“and Baldwin yonder.” The name of the fox in the beast-epic Reynard the Fox, also applied to the ass by Chaucer. ↩
“A Gemini … you.” Gemini, the name for the twin stars Castor and Pollux was often used of pairs of things. ↩
“Borachio.” A villain, follower of Don John, in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. Borachio is the Spanish term for a leather wine bottle, hence used for a drunkard. ↩
“bastinadoed with broomsticks.” That is, beaten on the soles of the feet. ↩
“Salopian.” An inhabitant of Salop or Shropshire. ↩
“a ballad-monger.” A seller of ballads. In eighteenth-century London these were sold upon the streets by itinerant pedlars. ↩
“Frisoneer gorget.” A piece of apparel for the neck, a kerchief, made of Frisoneer, perhaps the same word as Frison or frieze, a woollen stuff originally made in Friesland. The word Frisoneer does not apparently occur elsewhere. ↩
“a cast servingman.” A servingman that has been discharged. ↩
“and been put upon his clergy.” Forced to plead the benefit of the clergy, or privilege of exemption from capital punishment because of an ability to read and write. ↩
“meddle or make.” Have anything to do with the affair. ↩
“Abigails and Andrews.” Abigail was a common name for a lady’s maid; Andrew for a valet. ↩
“Philander.” A lover in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso ruined by the lustful Gabrina. Here merely a lover with an uncomplimentary allusion to Foible. ↩
“I’ll Duke’s-place you.” Marry you in a hurry as they do at Duke’s -place, Aldgate, where St. James’s Church was situated, a place notorious for irregular marriages. ↩
“a Bridewell-bride.” A loose woman committed to a prison for vagrants and social criminals. The prison was supposed to stand over the well of St. Bride. ↩
“a brass counter.” A small piece of metal used as a token and in accounting. ↩
“in a quoif like a man-midwife.” The legal costume of the day included a hood. ↩
“Doomsday Book.” A survey of England taken in 1086. ↩
“cantharides.” A medicament used for blistering. ↩
“the Temple.” One of the Inns of Court, where students at law were educated. ↩
“exceeding the barbarity of a Muscovite husband.” The Russian was often used in the eighteenth century as the symbol of roughness and cruelty. ↩
“from his Czarish majesty’s retinue.” An allusion to the visit of the Czar, Peter the First, three years before. ↩
“while the instrument is drawing.” While the agreement is being drawn up. ↩
“By’r Lady.” By Our Lady. ↩
“o’ the quorum.” Certain justices of the peace whose presence was essential to constitute a bench. ↩
“an old fox.” A colloquial name for a sword. ↩
“a mittimus.” A command in writing to a jailer to keep the person in custody in close confinement; here the vellum upon which such an order might be written. ↩
“bear-garden flourish.” A flourish suitable for a bear-garden. Bear-baiting formed one of the lowest types of amusement in seventeenth-century London. These places were the scenes of many brawls. ↩
“Messalina’s poems.” Messalina was the wife of the emperor Claudian. Her name is constantly associated with incontinence. ↩
“paid in kind.” In order to realize the full sense of this play upon words one must bear in mind that the idea of children was seldom separated from the word kind. ↩
Colophon
The Way of the World
was published in 1700 by
William Congreve.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
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B. Timothy Keith,
and is based on a transcription produced in 1998 by
David Price and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team
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The cover page is adapted from
The Love Letter,
a painting completed in 1770 by
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