Chapter XXVII: Act III: Sc. 1

_Lord Foppington._ In The _Relapse_ of Vanbrugh. See _post_, p.
82.

10. _Aretine laughed himself to death_, _etc._ The story is that
while laughing at the jest Aretine fell from a stool and was
killed.

_Sir Thomas More jested_, _etc._ More bade the executioner stay
till he had put aside his beard, ‘for that,’ he said, ‘had
never committed treason.’

_Rabelais and Wycherley._ ‘When Rabelais,’ says Bacon
(Apophthegms), ‘the great jester of France, lay on his
death-bed, and they gave him the extreme unction, a familiar
friend came to him afterwards, and asked him how he did?
Rabelais answered, “Even going my journey, they have greased
my boots already.”’ But his last words, uttered ‘avec un
éclat de rire,’ were: ‘Tirez le rideau, la farce est jouée.’
It is said that Wycherley, on the night before he died, made
his young wife promise that she would never marry an old man
again. See a letter from Pope to Blount, Jan. 21, 1715-6
(_Works_, ed. Elwin and Courthope, VI. 366). Pope, after
telling the story, adds: ‘I cannot help remarking that
sickness, which often destroys both wit and wisdom, yet
seldom has power to remove that talent which we call humour.’

_The dialogue between Aimwell and Gibbet._ _The Beaux’
Stratagem_, Act III. Sc. 2.

_Mr. Emery’s Robert Tyke._ In Thomas Morton’s _School of
Reform_ (1805). Cf. _post_, p. 391.

11. _The Liar._ By Samuel Foote (1762).

_The Busy Body._ By Susannah Centlivre (1709).

_The history of hobby-horses._ See _Tristram Shandy_, vol. I.
especially chaps. XXIV. and XXV.

‘_Ever lifted leg._’ Cf. ‘A better never lifted leg.’ _Tam o’
Shanter_, 80.

12. _Malvolio’s punishment_, _etc._ _Twelfth Night_, Act IV. Sc. 2.

_Christopher’s Sly’s drunken transformation._ _The Taming of
the Shrew_, Induction, Sc. 2.

_Parson Adams’s fall_, _etc._ See _Joseph Andrews_, Book III.
Chap. 7, Book IV. Chap. 14, and Book II. Chap. 12.

_Baltimore House._ In what is now Russell Square.

14. _The author of the Ancient Mariner._ Cf. a passage in the essay
‘On Dreams’ (_Plain Speaker_, vol. VII. pp. 23-24).

_Bishop Atterbury._ See Pope’s _Works_ (ed. Elwin and
Courthope), IX. 21-4. As Mr. Austin Dobson, however, points
out, it is not clear that the _Arabian Nights_ are referred
to. Atterbury speaks of ‘Petit de la Croix’ as ‘the pretended
author’ of the tales, from which it would appear that the
tales he found so hard to read were not the _Arabian Nights_,
but the _Contes Persans_ of Petit de la Croix, a translation
of which Ambrose Philips had published in 1709.

‘_Favours secret_,’ _etc._ Burns, _Tam o’ Shanter_, 48.

‘_The soldiers_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 1.

_Horner_, _etc._ Horner, in Wycherley’s _The Country Wife_;
Millamant, in Congreve’s _The Way of the World_; Tattle
and Miss Prue, in Congreve’s _Love for Love_; Archer and
Cherry, in Farquhar’s _The Beaux’ Stratagem_; Mrs. Amlet, in
Vanbrugh’s _The Confederacy_ (see Act III. Sc. 1); Valentine
and Angelica, in _Love for Love_; Miss Peggy, in Garrick’s
_The Country Girl_, adapted from _The Country Wife_; Anne
Page, in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ (See Act III. Sc. 1).

15. ‘_The age of comedy_,’ _etc._ An adaptation of Burke’s famous
‘But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters,
economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of
Europe is extinguished for ever.’ (_Reflections on the
Revolution in France, Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 89.)

‘_Accept a miracle_,’ _etc._ By the poet Young. See Spence’s
_Anecdotes_, p. 378.

16. ‘_The sun had long since_,’ _etc._ _Hudibras_, Part II., Canto
II. 29-38.

‘_By this the northern waggoner_,’ _etc._ _The Faerie Queene_,