the clergy coffee-house in St. Paul’s. St. James’s (ib.) in the street of that name, was the resort of beaux and statesmen and a notorious gambling house
Chillingworth, William, an able English controversial divine; suffered at the hands of the Puritans as an adherent of Charles I. (1602-43)
Churchill, Charles, a clergyman and satirical Poet who attacked Johnson in The Ghost (1731-64)
Clootz, a French Revolutionary and one of the founders of the “Worship of Reason:” guillotined 1794
Colburn, (Zerah), b. at Vermont, U.S.A., in 1804, and noted in youth for his extraordinary powers of calculation (d. 1840)
Coligni, Gaspard de, French admiral and leader of the Huguenots; massacred on St. Bartholomew’s Eve, 1572
Colle, Charles, dramatist and song-writer (d. 1777); young Crebillon (d. 1777) wrote fiction
Condorcet, a French Marquis (1743-94) of moderate Revolutionary tendencies, who fell a victim to the Extremists He wrote extensively and clearly, but without genius
Constituent Assembly, the National Assembly of France from 1789 to 1792
Corderius, a famous sixteenth-century teacher—Calvin was a pupil of his—in France and Switzerland (d. 1564) who published several school-books
Cortes, conqueror of Mexico (1485-1547); the Spanish Parliament
Cotta, Caius, a famous Roman orator, partly contemporary with Cicero, who mentions him with honour
Courland, a province on the Baltic once belonging to Poland since 1795 to Russia
Coventry, Solicitor-General of England in 1616, Attorney-General in 1620 and Lord Keeper in 1625
Cradock, Joseph, a versatile writer and actor whose rambling Literary and Miscellaneous Memoirs contain several anecdotes of Johnson and his circle (1742-1826)
Curll and Osborne, two notorious booksellers who owe their immortality to Pope’s Dunciad
Curtius, the noble Roman youth who leaped into the chasm in the Forum and so closed it by the sacrifice of Rome’s most precious possession—a good citizen
DACIER, Andrew, a French scholar who edited the “Delphin” edition of the classics for the Dauphin, and translated many of them (1651-1722)
Dangerfield, Thomas, Popish plot discoverer and false witness (1650?-1685)
Davies, Tom, the actor-bookseller who wrote the Memoirs of David Garrick, and was one of Johnson’s circle (1712-85). “The famous dogma of the old physiologists” is “corruptio unius generatio est alterius” (Notes and Queries, Ser. 8, vol. ix., p. 56)
Davila, a famous French soldier and historian who served under Henry of Navarre; wrote the famous History of the Civil War in France (1576-1631)
Della Crusca, the signature of Robert Merry (1755-98), the leader of a mutual-admiration band of poetasters, who had their head-quarters at Florence, and hence called themselves the Della Cruscans. Gifford (q.v.) pulverised them in his Baviad and Merviad
Dentatus, the old-type Roman who, after many victories and taking immense booty, retired to a small farm which he himself tilled
Desfontaines, a Jesuit who put out a pirated edition of Voltaire’s La Ligue
Dessaix, a distinguished, upright, and chivalrous French general under Napoleon, who fell at Marengo (1800)
Diafoirus, the name of two pedantic characters in Moliere’s Malade Imaginaire
Diatessaron, a harmony of the gospels, the earliest example being that compiled by Tatian c.170 A.D.
Digby, Lord, one of the Royalist leaders and a typical Cavalier
Diodorus author of a universal history of which fifteen books still remain (50 B.C.-13 A.D.)
Distressed Mother, by Ambrose Phillipps, modelled on Racine’s Andromaque
Domdaniel, a hall under the roots of the ocean, where gnomes magicians, and evil spirits hold council (see Southey’s Thalaba)
Domenichino, a celebrated Italian painter of sacred subjects; persecuted and possibly poisoned by his rivals (1581-1641)
Douw, Gerard, distinguished Dutch painter, one of Rembrandt’s pupils; his works are famed for their perfect finish and delicacy (1613-75)
Dubois, Guillaume, cardinal and prime minister of France, noted for his ability and his debauchery (1656-1723)
D’Urfey, Tom, a facetious comedian and song-writer, favoured by Charles II. Known for his collection of sonnets, Pills to Purge Melancholy (1628-1703)
ECLIPSE, a famous chestnut race-horse who between 3rd May, 1769 and 4th October, 1770, had a most successful record
Encyclopaedia, the famous work which, edited by D’Alembert and Diderot, and contributed to by the most eminent savants of France, was issued 1751-77, and contributed not a little to fan the flame of Revolution. The Philosophical Dictionary was a similar production
Essex, Queen Elizabeth’s favourite courtier who took Cadiz in 1596
Euphelia and Rhodoclea...Comelia...Tranquilla, signatures to letters in the Rambler (Nos. 42, 46; 62; 51; 10,119)
Exons, i. e. “Exempts of the Guards,” “officers who commanded when the lieutenant or ensign was absent, and who had charge of the night watch,”
Eylau, 20 miles south from Konigsberg victory of Napoleon, 1807
FAIRFAX, Edward, one of the “improvers” of English versification. Translated Tasso in the same stanzas as the original, and wrote on Demonology (d. c. 1632)
Farnese, Alexander, Duke of Parma, Governor of the Netherlands under Philip II. and the first commander of his age
Faunus, grandson of Saturn and god of fields and shepherds, later identified with the Greek Pan
Faustina, Empress, (i) wife of Antoninus Pius; (ii) daughter of (i) and wife of Marcus Aurelius. Both were equally licentious
Favorinus, a rhetorician and sophist, who flourished in Gaul, c. 125 A.D.
Felton, John, who assassinated the Duke of Buckingham in 1628
Ferguson, Sir Adam, M.P. for Ayrshire, 1774-80
Filmer, Sir Robert, advocated the doctrine of absolute regal power in his Patriarcha, 1680,
Flecknoe and Settle, synonyms for vileness in poetry (cp. Moevius and Bairus among the Romans). Flecknoe was an Irish priest who printed a host of worthless matter. Settle was a playwright, who degenerated into a “city-poet and a puppet-show” keeper; both were satirized by Dryden
Fleury, French cardinal and statesman, tutor and adviser of Louis XV. (1653-1743)
Florimel. (see Spenser’s Faery Queen, books iii. and iv.)
Fox, George, and Naylor, James, contemporaries of Bunyan, and early leaders of the Society of Friends or “Quakers,”
Fracastorius, Italian philosopher, mathematician, and poet ranked by Scaliger as next to Virgil
Fraguier, Pere, an eminent man of letters, sometime a Jesuit. An elegant Latin versifier, especially on philosophical themes (1666-1728)
Franc de Pompignan, Advocate-General of France, an Academician and an opponent of Encyclopaedists, in consequence of which Voltaire lampooned him (1709-84)
Franche Comte, that part of France which lies south of Lorraine and west of Switzerland
Freron, took sides with the Church against the attacks of Voltaire; had some reputation as a critic (d. 1776)
GALLIENUS and Honorius, late Roman emperors who suffered from barbaric invasions
Galt, John Scotch custom-house officer and novelist, wrote The Ayrshire Legatees, The Provost, Sir Andrew Wylie, etc.
Galway, Lord (Macaulay is not quite so severe on him in his History of England)
Ganganelli, who as Clement XIV. held the papacy, 1769-74, and suppressed the Jesuits
George of Trebizond, a celebrated humanist (1396-1486), professor of Greek at Venice in 1428 and papal secretary at Rome, C. 1450
Gibby, Sir, Sir Gilbert Heathcote
Gifford, editor of the Anti-Jacobin and afterwards of the Quarterly Review, in which he attacked Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats. His satires, the Baviad and the Maviad, had some reputation in their day (1757-1826)
Gilpin, Rev. Joshua G., rector of Wrockwardine, whose new and corrected edition of the Pilgrim’s Progress appeared in 1811
Godfrey of Bouillon, a leader of the First Crusade; he took Jerusalem in 1099
Goldoni, “the founder of Italian Comedy” (1707-93), whose pieces supplanted the older Italian farces and burlesques
Gondomar, Count of, the Spanish ambassador at the court of James I. who ruined Raleigh, and negotiated the proposed marriage of Charles I. with the Infanta
Gonsalvo de Cordova, the great captain who took Granada from the Moors, Zante from the Turks, and Naples from the French (1443-1515)
Grecian, the, the resort of the learned in Devereux Street Strand
Grotius, a celebrated Dutch scholar, equally famed for his knowledge of theology, history, and law (d. 1645)
Gwynn, Nell, an orange girl who became mistress of Charles II. and the ancestress of the Dukes of St. Albans
HAILES, Lord, David Dalrymple, author of the Annals of Scotland (1726-92)
Hale, Sir Matthew, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench under Charles II, and author of several religious and moral works
Halford, Sir Henry, one of the leading physicians in Macaulay’s day (1766-1844)
Hamilton, Gerard, M.P. for Petersfield, and of a somewhat despicable character. The nickname was “Single-speech Hamilton,”
Harpagon, the miser in Moliere’s L’Avare
Hawkins, Sir John. a club companion of Johnson’s (d. 1780), whose Life and Works of Johnson (II vols., 1787-89) was a careless piece of work, soon superseded by Boswell’s
Hayley, William, Cowper’s friend and biographer (1745-1820). Byron ridiculed his Triumphs of Temper and Triumphs of Music, and Southey said everything was good about him except his poetry
Henriade, Voltaire’s La Ligue, ou Henri le Grand
Hierocles, a neo-Platonic philosopher (c. 450 A.D.), who after long labour collected a book of twenty-eight jests, a translation of which (Gentleman’s Magazine, 1741) has been attributed to Johnson
Hill, Aaron, playwright, stage-manager, and projector of bubble schemes (1685-1750). See Pope’s Dunciad, ii. 295 ff.
Hippocrene, “the fountain of the Muses, formed by the hoof of Pegasus”
Holbach, Baron, a French “philosophe” who entertained at his hospitable board in Paris all the Encyclopaedia (q.v.) writers; a materialist, but a philanthropist (1723-89)
Holofernes, the pedantic school-master in Love’s Labour ‘s Last
Home, John, a minister of the Scottish Church (1724-1808), whose tragedy of Douglas was produced in Edinburgh in 1756
Hoole, John, a clerk in the India House, who worked at translations, e.g. of Tasso and Ariosto, and original literature in his spare hours
Hotel of Rambouillet, the intellectual salon which centred round the Italian Marquise de R.(1588-1665), and degenerated into the pedantry which Moliere satirized in Les Preceiuses Ridicules
Hughes, John, a poet and essayist, who contributed frequently to the Tatler, and Guardian (1677-1720)
Hume, Mr. Joseph, English politician, reformer, and philanthropist (1777-1855)
Hurd, Richard, Bishop in succession of Lichfield, Coventry, and Worcester; edited in 1798 with fulsome praise the works of his fellow bishop Warburton of Gloucester
Hutchinson, Mrs., wife of Colonel Hutchinson, the governor of Nottingham Castle in the Civil War, whose Memoirs (published 1806) she wrote
Hutten, Ulrich von, German humanist and reformer (1488-1523)
IMLAC (see Johnson’s Rasselas, Ch. viii xii.)
Ireland’s Vortigern, a play represented by W. H. Ireland as Shakespeare’s autograph; failed when Sheridan produced it in 1796, and afterwards admitted a forgery
Ivimey, Mr., Baptist divine and historian of the early nineteenth century, who compiled a life of Bunyan
JANSENIAN CONTROVERSY, arose early in the seventeenth century over the Augustinian principle of the sovereign and the irresistible nature of divine grace, denied by the Jesuits. In connection with this controversy Pascal wrote his Provincial Letters
Jeanie Deans (see Scott’s The Heart Of Midlothian)
Jedwood justice; the little town of Jedburgh was prominent in border-warfare, and its justice was proverbially summary, the execution of the accused usually preceding his trial
Jonathan’s and Garraway’s, Coffee-houses in Cornhill and Exchange Alley respectively, specially resorted to by brokers and merchants
Jortin, John, an eminent and scholarly divine, who wrote on the Truth, Christian Religion and on History (1698-1770)
Julius, the second pope (1502-13) of that name, whose military zeal outran his priestly inclination. He fought against the Venetians, and the French
Justiza, M Mayor, “a magistrate appointed by King and the Cortes who acted as mediator between the King and the people.” Philip II. abolished the office)
KENRICK, William, a hack writer, who in the Monthly Review in 1765, attacked Johnson’s Shakespeare with “a certain coarse smartness” (1725?-79)
Kitcat Club, founded c. 1700 by thirty-nine Hanoverian statesmen and authors on the basis of an earlier society (see Spectator No. 9)
LA BRUYERE, John de, tutor to the Duke of Burgundy and a member of the Academy; author of Characters after the manner of Theophrastus (1644~96)
La Clos, author of Liaisons Dangereuses, a masterpiece of immorality (1741-1803)
Lambert, Daniel, weighed 739 lbs., and measured 3 yds. 4 ins. round the waist (1770-1809)
Langton, Bennet, a classical scholar and contributor to The Idler. Entered Johnson’s circle in 1752 (1737-1801)
League of Cambray, the union in 1508 of Austria, France, Spain and the Papacy against Venice
League of Pilnitz, between Austria, Prussia, and others (1791) for the restoration of Louis XVI.
Lee, Nathaniel, a play-writer who helped Dryden in his Duke of Guise (1655-92)
Leman Lake, Lake of Geneva
Lope de Vega, Spain’s greatest, and the world’s most prolific dramatist. Secretary to the Inquisition (1562-1635)
Lunsford, a notorious bully and profligate; a specimen of the worst type of the royalist captains
MACLEOD, Colonel (see Tour to the Hebrides, Sept. 23)
Mainwaring, Arthur, editor of the Medley, and Whig pamphleteer (1668-1712)
Malbranche, Nicholas, tried to adopt and explain the philosophy of Descartes in the interests of theology (d. 1715)
Mallet, David, a literary adventurer who collaborated with Thomson in writing the masque Alfred in which the song “Rule Britannia” was produced (1703-65)
Malone, Edmund, an eminent Shakesperian scholar, who also wrote a Life of Reynolds and a Life of Dryden (1741-1812)
Manfred, King of the Two Sicilies who struggled for his birthright against three popes, who excommunicated him and gave his kingdom to Charles of Anjou, fighting against whom he fell in 1266
Manichees, the sect founded by Mani (who declared himself to be the Paraclete) which held a blend of Magian, Buddhist, and Christian principles
Manlius, the Roman hero who in B.C. 390 saved Rome from the Gauls, and who was later put to death on a charge of treason
Marat, Jean Paul, a fanatical democrat whose one fixed idea was wholesale slaughter of the aristocracy; assassinated by Charlotte Corday (1743-93)
Markland, Jeremiah a famous classical scholar and critic (1693-1776)
Marli, a royal (now presidential) country-house ten miles west from Paris
Marsilio Ficino, an eminent Italian Platonist, noted for his purity of life and for his aid to the Renaissance (1433-99)
Mason William, friend and biographer of Gray; wrote Caractacus and some odes (1725-97)
Massillon, Jean Baptiste, famous French preacher, Bishop of Clermont, a master of style and persuasive eloquence. (1663-1742)
Master of the Sentences, Peter Lombard, a disciple of Abelard and one of the most famous of the “Schoolmen” of the twelfth century
Maximin, surnamed Thrax—“the Tracian.” Roman Emperor, 235-38. His cruel tyranny led to a revolt in which he was murdered by his own soldiers
Meillerie, on the Lake of Geneva, immortalised by J. J. Rousseau
Merovingians, a dynasty of Frankish kings in the sixth and seventh centuries A.D.
Metastasio, Pietro Trapassi, an Italian poet (1698-1782)
Mina, a famous guerilla chief in the Peninsular war, and (in 1834) against Don Carlo (1781-1834). Empecinado (covered with pitch) a nick-name given to Juan Matin Diaz, an early comrade of Mina
Mirabel and Millamont, the Benedick and Beatrice of Beaumont and Fletcher’s Wildgoose Chase
Mithridates, king of Pontus (B.C. 120-63), famous for his struggle against Rome, and the general vigour and ability of his intellect
Moliere’s doctors (see L’Amour Medecin (II. iii.), Le Malade Imaginaire, and Le Medicin malgre lui)
Mompesson, Sir Giles, one of the Commissioners for the granting of monopoly licenses
Monks and Giants, “These stanzas are from a poem by Hookham Frere, really entitled Prospectus and specimen of an inteneded national Work . . . relating to King Arthur and his Round Table,”
Monmouth Street, now called Dudley Street
Morgante Maggiore, a serio-comic romance in verse, by Pulci of Florence (1494)
Morone, an Italian cardinal and diplomatist (1509-80)
Murillo, Spain’s greatest painter (1618-82)
Murphy, Arthur, an actor-author, who, besides writing some plays, edited Fielding, and published an Essay on the Life and Genius of Samuel Johnson (1727-1815)
Murray, Lindley, the Pennsylvania grammarian (1745-1826), who settled near York, and there produced his Grammar of the English Language
NARSES the Roman general (d. 573) who drove the Goths out of Rome. In his youth he had been a slave
Nephelococcygia, i.e. “Cuckoo town in the cloud”—a fictitious city referred to in the Birds of Aristophanes,
Newdigate and Seatonian poetry, verse written in competition for prizes founded by Sir R..Newdigate and Rev. Thos. Seaton at Oxford and Cambridge respectively, Dodsley (ib.) was an honest publisher and author who brought out Poems by Several Hands in 1748,
Nugent, Dr., one of the original members and a regular attendant at the meetings of the Literary Club
OCTOBER CLUB, a High Church Tory Club of Queen Anne’s time, which met at the Bell Tavern, Westminster
o Daphnis K. T. L., “Daphnis went into the waters; the eddies swirled over the man whom the Muses loved and the nymphs held dear” (Theocritus, Idylls, i.). An allusion to Shelley’s death
Odoacer, a Hun, who became emperor, and was assassinated by his colleague Theodoric the Ostrogoth in 493
Oldmixon, John, a dull and insipid historian (1673-1742), roughly handled by Pope in the Dunciad (ii. 283)
Orlando Furioso, Ariosto’s (1471-1533) great poem of chivalry suggested by the Orlando Innamorato of Boiardo (c. 1430-94). Alcina is a kind of Circe in the Orlando Furioso
Ortiz, eighteenth-century historian, author of Compendio de la Historia de Espana
Osborn, John, a notorious bookseller who “sweated” Pope and Johnson among other authors (d. 1767)
Otho, Roman emperor (69 A.D.) The only brass coins bearing his name were struck in the provinces, and are very rare
PADALON, the Hindu abode of departed Spirits
Paestum, ancient Posidonia, mod. Pesto, 22 miles S.E. from Salerno, 471
Pantheon, a circular temple in Rome, erected by Agrippa, son-in-law of Augustus, and dedicated to the gods in general: now a church and place of burial for the illustrious Italian dead
Paoli, the Corsican general (1796-1807) who, failing against the might of France, made his home in England, and was chaperoned by Boswell
Parnell, Thomas, Archdeacon of Clogher, satirist and translator. He was a sweet and easy poet with a high moral tone; friend of Addison and Swift (1679-1718)
Parson Barnabas, Parson Trulliber (see Fielding’s Joseph Andrews)
Pasquin, Antony, a fifteenth-century Italian tailor, noted for his caustic wit
Paulician Theology originated in Armenia, and flourished c.660-970 A.D. Besides certain Manichee elements it denied the deity of Jesus and abjured Mariolatry and the sacraments
Pescara, Marquis of, an Italian general who betrayed to the emperor, Charles V., the plot of Francesco Sforza for driving the Spaniards and Germans out of Italy
Peter Martyr, a name borne by three personages. The reference here is to the Italian Protestant reformer who made his home successively in Switzerland, England, Strasburg, and Zurich (d. 1562)
Phidias, Athens’s greatest sculptor. A contemporary of Pericles (d. 432 B. C.)
Philips, John, best remembered by The Splendid Shilling, a good burlesque in imitation of Milton (1676-1708)
Pilpay, the Indian Aesop. For the pedigree of the Pilpay literature, see Jacobs: Fables of Bidpai (1888), 641
Pisistratus and Gelon, two able Grecian tyrants who ruled beneficially at Athens (541-527 B.C.), and at Syracuse (484-473 B.C.), respectively
Pococurante, one who cares little and knows less: a dabbler
Porridge Island, the slang name of an alley near St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, which was pulled down c. 1830
Politian, a distinguished poet and scholar in the time of the Italian Renaissance; professor of Greek and Latin at Florence (1454-94)
Pompadour, Madame de, mistress of Louis XV., and virtually ruler of France from 1745 till her death in 1764
Prior, Matthew, a wit and poet of the early eighteenth century whose lyrics were pronounced by Thackeray to be “amongst the easiest, the richest, the most charmingly humorous” in the English language,
Pudding, Jack, a clown who swallows black puddings, etc. Cp. Germ. Hans Worst, Fr. Jean-potage
Pulci, a Florentine poet (noted for his humorous Sonnets), and friend of Lorenzo de’ Medici (1432-84)
Pye—the immediate—Cibber—more remote—predecessor of Southey in the Laureateship
Pyrgopolynices, a braggart character in Plautus’s Miles Gloriosus
Pyrrho, “the father of the Greek sceptics,” contemporary with Aristotle. Like, Carneades (ib.), he denied that there was any criterion of certainty in the natural or the moral world
QUEDLINBURGH, an old town in Saxony at the foot of the Harz, long a favourite residence of the mediaeval emperors
RALPHO, the clerk and squire of Hudibras in Samuel Butler’s satire of that name
Rambouillet, the marchioness of this name was a wealthy patron of art and literature, and gathered round her a select salon of intellectual people, which degenerated into pedantry, was ridiculed, and dissolved at her death in 1665
Ramus, Peter French, philosopher and humanist; attacked Aristotle and Scholasticism; massacred on the eve of St, Bartholomew, 1572
Rehearsal, The, a burlesque based on Beaumont’s Knight of the Burning Pestle, produced in 1671 by George Clifford, Duke of Buckingham, and Samuel Butler
Relapse, a comedy by Sir John Vanbrugh (d. 1726), who also achieved some distinction as a soldier and an architect
Richard Roe, nominal defendant in ejectment suits. CP. the “M. Or N.” of the Prayer-Book
Richelieu . . Torcy, Richelieu and Mazarin were cardinals and statesmen in the seventeenth century, whose power exceeded that of the king; Colbert Louvis, and Torcy were influential and able men of the same time, but dependent upon the royal pleasure
Robertson, William, wrote History of Scotland, History of the Reign of Charles V., etc. A friend of Hume’s (1721-93)
Rochelle and Auvergne, head-quarters of the Huguenots
Rowe, Nicholas, dramatist and poet laureate (1715), editor of a monumental edition of Shakespeare
Rymer, Thomas, Historiographer-royal, and the compiler Of Foedera—a collection of historical documents concerning the relations of England and foreign powers (1639-1714)
Ryswick, Peace Of, by this treaty (in 1697) Louis XIV. recognised William as King of England, and yielded certain towns to Spain and the Empire
SALVATOR ROSA, a Neapolitan author and artist (1615-73); “the initiator of romantic landscape,”
Satirist . . . Age, small, libellous, and short-lived weekly papers in the year 1838
Saxe, led the invading Austrian army into Bohemia, and afterward became a marshal of the French army, defeating the Duke of Cumberland at Fontenoy, 1745
Scamander, a river of Troas, in Asia Minor
Scapin, the title-character of one of Moliere’s comedies; a knavish valet who fools his master
Scott, Michael, a twelfth-century sage who gained a large reputation as a wizard and magician
Scriblerus Club a literary coterie, founded in 1714, which had only a short life, but produced Swift’s Gulliver
Scroggs, Chief-justice in 1678—the year of Titus Oates and the “Popish Plot.” A worthy successor to Jeffreys
Scudert, George de, French poet and novelist (1601-67)
Scudery, Madeleine, a woman of good qualities, but as a novelist exceedingly tedious (1607-1701)
Scythians, i. e. Russians. Scythia proper is the steppe-land between the Carpathian Mountains and the river Don in South-East Russia
Seged (see The Rambler, Nos. 204, 205)
Shafton, Sir Piercie (see Scott’s The Monastery)
Shaw, prize-fighter of immense strength and size, who enlisted in the Life Guards, and was killed at Waterloo
Sieyes, Abbe, one of the leaders of the Revolution, who retired on discovering that his colleagues were using him for their own end (d. 1836)
Simond, M. (the reference is to his Journal of a Tour and Residence in Great Britain during the years 1810 and 1811, PP. 48-50)
Simonides, lived at Athens and Syracuse, and besides being a philosopher, was one of Greece’s most famous lyric poets (556-467 B.C.),
Smalridge, George, one of Queen Anne’s chaplains, and a good preacher; became Bishop of Bristol in 1714 (d. 1719)
Sobiesky, John, King of Poland, who defended his country against Russians and Turks. In 1683 he fought a Turkish army which was besieging Vienna, and so delivered that city
Solis, Antonio de, dramatist and historian (Conquest of Mexico) (1610-86)
Somers, the counsel for the Seven Bishops, 1688. He filled many high legal offices, and from 1708 to 1710 was President of the Council
Southcote, Joanna, a Methodist “prophetess” who, suffering from religious mania, gave herself out to be the woman of Revelation ch. xii., and sold passports to heaven which she called “seals” (1750-1814)
Spectator (the reference is to No. 7)
Spinola, Spanish marquis and general who served his country with all his genius for naught (1571-1630)
Squire Sullen (see Farquhar’s The Beaux Stratagem)
Squire Western, the genial fox-hunting Squire of Fielding’s Tom Jones
Statius, a Latin poet (61-96 A.D.), author of the Thebais, who lived at the Court of Domitian
Steenkirk, a neckcloth of black silk, said to have been first worn at the battle of Steenkirk, 1692
Stepney, George, a smart but somewhat licentious minor poet who translated Juvenal (1663-1707)
Sternholds, metrical translators of the Psalms, so called from Thomas Sternhold, whose version of 1562 held the field for 200 years
St James’s, the London residence of the Georges; Leicester Square, the residence of the Princes of Wales
Stowell, Lord, Advocate-General, judge of the High Court of Admiralty, etc., etc., the greatest English authority on International Law (1745-1836)
Strahan, Dr., vicar of Islington and friend of Johnson, whose Prayers and Meditations he edited
Streatham Park, the home of the Thrales. At St. John’s Gate in Clerkenwell, the Gentleman’s Magazine was long printed
Simon, Duc de, ambassador to Spain and the writer of amusing and Valuable memoirs. An uncompromising aristocrat
Sweden gained Western Pomerania
Swerga, the Hindu Olympus an the summit of Mount Meru
TAMERLANE, the great Asiatic conqueror (1336-1405), whose empire reached from the Levant to the Ganges
Tanais, the river Don in Eastern Russia
Tate, Nahum, succeeded Shadwell in 1690 as poet-laureate; mainly remembered by his collaboration with Nicholas Brady in a metrical version of the Psalms
Telemachus, the son of Ulysses, whose search for his father was only successful when he returned home. Fenelon, the great French divine (1651-1715), wrote of his adventures
Thales, flourished c. 600 B.C., and held that water was the primal and universal principle,
Thalia, the muse of Comedy and one of the three Graces
Theobalds, a Hertfordshire hamlet where James I. had a beautiful residence, originally built by Burleigh
Thiebault, Professor of Grammar at Frederic’s military school
Thirlby, Styan, Fellow of Jesus Colleges Cambridge. He edited Justin Martyr’s Works and contributed to Theobald’s Shakespeare with acumen and ingenuity (c. 1692-1753)
Thraso, a braggart captain in Terence’s Eunuch
Three Bishoprics, those of Lorraine, Metz, and Verdun taken from the Germans by Henry II. of France in 1554 and recovered in 1871
Thundering Legion, the Roman legion which overcame Marcomanni in 179 A.D., their extreme thirst having been relieved by a thunderstorm sent in answer to the prayers of Christian soldiers in its ranks
Thurtell, John, a notorious boxer and gambler (b. 1794) who was hanged at Hertford on Jan. 9, 1824, for the brutal murder of William Weare, one of his boon companions
Tickell, Thomas, a politician, minor poet, and occasional contributor to the Spectator and the Guardian (1686-1740)
Tillotson, John Robert. Trained as a Puritan, he conformed to the Episcopal Church at the Restoration and ultimately became Archbishop of Canterbury a man of tolerant and moderate views like Baxter and Burnet, and unlike Collier
Tilly, Johann Tserklaes, Count of, the great Catholic general of the Thirty Years War; mortally wounded at Rain in 1632
Tiresias, in Greek mythology a soothsayer on whom Zeus conferred the gift of prophecy in compensation for the blindness with which Athens had struck him
Treatise on the Bathos, “The Art of Sinking in Poetry,” a work projected by Arbuthnot, Swift, and Pope, and mainly written by the last-named
Treaty of the Pyrenees, between France and Spain, 1659
Trissotin, simpering literary dabbler in Moliere’s Les Femmes Savantes
Turgot, a French statesman (727-81) who held the doctrines of the philosophe party and was for nearly two years manager of the national finances under Louis XVI.
Two Sicilies, the kingdoms of Sicily and Naples
Tyers, Tom, author of a Biographical Sketch of Doctor Johnson. It was a remark of Johnson’s that Tyers described him the best
VAUCLUSE, a village in S.E. France, twenty miles from Avignon where Petrarch lived for sixteen years
Verres, the Roman governor of Sicily (73-71 B.C.), for plundering which island he was brought to trial and prosecuted by Cicero
Vico, John Baptist, Professor of Rhetoric at Naples and author of Principles of a New Science, a work on the philosophy of history (d. 1744)
Victor Amadeus of Savoy, soldier and statesman (1655-1732) His sons-in-law were Philip V. and the Duke of Burgundy
Vida, an Italian Latin poet (c. 1480-1566)
Vida et Sannazar, eminent modern Latin poets of the early sixteenth century
Villars, Louis, Duc de, French marshal, defeated at Ramillies and Malplaquet (d. 1734),
Vinegar Bible, published at Oxford in; 1717; in it the headline of Luke xx. reads “vinegar,” an error for “vineyard,”
Vision of Theodore, set Johnson’s Miscellaneous Works (for the “Genealogy of Wit,” see “Special”, NO. 35; for the “Contest between Rest and Labour,” Rambler, No. 33)
Vitruvius, contemporary with Julius Caesar and author of a famous work on Architecture
Vossius, Gerard, Dutch philologist and friend of Grotius; the historian of Pelagianism (1577-1649)
WARBURTON, William, Bishop of Gloucester, friend of Pope, and author of the Divine Legation of Moses and other theological and legal works (1698-1779)
Wild, Jonathan, a detective who turned villain and was executed for burglary in 1725; the hero of one of Fielding’s stories
Williams, Archbishop of York (and opponent of Laud) in the time of Charles I.; Vernon, Archbishop of York, 1807. The tenure of the See of York seems to be the only parallel
Williams, Sir Charles Hanbury, Ambassador to Berlin (1746-49). His satires against Walpole’s opponents are easy and humorous (d. 1759)
Will’s. See Button’s
Windham, Rt. Hon. William, Secretary of War under Pitt and again in 1806. In his Diary is an account of Johnson’s last days (1750-1810)
Windsor, poor Knights of, a body of military pensioners who reside within the precincts of Windsor Castle
Witwould, Sir Wilful. Set Congreve’s The Way of the World
Wronghead, Sir Francis, Vanbrugh and Cibber’s The Provoked Husband
XIMENES, Cardinal, statesman, and regent (1436-1517)
ZADIG, the title-character of a novel by Voltaire, dealing with the fatalistic aspect of human life
Zephon, the cherub sent with Ithuriel by Gabriel to find out the whereabouts of Satan after his flight from hell
Zimri in Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel stands for the second Duke of Buckingham (for the original see 3 Kings xvi. 9)
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg