[Footnote 1: The Polity of Lacedaemon and the Polity of Athens were two of Xenophons short treatises. In the Polity of Lacedaemon the Spartan code of law and social discipline is, as Mr. Mure says in his Critical History of the Language and Literature of Ancient Greece,
indiscriminately held up to admiration as superior in all respects to all others. Some of its more offensive features, such as the Cryptia, child murder, and more glaring atrocities of the Helot system, are suppressed; while the legalized thieving, adultery, and other unnatural practices, are placed in the most favourable or least odious light.]
[Footnote 2: In the Plain Dealer, Act II. sc. I.
Novel (a pert railing coxcomb). These sea captains
make nothing of
dressing. But let me tell you, sir, a man by his dress, as much
as by anything, shows his wit and judgment; nay, and his
Freeman. How, his courage, Mr. Novel?
Novel. Why, for example, by red breeches, tucked-up
hair, or peruke, a
greasy broad belt, and now-a-days a short sword.]
[Footnote 3: In his Friendship in Fashion, Act III. sc. i
Malagene. I tell you what I did tother Day:
Faith’t is as good a Jest
as ever you heard.
Valentine. Pray, sir, do.
Mal. Why, walking alone, a lame Fellow
follow’d me and ask’d my
Charity (which by the way was a pretty Proposition to me).
Being in one of my witty, merry Fits, I ask’d him how long he
had been in that Condition? The poor Fellow shook his Head,
and told me he was born so. But how dye think I served him?
Val. Nay, the Devil knows.
Mal. I show’d my Parts, I think;
for I tripp’d up both his Wooden
Legs, and walk’d off gravely about my Business.