A Book of English Prose by Percy Lubbock (my reading book TXT) 📕

constellated: i.e. born under a particular 'constellation' or conjunction of planets (an astrological expression).

Hydra: the many-headed monster slain by Hercules.

in casting account=in doing sums.

27 Doradoes=rich men; a Spanish word, as in the phrase 'El dorado' ('the rich country').

First, when a city, etc.: the skeleton of this highly involved sentence is as follows: 'First, when a city shall be as it were besieged. . ., that then the people . . . should be disputing. . ., argues first a singular good will. . ., and from thence derives itself [i.e. flows on, proceeds] to a gallant bravery. . . .'

28 as his was who when Rome, etc.: this story is told by Livy, as an instance of the undaunted spirit of the Romans during the Punic war.

mewing properly means 'moulting.' Milton apparently uses it in the sense of 'renewing by the process of moulting.'

29 engrossers: wholesale buyers; here used metaphorically of those who, by curtailing the liberty of book-printing, would 'buy up' the stock of knowledge and dole it out as they thought fit.

30 he who takes up arms for coat and conduct: this refers to Charles I's exaction of a tax for the clothing and conducting (i.e. conveying) of troops.

his four nobles of Danegelt: a noble was a coin worth 6s. 8d. Danegelt was originally the land-tax raised by Ethelred the Unready to buy off the Danes; the word was afterwards used of any unpopular tax, here of Charles I's imposition of ship-money, resisted by Hampden.

In this unhappy battle: the battle of Newbury, Sept. 20, 1643, in which the advantage was on the whole with the King against the Roundheads.

33 vacant: i.e. open, unclouded.

addresses to his place: i.e. to his office. Falkland was Secretary of State to Charles I.

40 Phalaris: a Sicilian tyrant of the sixth century B.C., famous for his cruelties. The Greek poet Stesichorus was a contemporary of his.

42 Samuel Pepys, from whose diary this extract (slightly abridged) is taken, wrote solely for his own private amusement, troubling himself very little about style or grammar. He held a post in the Navy Office, and his work did not often allow him to take a day in the country, such as he here describes.

46 Defoe's Captain Singleton is an imaginary account of the adventures of certain pirates in different parts of the world. In the extract here given they are lying in Chinese waters. 'William,' one of their crew, has gone ashore to trade with some Chinese merchants.

47 thieves' pennyworths: 'things sold at a robber's price,' i.e. below their real value.

55 composures=compositions.

56 the Great Mogul: the Emperor of Hindostan.

Muscovy=Russia, of which Moscow was formerly the capital.

57 the old philosopher: Socrates; see Hooker's reference to the anecdote on page 17 of this book.

degree: i.e. of latitude and longitude.

62 whereas the ladies now walk, etc.; this was written in 1711, when ladies wore very large 'hoops,' or crinolines.

65 Tom Jones, the hero of Fielding's novel of that name, takes some friends to see Hamlet, acted by Garrick. Partridge, is a timorous ex-schoolmaster, without experience of the theatre.

77 redans: projecting fortifications.

the talus of the glacis: the pitch of the outer slope of an earthwork.

banquettes: the raised way running along the inside of a rampart.

78 chamade: a signal given by drum, announcing surrender.

79 a new reign: George II died on October 25, 1760.

80 a rag of quality: Horace Walpole was a younger son of Sir Robert Walpole (Earl of Orford).

81 the Duke of Cumberland: second son of George II.

a dark brown adonis: a kind of wig.

the Duke of Newcastle: the Prime Minister.

83 Goldsmith's Citizen of the World consists of a series of letters on European manners and customs, purporting to be written by a Chinaman who has never before visited England.

86 whatever accidentally becomes indisposed, etc.; i.e. whoever falls out with the authorities.

87 There never was a period, etc.: this was written in 1777, during the American War of Independence.

90 'Puss' was Cowper's tame hare.

92 The initials at the foot of the letter are those of William Cowper and Mary Unwin, a friend of the poet's.

99 David Garrick: the celebrated actor (1717-1779).

100 Frank Osbaldistone, the hero of Scott's novel Rob Roy, goes to Yorkshire on a visit to his uncle, Sir Hildebrand Osbaldistone, whom he has never seen. As he approaches his destination he falls in with a young lady on horseback, who turns out to be Diana Vernon, a niece of Sir Hildebrand's. The period of the story is early in the eighteenth century.

106 The 'Festin de pierre': Moliere's play, in which the hero, Don Juan, rashly invites the statue of a man he has murdered to dine with him. The invitation is unexpectedly accepted.

107 Coleridge, the poet, was an old friend and school-fellow of Charles Lamb's.

109 An imaginary dialogue between the two philosophers. Plato, born 427 B.C., was some years the older of the two.

111 Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, with whom Plato had lived for a time, was overthrown and expelled by his subjects, and driven to support himself as a schoolmaster at Corinth.

The Demiurgos: the Creator.

113 Mrs Elton, in Jane Austen's novel Emma, is the somewhat meddlesome wife of the village parson. Mr Knightley is a gentleman living at Donwell, in the neighbourhood. The rest of the people named are other neighbours and friends, one of them, Mr Woodhouse, being an old gentleman of valetudinarian habits.

118 Coleridge, as a young man (he was born in 1772), was for a time in the habit of preaching in Unitarian chapels.

122 This is an extract from a letter of Keats to a friend, written in 1818.

124 The Flight to Varennes: by the middle of 1791 the French Revolution had gone so far that the king and queen were practically prisoners in the palace of the Tuileries at Paris. They at last determined to try to escape, and the arrangements for their flight were carried out, in all possible secrecy, by Choiseul, an officer of the French army, and Fersen, a young Swedish count. Carlyle's vivid account tells how the start was made; but the royal party were stopped at Varennes, not far from the frontier, and brought back to Paris.

the Carrousel, or 'tilting-ground,' was an open space in front of the Tuileries.

130 Trial of the Seven Bishops: James II, in 1687, issued a 'declaration of indulgence,' promising to suspend certain laws against Roman Catholics. His command that this declaration should be read in all parish churches was resisted by seven bishops, who were accordingly brought to trial for sedition. The declaration was very unpopular in the country, so that the result of the trial was anxiously awaited.

135 Cimon was one of the Athenian commanders in the Persian war. He died in 449 B.C.

140 The scene of Hawthorne's novel, The House of the Seven Gables, is laid in a small town in New England.

148 Mr Weston was in the plot with the highwayman to rob Dr Barnard.
He had himself tampered with his own pistols (in the stable at
Maidstone) so that they should miss fire. Hence his peevishness with
Denis Duval, for so unexpectedly routing the thief.

153 Jane Eyre is governess to Mr Rochester's daughter, Adèle. She describes how he cross-questioned her with regard to her accomplishments.

157 Thoreau lived for two years in a small hut which he built for himself in a wood near Concord, in New England. This extract is from the account he wrote of his life there.

171 Stevenson came of a family of engineers, and he himself was supposed to be preparing for the same profession. But he already wished to be a writer, and his interest in the harbour-works at Wick, in Caithness, which he had been sent to study, was romantic rather than practical.

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