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Talk And Talkers
by
[Note 27: Restoration comedy … Congreve. Restoration comedy is a general name applied to the plays acted in England between 1660, the year of the restoration of Charles II to the throne, and 1700, the year of the death of Dryden. This comedy is as remarkable for the brilliant wit of its dialogue as for its gross licentiousness. Perhaps the wittiest dramatist of the whole group was William Congreve (1670-1729).]
[Note 28: Falstaff … Mercutio … Sir Toby … Cordelia … Protean. Sir John Falstaff, who appears in Shakspere’s King Henry IV, and again in the Merry Wives of Windsor, is generally regarded as the greatest comic character in literature…. Mercutio, the friend of Romeo; one of the most marvellous of all Shakspere’s gentlemen. He is the Hotspur of comedy, and his taking off by Tybalt “eclipsed the gaiety of nations.”… Sir Toby Belch is the genial character in Twelfth Night, fond of singing and drinking, but no fool withal. A conversation between Falstaff, Mercutio, and Sir Toby would have taxed even the resources of a Shakspere, and would have been intolerably excellent…. Cordelia, the daughter of King Lear, whose sincerity and tenderness combined make her one of the greatest women in the history of poetry…. Protean, something that constantly assumes different forms. In mythology, Proteus was the son of Oceanus and Tethys, whose special power was his faculty for lightning changes.
“Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea.”–Wordsworth.]
[Note 29: This sequel was called forth by an excellent article in The Spectator, for 1 April 1882, and bore the title, The Restfulness of Talk. The opening words of this article were as follows:–“The fine paper on ‘Talk,’ by ‘R.L.S.,’ in the Cornhill for April, a paper which a century since would, by itself, have made a literary reputation, does not cover the whole field.”]
[Note 30: Valhalla. In Scandinavian mythology, this was the heaven for the brave who fell in battle. Here they had an eternity of fighting and drinking.]
[Note 31: Meticulous. Timid. From the Latin, meticulosus.]
[Note 32: Kindly. Here used in the old sense of “natural.” Compare the Litany, “the kindly fruits of the earth.”]
[Note 33: “The real long-lived things.” For Whitman, see our Note 12 of Chapter III above.]
[Note 34: Robert Hunter, Sheriff of Dumbarton. Hunter recognised the genius in Stevenson long before the latter became known to the world, and gave him much friendly encouragement. Dumbarton is a town about 16 miles north-west of Glasgow, in Scotland. It contains a castle famous in history and in literature.]
[Note 35: A novel by Miss Mather. The name should be “Mathers.” Helen Mathers (Mrs. Henry Reeves), born in 1853, has written a long series of novels, of which My Lady Greensleeves, The Sin of Hagar and Venus Victrix are perhaps as well-known as they deserve to be.]
[Note 36: Chelsea. Formerly a suburb, now a part of London, to the S.W. It is famous for its literary associations. Swift, Thomas Carlyle, Leigh Hunt, George Eliot, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and many other distinguished writers lived in Chelsea at various times. It contains a great hospital, to which Stevenson seems to refer here.]
[Note 37: Webster, Jeremy Taylor, Burke. John Webster was one of the Elizabethan dramatists, who, in felicity of diction, approached more nearly to Shakspere than most of his contemporaries. His greatest play was The Duchess of Malfi (acted in 1616). Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), often called the “Shakspere of Divines,” was one of the greatest pulpit orators in English history. His most famous work, still a classic, is Holy Living and Holy Dying (1650-1). Edmund Burke (1729-1797) the parliamentary orator and author of the Sublime and Beautiful (1756), whose speeches on America are only too familiar to American schoolboys.]
[Note 38: Junius. No one knows yet who “Junius” was. In the Public Advertiser from 21 Jan. 1769 to 21 Jan. 1772, appeared letters signed by this name, which made a sensation. The identity of the author was a favorite matter for dispute during many years.]