The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - Laurence Sterne [316]
9. dirty blue paper … review … horse-drugs: This wording points at the Critical Review and its editor, Dr. Tobias Smollett, whom Sterne would satirize as Smelfungus in Sentimental Journey.
10. Italian hand: the modern handwriting of Europe and America, as opposed to Gothic; hence, elegant.
11. ritratto: portrait (Italian).
12. hussar-like: like the Hungarian light cavalry currently fighting in the Seven Years’ War.
13. Blonederdondergewdenstronke: mock-Dutch name. Work suggests it roughly means “Super-dull-dunderhead,” a jab at Dutch commentators.
CHAP. XII
1. emperor’s … Turks: under the auspices of Charles VI (1685–1740), Holy Roman Emperor and king of Hungary (1712–40).
CHAP. XIII
1. defeat of the Turks before Belgrade: by Prince Eugène of Savoy in August 1717.
CHAP. XIV
1. merry world … but for that inextricable labyrinth: derives from Rabelais (4.51; 4:288): “most intricate labyrinth of their arteries? Then, ah! then, … shall the world be happy!”
2. market cross: Although few remain, English towns and cities usually had a cross or crosses centrally placed.
CHAP. XVI
1. beds of justice: from the French lit de justice, the sessions held by the king (who sat upon raised ceremonial cushions) to review and countermand the acts of parlement, the high court of appeal.
CHAP. XVII
1. Goths … Vandallick clans: This area, Pomerania, is now in Poland. Much of Sterne’s information probably comes from Moreri (“Goths”) rather than Philip Cluwer (Cluverius), Germania Antiquiæ (1616). Florida corrects “Hercul” and “Bugians” to “Heruli” and “Rugians” while observing that Sterne may have had a satiric purpose. The Bug River, however, is a tributary of the Vistula, and Sterne almost certainly had a satirical purpose.
2. I write one half full … fasting: probably alluding to Rabelais on the drinking habits of writers: “Ennius drinking wrote.… Homer never wrote fasting,” etc. (“Author’s Prologue,” 3:9).
3. understrapping: subordinate.
CHAP. XVIII
1. fustian: a coarse cotton and flax cloth.
2. dimity: “a stout cotton fabric, woven with raised stripes or fancy figures …” (OED).
3. gig or a top: A gig is a spinning top.
CHAP. XIX
1. Albertus Rubenius: Sterne did not use exclusively Albert Rubens, De re Vestiaria Veterum, Præcipue de Lato Clavo (Of the Clothing of the Ancients, Especially the Latus Clavus, 1665), which is item 828 in the sale catalogue of Sterne’s library.
2. ancient dress … Suetonius: The Chlamys was a Greek short mantle or cloak and the Paludamentum was a Roman military version. The Ephod was a Jewish religious vestment, though later the term was used for Christian vestments. The Synthesis was a loose-flowing Roman robe for feasts and festivities. The Pænula was a sleeveless Roman cloak, covering the whole body. The Lacerna (as Work notes, not “Lacema”), with its Cucullus, was a Roman outer garment with a hood for protection in inclement weather. The Prætexta was a long white Roman robe with a purple border. The Trabea was “a toga with horizontal purple stripes, worn as a state robe by kings, consuls, and other men of rank” (OED). Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (69–post 122), Roman biographer, in De Genere Vestium, perhaps from Rubinius.
3. soc … rostratus: The sock was a light slipper or pump; the buskin, “a half boot, which normally reached mid-leg” (Johnson). Patins (pattens) were wooden shoes or clogs; in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries they served as overshoes to lift shoes from the mud. Pantoufles are slippers. The calceus incisus and the calceus rostratus were, respectively, a shoe with cutouts and with curved toe. Juvenal: Decimus Junius Juvenalis (55?–127?), “On the Immunities of the Military,” Satires, 16, lines 23–25.
4. jaggs: clearly used in the obsolete sense of “attached pendant[s] or fringe[s]” (OED), rather than “rags” or “slashes,” though the OED has no examples later than the seventeenth century.
5. Latus Clavus: The Latus Clavus was a large, purple-striped woolen tunic.
6. Egnatius … Joseph