Saturday 18 April 2015

ANNOTATIONS to Chapters Two through Four of Catherine


[Numbers refer to pages and lines in the 1999 University of Michigan Press edition of Thackeray's Catherine: A Story, edited by Sheldon Goldfarb.]

20.22-23 if the Whigs remain in, I, for my part, will be content with nothing less than a blood-red hand on the Solomons’ seal
The narrator (the criminal Ikey Solomons) is on one level hoping to be made a baronet; he would then be entitled to put a red hand (the emblem of the baronetcy) on his family seal. The suggestion here, in line with the anti-Whig politics of Fraser’s Magazine (in which Catherine was appearing), is that the Whigs might bestow honours on a criminal like Ikey Solomons. Thackeray is perhaps hoping his readers will remember how the Whigs had offered high positions to Daniel O’Connell, the Irish radical, the year before.
As to the Solomons’ seal, besides being the seal of the Solomons family, it is also the old name for the Star of David, the traditional Jewish symbol, so that Thackeray is alluding to Solomons’ Jewishness and also conjuring up the odd image of a red hand on the Star of David.

21.6 pot-house
A tavern or alehouse.

21.14 weazand
The esophagus, the windpipe, or more generally the throat.

21.43 land-junker
German for country squire.

22.20-21 Was not Helen ... ninety years of age when she went off with ... Prince Alexander of Troy?
Traditionally, Helen of Troy was a great beauty when Paris (also known as Alexander) abducted her. But in a version of the tale told by the satirist Lucian she is made out to be almost as old as Paris’s mother.

22.22 Was not Madame La Vallière ill-made, blear-eyed, tallow-complexioned, scraggy, and with hair like tow?
A reference to one of Louis XIV's mistresses. She was considered by some to be extremely pretty, but others had more negative views along the lines of Thackeray’s description here.

22.23 Wilks late of Boston
The explorer Charles Wilkes (1798-1877), who attended naval school in Boston. In the 1830’s he was in Europe to procure equipment for a major expedition to the Pacific region and Antarctica.

22.24 the celebrated Wilks of Paris
The notorious swindler John Wilks (d. 1846), who lived in Paris after 1828. Thackeray himself may have been one of his victims (see Goldfarb).

22.24 Wilks of No. 45, the ugliest, charmingest, most successful man
The eighteenth-century radical reformer John Wilkes, who became notorious for the publication of Issue 45 of his periodical the North Briton, was generally seen as ugly, with "curiously malformed features" (cit. Quennell 199), but he was known for his success with women.

22.26 cui bono?
Latin for "who would benefit?"

22.28 Bow Street
Site of London's main police station until replaced by Scotland Yard.

23.10 ménage
Domestic establishment or household.

24.35 brown Bess
Type of flintlock musket used by the British army in the eighteenth century.

25.4 couches
Confinement to bed for childbirth.

25.5 a chopping boy
A boy who is healthy and vigorous.

25.6 bar sinister
Heraldic mark of illegitimacy: a diagonal band running from top right to lower left on a coat of arms.

25.39 confidences
Secret communications (French).

26.19 free-born Briton
Ironic reference to the phrase used by radicals to indicate their opposition to the ruling hierarchy (more usually "freeborn Englishman").

26.19 lick-spittle
Fawning, flattering, toadying. Literally, a reference to someone who would lick up someone else’s spit.

26.24 on the pavé
On the pavement, i.e., abandoned or without lodgings.

26.31 caracolling
Wheeling to the right or left.

26.36 purchase a regiment
It was common, from the Restoration until well into the nineteenth century, for officers to purchase their commissions in regiments and even to purchase the regiments themselves, that is, the right to command or raise them.

26.47 dun
Creditor or creditor's agent, a bill-collector.

27.8 Croesus
Proverbially rich king; ruled in Asia Minor in the sixth century B.C.

27.15 that’s poz
That’s certain or positive.

27.16 brandy-faced
Red in the face, especially from the effects of liquor.

27.28 Mr. Kean
The tragedian Charles Kean (1811-1868); known for his over-acting.

27.32-33 piano ... con molta espressione
"Quietly ... with a great deal of expression" (Italian).

28.15 Nan Fantail
A fantail was a hat worn by a coal-heavers and garbage collectors.

29.9 Miss Drippings, the twenty-thousand-pounder
She’s an heiress worth twenty thousand pounds, and her name suggests the fat dripping off roasted meat. It also suggests an impossibly large cannon. Farquhar in The Recruiting Officer also refers to an heiress as a twenty-thousand -pounder.

29.27-28 Holophernes ... Judith
In the Apocrypha, Judith of Judea cuts off the head of Holophernes after he falls into a drunken stupor. The reference anticipates the events at the end of the novel.

29.37 laudanum
Mixture of opium, distilled water, and alcohol. Commonly used in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as a non-prescription treatment for a variety of ailments, including toothaches, but also known to be fatal in too large a dose.

30.11 quote Plato, like Eugene Aram
In Bulwer-Lytton's 1832 novel Eugene Aram, the title character, though a murderer, is also a sensitive, serious scholar who quotes poetry, discusses philosophy, and is praised for his classical learning. He does not, however, quote Plato.

30.11-12 sing ... ballads ... like jolly Dick Turpin
The highwayman Dick Turpin sings songs in Harrison Ainsworth's 1834 novel Rookwood.

30.12-13 prate eternally about to kalon like that precious canting Maltravers

The Greek phrase means "the Beautiful," something that is "prated" about in Bulwer-Lytton's novel Alice (1838). Ernest Maltravers is a character in this novel, but he is not the one who does the prating.

30.14 Biss Dadsy
Mispronounced version of the name "Miss Nancy" in Oliver Twist.

31.15 Seven's the main ...
This expression and the ones that follow are associated with the old dice game hazard. When the count says seven's the main, he is declaring the number he is trying to roll. Because he rolls a four instead, he now has to roll a four (the "chance") before he rolls another seven. In the end, after rolling a nine and an eleven, he rolls a seven before he can roll a four, and therefore loses.

31.15-16 Three to two against the caster
The odds of throwing a second four. Hazard was such a popular game that tables of odds were worked out for the various dice rolls. Thackeray is actually wrong about the odds; with a "main" of seven and a "chance" of four, the odds against the caster were not three to two, but two to one.

31.17 Ponies
A bet of 25 pounds.

31.39 booked his winnings
Recorded them rather than collecting them.

32.45 toledo
A sword made at Toledo in Spain.

33.22-23 mustard and salt ... oil ... hot water.
A treatment for laudanum poisoning basically in accord with the medical practices of the day, which recommended inducing vomiting by having the victim drink large quantities of warm water mixed with salad oil.

34.22 Schlafen Sie wohl ... bon repos
German and French respectively, both meaning "Sleep well."

35.29 a gentleman in black
There was an 1830 novel about the Devil by James Dalton, entitled The Gentleman in Black, illustrated by George Cruikshank and discussed by Thackeray in an 1840 essay on Cruikshank.

35.39 The "Liverpool carryvan,"
A caravan, or stage wagon, was a large, slow stagecoach primarily used for transporting goods, but also carrying passengers.

36.5 Jehu
Traditional name for a coachman, from the Biblical driver (2 Kings 9:20) who drove fast and furiously.

36.20 groat
Old coin worth fourpence. In circulation during the seventeenth century and perhaps into the early eighteenth. Revived in Thackeray's own time.

37.20 sack-possett
A cold remedy consisting of hot milk mixed with sack (a Spanish white wine).

38.10 coachmasters
The owners of the stagecoaches.

38.44 tramper
A tramp or vagrant.

39.19 trull
Whore.

39.38 Magdalen
A reformed prostitute, after the Biblical Mary Magdalen.

40.15 the green
The village green, the common land near the village.

40.47 upon this hint the elopement took place
"Upon this hint I spake," says Othello about his courtship of Desdemona (Othello I.iii.166), an ill-fated courtship, like the courtship of Catherine and John Hayes.

41.1 pillow
Variant of "pillion," the cushion attached to the back of a saddle on which a second person, usually a woman, could sit behind the rider.

41.10-12 a proclamation ... for the encouragement and increase of seamen
An actual proclamation printed in the March 28-April 1 issue of the Gazette (1-2).

41.13-14 constables, petty constables, headboroughs, and tything-men
Terms for policemen dating back to medieval times.

41.18-19 and another [act] ... for pressing men into the army
Possibly "An Act for the better Recruiting Her Majesty's Army and Marines" (1706).

41.20 a mighty stir throughout the kingdom
There was opposition to the recruiting acts from one section of the Tories, who thought they violated traditional freedoms. There were also riots to free newly enlisted men.

41.24-25 The great measure of Reform ... carried along with it much private jobbing and swindling
Though the Whig Reform Bill of 1832 is now generally seen as something that removed corruption from the old electoral system, in Thackeray's day Fraser’s Magazine and other Tory opponents of the bill threw the charge of corruption back at the Whigs and said the Reform Bill was itself associated with corruption.
"Jobbing" means doing public business dishonestly for private gain.

41.27 the British glories in Flanders
Marlborough's victory at Ramillies in 1706.

41.28-29 not the first time that a man has been pinched at home to make a fine appearance abroad
A pun. "Pinched" can mean "frugal" and also "seized" or "arrested," while "abroad" can mean "outdoors" or "overseas." So the sentence can mean both that men economize at home in order to look impressive in public and that they are seized in England to perform well on foreign battlefields.

41.31 extortion
There were cases of extortion in which those subject to impressment were allowed to escape in return for money; there were also sham press gangs at work, like the one Brock leads.

41.42 halbert
A combination spear and battle-axe, still used at this period by sergeants.

42.9 at this lock
In this dilemma or difficulty.


Works Cited

Goldfarb, Sheldon. "Thackeray and the Celebrated Wilks of Paris." English Language Notes 31, 2 (December 1993): 40-43.

Quennell, Peter. Four Portraits: Studies of the Eighteenth Century. Rev. ed. London: Collins, 1965.



Sunday 15 December 2013

Annotations to Catherine: Chapter One



[Numbers refer to pages and lines in the 1999 University of Michigan Press edition of Thackeray's Catherine: A Story, edited by Sheldon Goldfarb.]

1.6-8  quarrelling, king-killing, reforming, republicanizing, Oliver Cromwellizing, restoring, Stuartizing, Orangizing, re-restoring, play-writing, sermon-writing ...
    
     An overview of seventeenth-century English history:

quarrelling: the conflicts that culminated in the English Civil Wars (1642-49)

king-killing: the execution of Charles I in 1649

reforming: the Puritan attempts to reform the Church of England and perhaps the attempts to reform the relationship between king and Parliament

republicanizing: the establishment of something like a republic after the execution of Charles I

Oliver Cromwellizing: the rule of Oliver Cromwell in the 1650’s

restoring: the restoration of the monarchy in 1660

Stuartizing: a reference to the Stuart kings of this period

Orangizing: the installation of William of Orange as king after the Glorious Revolution of 1688

re-restoring: perhaps also referring to the Glorious Revolution

play-writing: Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, etc. early in the century; the Restoration dramatists (Wycherley, Congreve) later

sermon-writing: John Donne and Lancelot Andrewes early in the century; John Tillotson, Jeremy Taylor, etc. later
      
1.9-10  Mr. Isaac Newton was a tutor of Trinity, and Mr. Joseph Addison commissioner of appeals
   Newton was a tutor at Trinity College, Cambridge, from the late 1660’s until 1687 and continued at Cambridge until 1701 or 1702.
The essay writer Addison (1672-1719) became Commissioner of Excise Appeals in 1704.        

1.10-12   the presiding genius that watched over the destinies of the French nation had played out all the best cards in his hand, and his adversaries began to pour in their trumps
     A reference to the decline of French power at the end of the seventeenth century.      
 
1.13-14   two kings in Spain employed perpetually in running away from one another
       During the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1713), the two rival claimants for the Spanish throne, Philip of Anjou (backed by France) and the Archduke Charles of Austria (backed by England), did seem to be avoiding each other.  Charles especially seemed reluctant to engage his rival in battle.  He did not even arrive in Spain until 1705; and when Philip and his forces were in retreat towards Madrid in 1706, Charles did not pursue them, but first lingered in Barcelona and then marched away from Madrid, saying there was a threat elsewhere in the country.  

1.14-15   there was a queen in England, with such rogues for ministers as have never been seen, no, not in our own day
   Queen Anne (reigned 1702 to 1714), known for having corrupt ministers (e.g., Harley and Bolingbroke).  The suggestion that the government ministers of Thackeray's own day were almost as corrupt probably owes something to the fact that Catherine was appearing in Fraser's Magazine, which was carrying on a vociferous campaign against the government at the time.   
    
1.15-17  a general ... [who] was the meanest miser or the greatest hero in the world
   John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, celebrated as a hero for his victories over the French during the War of the Spanish Succession, but also derided for alleged stinginess.
   
1.17-18  Mrs. Masham had not yet put Madame Marlborough's nose out of joint
   "Madame Marlborough," or more properly the Duchess of Marlborough, had been an early favorite of Queen Anne's, but she was eventually supplanted by Abigail Masham.
    
1.18-19  people had their ears cut off for writing very meek political pamphlets
   People did have their ears cut off in the early seventeenth century for writing supposedly seditious pamphlets (William Prynne was a well-known example from the 1630’s), but this was no longer true at the time Thackeray is writing of (1705). 
    
1.19-20  very large full-bottomed wigs were just beginning to be worn with powder
   The full-bottomed wig, which came into fashion in France in the closing decades of the seventeenth century, consisted of a mass of curls framing the face and falling around and below the shoulders.  Powdering such wigs to make them appear grey or white became fashionable during the eighteenth century.   
    
1.20-23  Louis the Great ... was ... observed to look more dismal
   Louis the Great (France's Louis XIV) would have looked dismal because of France's reverses in Europe.
    
1.28  "Newgate Calendar"
   Any collection of crime stories or, more specifically, the collections issued under that name by Andrew Knapp and William Baldwin. 
    
1.35-38  FAGIN ... TURPIN ... JACK SHEPPARD (at present in monthly numbers) ... the embryo DUVAL
Fagin is the fictitious gang leader and receiver of stolen goods in Dickens' Oliver Twist (1837-38).
     Dick Turpin and Jack Sheppard were real-life criminals from the eighteenth century who had appeared or were appearing in novels by Harrison Ainsworth.  Turpin plays a role in Ainsworth's Rookwood (1834), and Jack Sheppard is the title figure in the novel Ainsworth was serializing monthly in Bentley's Miscellany in 1839 when Catherine began appearing. 
Claude Duval was another real-life criminal Ainsworth had said he wanted to write about, but he had not as yet done so, making his Duval a sort of embryo.  He did eventually put Duval into a novel (Talbot Harland) thirty years later. 

1.39  the eighth commandment
   "Thou shalt not steal."
  
2.7  Old Bailey calendar
   The Old Bailey (the nickname for the Central Criminal Court) was intimately associated with Newgate Prison, so this may be a reference to any of the crime collections known collectively as The Newgate Calendar, or it could mean specifically The Old Bailey Chronicle.
    
2.8  the Stone Jug
   As Thackeray's footnote explains, the Stone Jug meant Newgate Prison.  It was not the "polite name," however, but underworld slang.
    
2.9  hurdle-mounted
   Mounted on the hurdle or sledge on which traitors were drawn through the streets to the place of execution.
    
2.9  riding down the Oxford-road
   Riding down the Oxford Road to Tyburn was what condemned criminals did on the day of their execution.     

2.10  Jack Ketch
   Name of a real seventeenth-century hangman which came to be applied to all executioners.

2.15-17  whether it was that the Queen of England did feel seriously alarmed ... that a French prince should occupy the Spanish throne
   The English were concerned that if Philip of Anjou, a grandson of Louis XIV, became king of Spain he would ally Spain with France and upset the balance of power in Europe. 

2.17-18  the Emperor of Germany
     The Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold I, whose younger son, the Archduke Charles of Austria, was the rival candidate for the Spanish throne.

2.18-19  the quarrel of William of Orange, who made us pay and fight for his Dutch provinces
William was criticized during his reign for dragging England into a continental war against France (the Nine Years' War, also called King William's War, 1689-97) in order to support the interests of his native Holland. 

2.21-22  Sarah Jennings and her husband wanted to make a fight
       The Duchess of Marlborough and the Duke of Marlborough, who were influential at court (the Duchess more so than her husband), were seen as seeking to profit from the war.

2.26  the Corsican upstart
   Napoleon.  Scornful term used by his opponents, but here ironic.  Used similarly in Chapter 6 of Vanity Fair.
    
2.27-28  Cutts's regiment (which had been so mangled at Blenheim the year before)
  Lord Cutts was third in command at the Battle of Blenheim in August 1704.  The battalions he commanded there suffered heavy losses.
    
2.29  dépôt
   Base of operations. 
    
2.32  Captain Plume and Sergeant Kite
   The two central figures in George Farquhar's 1706 comedy, The Recruiting Officer.      

2.39  Ramillies and Malplaquet
   Two major battles in the War of the Spanish Succession.  Malplaquet was especially costly in terms of loss of life.

2.46  Peter Brock
   Brock resembles Sergeant Kite in The Recruiting Officer, who, like Brock, is skilled at "canting, lying, impudence, pimping, bullying, swearing, whoring, drinking." 
Brock's name (along with Galgenstein's) may have come from the character Galgebrok in Jack Sheppard.  Or it may have been inspired by the character Peter Block of Brocken Mountain in The King of the Mist, or, The Miller of the Hartz Mountains, by Edward Fitzball (1792-1873).  This play was being performed in April 1839, just when Thackeray would have been inventing Brock.
  
3.1  dragoons
Originally an infantryman who rode to battle but fought on foot.  Later simply a cavalryman.    

3.3  a chest that the celebrated Leitch himself might envy
   There was a Mr. Leitch of Rothsay, a leading member of Robert Macnish's "Chestic Club" in Glasgow in the early 1830’s, who was known for his large chest.  This is mentioned in the 1838 collection The Modern Pythagorean (I owe this reference to Gary Simons). 
    
3.7  chansons de table 
   Drinking songs.
    
3.12  the Marquess of Rodil
   General and Minister of War for the Spanish government during the first Carlist War (1833-1840).  Prone to boasting, but notoriously unsuccessful on the battlefield. 
    
3.14  seven cities
   Traditionally, seven cities claimed to be Homer's birthplace.
    
3.16-17          a royalist regiment ... the Parliamentarians
      The two sides in the English Civil War of the 1640’s.  Brock’s mother opportunistically switched sides.

3.17-20     Monk ... Coldstreamers ... marched ... from a republic at once into a monarchy
   General Monk and his regiment marched to London from Coldstream in Scotland to restore the monarchy in 1660, ending the Cromwellian republic. 
    
3.22-23  battle of the Boyne
   1690 battle in Ireland in which the deposed James II failed in his attempt to regain the throne of England from William of Orange. 
    
3.25  Mordaunt's forlorn hope at Schellenberg
   Lord Mordaunt's advance guard at the 1704 Battle of Schellenberg, most of whom died.
    
3.26  promised a pair of colours
   That is, a promotion to the rank of ensign, a low-ranking officer's position equivalent to the later sub-lieutenant or second lieutenant.  The ensign was responsible for carrying a unit's banner or standard, which was itself referred to as either the ensign or the colours.
    
3.38  Schloss
   German for castle.
    
3.42-43  Gustavus Adolphus ... von Galgenstein
Galgenstein's first two names are those of a seventeenth-century Swedish king known for his military successes.  They are also similar to the first two names of Gustave Adolphe Basslé, a child genius in the late 1830’s.  
The name Galgenstein is German for "gallows" and "stone."  Robert Colby (170, note 27) suggests that the name derives from Galgebrok, the name of a character in Jack Sheppard.
     In Barry Lyndon (1844) Thackeray reused the names "Gustavus Adolphus" and "Galgenstein," but for two separate characters.  
    
3.44  gardes du corps 
   French for bodyguards.
    
3.45-46  two regiments of Germans came over to the winning side
   Two regiments of the Bavarian army did switch sides after the Battle of Blenheim. 
    
4.2  John Churchill
Later the Duke of Marlborough.

4.12       Flanders horses
Probably not the heavy farm animal now known as a Flanders horse, but the more graceful Friesian horse, a breed formerly used for military purposes.
    
4.14  mountain-wine
   A wine from Malaga in the mountainous region of southern Spain.
    
4.37  a cipher
   A monogram; also a synonym for zero, so perhaps this is a veiled barb at Galgenstein.
    
4.47-48  the parson ... Dobbs
   In character the good-hearted but gullible parson who likes to drink and smoke resembles Parson Adams in Henry Fielding's Joseph Andrews (1742).  His name meanwhile resembles names Thackeray gave to two other good-hearted but flawed characters: Dobbin in Vanity Fair and Ensign Dobble in Stubbs's Calendar.
    
4.48, 5.1  horseboy ... ostler
   Terms for someone who takes care of horses at an inn. 
    
5.18  beaver
   The visor on a helmet.  Rather out of date by this time.
    
5.22  Prince Eugene
   Eugene of Savoy: A commander of troops allied with the British during the War of the Spanish Succession.  Nearly killed at Blenheim, but rescued at the last moment.
 
5.26-27  William of Nassau
       Another name for William of Orange.

5.43  George of Denmark
       Husband of Queen Anne. 
    
5.44-45  Marshal Tallard
   Leader of the French forces at Blenheim.  Galgenstein could not have taken him prisoner because at that point Galgenstein was on the French side.

6.30  Mrs. Score, her relative
   An invented character, not in the historical record.  The
real-life Catherine Hayes was not an orphan raised by a relative; she had parents but ran away from them.  Thackeray, however, liked to write of characters who had lost one or both parents, e.g., Becky Sharp, Henry Esmond, Barry Lyndon, Arthur Pendennis.
      
6.48  O woman, lovely woman!
   Laub (88) notes that this phrase is also the opening phrase of Thomas Otway's 1682 drama, Venice Preserved: 

O woman! lovely woman! Nature made thee
To temper man: we had been brutes without you.

Laub notes the contrast between Otway's sincere praise of women and Thackeray's more ironic point.
    
7.1  fribble
   Frivolous or ridiculous.
    
7.3-4   when thou puttest a kiss within the cup—and we are content to call the poison, wine!
   Ironic allusion to the opening lines of Ben Jonson's "Song: To Celia."  The original reads:

Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I'll pledge thee with mine;
Or leave a kiss within the cup,
And I'll not ask for wine.

8.23-24  the Brill
   Or Brielle.  Small town in the Netherlands.

8.28  High-Dutch
   German.
    
8.34  chits
   Contemptuous term for a young person, especially a young woman, suggesting they are still a child.
    
8.42  clodpole
   A stupid fellow.  Also, according to Chapter 5 of Catherine Gore’s novel Pin Money (1831), one easy to recruit into the army: "... the heart of the country clodpole responds ... readily to the pipe and drum with which the cunning recruiting sergeant baits the recruiting-hook in the village market-place ..."
    
9.22  Bullock
   A bull or an ox.  There is a character named Bullock in Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer. 

9.24-26  a galley slave ... in Turkey and America ... and in the country of Prester John
   Turkish galleys (i.e., oared ships) manned by slaves were common in the Mediterranean, but there were no galley slaves in America.  As for the country of Prester John, it was purely legendary, it had no ships, and it was supposed to be a Utopia where no one suffered, so Brock is just inventing here. 
    
10.1-2  a crimp
   Someone who uses deceptive means to induce men to enlist as soldiers or sailors.
    
10.5  Tummas
   Familiar form of Thomas.
    
10.29-30  a hearty cock
   A man with pluck and spirit.
    
10.42-43  Juvenal
   Roman satirist, known for his angry indignation.
    
10.44  Mrs. Catherine
   In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, both married and unmarried women could be referred to as "Mrs."
    
11.12  But no mortal is wise at all times
   Translation of a line from Pliny's Natural History: "nemo mortalium omnibus horis sapit."
    
11.36  pis-aller 
   French for last resort.
    
11.38  "chartered libertine,"
   One who has a charter or licence to do anything.  Phrase found in Shakespeare's Henry V (I.i.48), where it refers to the air.  William Pitt the Younger, the eighteenth-century prime minister, later applied it to the press.
    
12.1  franche coquette 
   French for open flirt.
    
12.13-14  a sly demon ... drops into your ear those ... sweet words
   Allusion to Satan's whispering into Eve's ear in Book 4 of Paradise Lost (ll. 799-809). 
    
12.16  Macassar oil
   Popular hair product in the nineteenth century.  Supposed to prevent balding, greying, and dandruff.

12.20  thimble-sealed
   Using a thimble to leave a mark or seal on a letter.
    
12.21  muffetees
   Introduced in the mid-eighteenth century, these small wrist
muffs were intended to provide warmth and protect shirt ruffles from dirt.
    
12.24  pot-boy
   A boy or young man who serves beer in a tavern
    
12.28  Love, like Death, plays havoc among the pauperum tabernas 
   The pauperum tabernas are the hovels of the poor.  Horace (Odes I.iv.13-14) says Death plays havoc there and in wealthy mansions too: "Pallida Mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas regumque turres" ("Pale Death impartially kicks the doors of the hovels of the poor and the mansions of the rich").
    
12.30-31, 12.40  the ... old-clothesman … in Holywell Street
   The Jewish old clothesman, or dealer in secondhand clothing, was a common sight in London in Thackeray’s day, especially in Holywell Street.
    
12.32  exuvial
   Castoff, discarded, originally in reference to the skins shed by animals.
    
12.33   atrior cura 
   Blacker care (Latin).  An alteration of the phrase "atra Cura" (black care) from Horace's Odes (III.i.11). Thackeray loved quoting Horace and especially loved quoting this melancholy phrase. He even wrote a ballad called "Atra Cura."  For more on Horace and Thackeray, see Elizabeth Nitchie's article.
    
12.50  Ætna-flames
   Mount Aetna or Etna, a volcano in Sicily, erupted three times in the 1830’s, including once just months before Catherine began appearing. 
    
13.17-18  He sighed and drunk, sighed and drunk, and drunk again
   Comical allusion to John Dryden's "Alexander's Feast" (ll. 112-13), where Alexander the Great is described as having "sigh'd and look'd, sigh'd and look'd,/ Sigh'd and look'd, and sigh'd again."

13.36-37  at a railroad pace
   The railroads were new in the 1830’s and seemed incredibly
fast to contemporaries.  Thackeray was not the first to use this phrase as a metaphor for high speed. In January 1839, the Sunday Times said that court cases had formerly been "hurried on at a railroad pace," causing justice to resemble a "whirligig," but the situation had improved and trials were now conducted "with patient attention" (January 6: 4).
    
13.43-44  the gentleman at Penelope's table ... exiguo pinxit proelia tota bero 
   In Ovid's Heroides (1:32) Penelope imagines a returned warrior drawing pictures of Troy with drops of wine: "pingit et exiguo Pergama tota mero."  Thackeray jokingly substitutes the pseudo-Latin bero (to mean "beer") for mero (Latin for wine) and makes other changes so that his version reads: "He sketched all the battles with a little beer."  
      
14.4-5  a little shower of patches, which ornament a lady's face wondrously
   In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was fashionable for ladies to wear black patches made of velvet or silk, often cut in representational shapes (stars, moons, etc.).  Patches would be worn on the face, neck, or shoulders. 
    
14.13-14              Ah sacré! ... O mon Dieu!
Mild French oaths meaning  "Oh, damn!" and "Oh my God!"

14.14  Ventrebleu!
   Literally "blue belly" (French), but really another oath, being a euphemistic corruption of Ventre Dieu, or "belly of God."  Brock is wrong to say bleu means "through." 
    
14.16-17  waists . . . are worn now excessive long
   That is, worn low, the style that came in at the end of the seventeenth century.
    
14.17-18  stap my vitals
   An exclamation of surprise, literally meaning "stop my vital
functions," that is, "strike me dead." 
    
14.18  Warwick's assembly
   "Assemblies" became popular throughout England in the eighteenth century as regular social functions for the fashionable, at which people met for conversation, dancing, card-playing, etc. 

14.19  a hoop as big as a tent
   Women wore enormous hoop dresses in the eighteenth century.  A 1745 article speaks of the "enormous abomination of the Hoop Petticoat," which resulted in sights such as that of "a girl of seventeen taking up the whole side of a street."  (See Cunnington and Cunnington 146).
    
14.21-22  the Duke of Marlborough seated along with Marshall Tallard
   Tallard was Marlborough's prisoner, but Marlborough was reported to have treated him with courtesy, even allowing the French leader the use of his coach.
    
14.22-23  Johannisberger wine
   A fine white wine from Johannisberg, a village on the Rhine.

14.31-32  a magnificent gold diamond-hilted snuff-box
   That is, the snuff-box was made of gold and had a diamond-encrusted handle (or hilt).  The use of gold and diamonds for snuff-boxes was common in aristocratic circles in the eighteenth century in both England and France.
    
14.33  Wauns
   Vulgar pronunciation of "wounds," meaning "God's wounds," a mild oath.
    
14.36  Colonel Cadogan
   Marlborough's Quartermaster-General, or principal staff officer.
    
15.1-3   Mr. Butcher ... was rescued by the furious charge of ... his wife
   In Farquhar's Recruiting Officer (4:2) a butcher is warned that his mother, sister, and sweetheart will try to stop him from enlisting.
    
15.20  sack
   White wine from southern Europe.
    
16.2-3  the queen's money
   Recruits received a payment of 40 to 60 shillings for enlisting.
    
16.22  small beer
   Weak beer.
    
16.41  a crown-piece
   Old British coin worth five shillings.
    
17.14  When the kine had given a pailful ...
   The first verse of a song by Thomas D'Urfey (1653-1723).  In the last verse of the song, the girl, who at first rejects her lover's advances, happily gives in to them, much as Catherine will.

18.43-44  a sedan
     A sedan chair, an enclosed chair carried on poles; a fashionable means of transport in the eighteenth century.

19.10-11   a barebacked horse; which Corporal Brock was flanking round a ring 
     Somewhat anachronistic reference to circus trick riding, introduced into England by Philip Astley in 1768.
    
19.19   Ernest Maltravers
   An 1837 novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873).
    
19.31  thimblerigging
   The sleight-of-hand swindling game involving three thimbles and a pea.  Also known as the shell game.
     
19.43   Cold Bath Fields 
   Site of the Middlesex House of Correction, where men sentenced to short prison terms were sent.
    


Works Cited


Colby, Robert A.  Thackeray's Canvass of Humanity: An Author and His Public.  Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1979.

Cunnington, C. Willett, and Phillis Cunnington.  Handbook of English Costume in the Eighteenth Century. 3rd ed. London: Faber, 1972.

Laub, Roger M.  "The Poetics of Literary Allusion in the Early Fictions of William Makepeace Thackeray."  Diss. University of Kansas, 1978.

Nitchie, Elizabeth.  "Horace and Thackeray."  Classical Journal (1918): 393-410.