2. - S.
{62c}
“’Tis certain, then, the voice that thus can wound;
Is all material body, every sound.”
{63} To be
burnt or worm-eaten.
{64} The
Royal Society first met at Gresham College, the resort of men of
science. Will’s Coffee-House was the resort of wits and men
of letters.
{65a}
Viz., about moving the earth. - S.
{65b}
“Virtuoso experiments and modern comedies.” - S.
{67a} He
lived a thousand. - S.
{67b}
Viz., in the year 1697. - S. Dryden died in 1700, and the
publication of the “Tale of a Tub,” written in 1697, was not until
1704.
{69a} The
title-page in the original was so torn that it was not possible to
recover several titles which the author here speaks of. - S.
{69b} See
Virgil translated, &c. - S.
{70} Peter,
the Church of Rome; Martin, the Reformed Church as established by
authority in England; Jack, the dissenters from the English Church
Establishment. Martin, named probably from Martin Luther;
Jack, from John Calvin. The coats are the coats of
righteousness, in which all servants of God should be clothed;
alike in love and duty, however they may differ in opinion.
{71}
Covetousness, ambition, and pride, which were the three great vices
that the ancient fathers inveighed against as the first corruptions
of Christianity. - W. Wotton.
{72a} The
tailor.
{72b} A
sacred monkey.
{75} The
Roman Catholics were considered by the Reformers to have added to
the simple doctrines of Christianity inventions of their own, and
to have laid especial stress on the adoption of them. Upon
Swift’s saying of the three brothers, “Now the coats their father
had left them were, it is true, of very good cloth, and besides so
neatly sewn that you would swear they were all of a piece, but, at
the same time, very plain, with little or no ornament,” W. Wotton
observes: “This is the distinguishing character of the Christian
religion. Christiana religio absoluta et simplex, was
Ammianus Marcellinus’s description of it, who was himself a
heathen.” But the learned Peter argues that if a doctrine
cannot be found, totidem verbis, in so many words, it may be
found in so many syllables, or, if that way fail, we shall make
them out in a third way, of so many letters.
{76}
Quibusdam veteribus codicibus [some ancient MSS.]. -
S.
{77a}
There are two kinds - oral tradition and the written record, -
reference to the value attached to tradition in the Roman
Church.
{77b} The
flame-coloured lining figures the doctrine of Purgatory; and the
codicil annexed, the Apocryphal books annexed to the Bible.
The dog-keeper is said to be an allusion to the Apocryphal book of
Tobit.
{78a}
Dread hell and subdue their lusts.
{78b}
Strained glosses and interpretations of the simple text.
{79a}
Images in churches.
{79b} The
locking up of the Gospel in the original Greek or in the Latin of
the Vulgate, and forbidding its diffusion in the language of the
people.
{80a} The
Pope’s bulls and decretals, issued by his paternal authority, that
must determine questions of interpretation and tradition, or else
many absurd things would follow.
{80b}
Constantine the Great, from whom the Church of Rome was said to
have received the donation of St. Peter’s patrimony, and first
derived the wealth described by our old Reformers as “the fatal
gift of Constantine.”
{84a} See
Wotton “Of Ancient and Modern Learning.” - S.
{84b}
Satire and panegyric upon critics. - S.
{85}
Vide excerpta ex eo apud Photium - S.
{86} “Near
Helicon and round the learned hill
Grow trees whose blossoms with their odour kill.” -
Hawkesworth.
{88} A
quotation after the manner of a great author. Vide
Bentley’s “Dissertation,” &c. - S.
{89} “And
how they’re disappointed when they’re pleased.” - Congreve,
quoted by Pate.
{95}
Refusing the cup of sacrament to the laity. Thomas Warton
observes on the following passage its close resemblance to the
speech of Panurge in Rabelais, and says that Swift formed himself
upon Rabelais.
{96}
Transubstantiation.
{98a} The
Reformation.
{98b} The
cross (in hoc signo vinces). Pieces of the wood said
to be part of it were many in the churches.
{98c} One
miracle to be believed was that the Chapel of Loretto travelled
from the Holy Land to Italy.
{99a} Made
a true copy of the Bible in the language of the people.
{99b} Gave
the cup to the laity.
{99c}
Allowed marriages of priests.
{102a}
Homerus omnes res humanas poematis complexus est. - Xenophon in
Conviv. - S.
{102b} A
treatise written about fifty years ago by a Welsh gentleman of
Cambridge. His name, as I remember, Vaughan, as appears by
the answer to it by the learned Dr. Henry More. It is a piece
of the most unintelligible fustian that perhaps was ever published
in any language. - S. This piece was by the brother of Henry
Vaughan, the poet.
{110}
After the changes made by Martin that transformed the Church of
Rome into the Church of England, Jack’s proceedings made a rent
from top to bottom by the separation of the Presbyterians from the
Church Establishment.
{111a}
The galleries over the piazzas in the old Royal Exchange were
formerly filled with shops, kept chiefly by women.
Illustrations of this feature in London life are to be found in
Dekker’s “Shoemaker’s Holiday,” and other plays.
{111b}
The contraction of the word mobile to mob first appeared in the
time of Charles the Second.
{112} Jack
the Bald, Calvin, from calvus, bald; Jack with a Lanthorn,
professing inward lights, Quakers; Dutch Jack, Jack of Leyden,
Anabaptists; French Hugh, the Huguenots; Tom the Beggar, the
Gueuses of Flanders; Knocking Jack of the North, John Knox of
Scotland. Æolists pretenders to inspiration.
{116}
Herodotus, 1. 4. - S.
{119a}
Bombast von Hohenheim - Paracelsus.
{119b}
Fanatical preachers of rebellion.
{120}
Pausanias, 1. 8. - S.
{122} The
Quakers allowed women to preach.
{123} The
worshippers of wind or air found their evil spirits in the
chameleon, by which it was eaten, and the windmill, Moulin-à-vent,
by whose four hands it was beaten.
{126a}
Henry IV. of France.
{126b}
Ravaillac, who stabbed Henry IV.
{127a}
Swift’s contemporary, Louis XIV. of France.
{127b}
Western civet. Paracelsus was said to have endeavoured to
extract a perfume from human excrement that might become as
fashionable as civet from the cat. It was called zibeta
occidentalis, the back being, according to Paracelsus, the
western part of the body.
{129} Ep.
Fam. vii. 10, to Trebatius, who, as the next sentence in the letter
shows, had not gone into England.
{135} A
lawyer’s coach-hire. - S.
{136} The
College of Physicians.
{140} The
bad critics.
{142} A
name under which Thomas Vaughan wrote.
{145a}
Revelations xxii. 11: “He which is filthy, let him be filthy
still;” “phrase of the will,” being Scripture phrase, of either
Testament, applied to every occasion, and often in the most
unbecoming manner.
{145b}
He did not kneel when he received the Sacrament.
{146a}
His inward lights.
{146b}
Predestination.
{147a}
Vide Don Quixote. - S.
{147b}
Swift borrowed this from the customs of Moronia - Fool’s Land - in
Joseph Hall’s Mundus Alter et Idem.
{148a}
The Presbyterians objected to church-music, and had no organs in
their meeting-houses.
{148b}
Opposed to the decoration of church walls.
{148c}
Baptism by immersion.
{148d}
Preaching.
{151a}
“This wicked Proteus shall escape the chain.” - Francis’s
Horace.
{151b}
Lib. de Aëre, Locis, et Aquis.
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