[253] A narrow street between the back side of St. Clement's and Shipyard, in the Strand. There were butchers' shambles on the south side, and a market for meat, poultry, fish, &c. The Row was pulled down in 1813.
[254] Dominic Bouhours (1628-1702) and Nicholas Rapin (1535-1608), French critics.
[255] The bloody battle of Malplaquet, September 11, 1709.
[257] On January 1, 1660, General Monck quitted his headquarters at Coldstream, to restore the monarchy. As Gumble puts it in his "Life of Monck," "This town hath given title to a small company of men whom God made the instruments of great things." See Mackinnon's "Origin and Services of the Coldstream Guards" (1833).
[258] The first of a long series of Government lotteries was started in 1709. There were 150,000 tickets at £10 each, making £1,500,000. Three thousand seven hundred and fifty tickets were prizes from £1000 to £5 a year for thirty-two years. There was a great demand for the tickets. See No. 124, and the _Spectator,_ No. 191.
From _Saturday, Oct. 29_, to _Tuesday, Nov. 1, 1709_.
I have lately received a letter from a friend in the country, wherein he acquaints me, that two or three men of the town are got among them, and have brought down particular words and phrases which were never before in those parts. He mentions in particular the words "gunner" and "gunster," which my correspondent observes they make use of when anything has been related that is strange and surprising; and therefore desires I would explain those terms, as I have many others, for the information of such as live at a distance from this town and court, which he calls the great mints of language. His letter is dated from York; and (if he tells me truth) a word in its ordinary circulation does not reach that city within the space of five years after it is first stamped. I cannot say how long these words have been current in town, but I shall now take care to send them down by the next post.
I must in the first place observe, that the words "gunner" and "gunster" are not to be used promiscuously; for a gunner, properly speaking, is not a gunster: nor is a gunster, _vice versâ_, a gunner. They both indeed are derived from the word "gun," and so far they agree. But as a gun is remarkable for its destroying at a distance, or for the report it makes, which is apt to startle all its hearers, those who recount strange accidents and circumstances, which have no manner of foundation in truth, when they design to do mischief are comprehended under the appellation of gunners; but when they endeavour only to surprise and entertain, they are distinguished by the name of gunsters. Gunners therefore are the pest of society; but the gunsters often the diversion. The gunner is destructive, and hated; the gunster innocent, and laughed at. The first is prejudicial to others, the other only to himself.