Note 35 — SCENE IV.—Lord Hardy's Lodgings.

A favourite word with Steele. In the first scene of the play Sable says: "There's a what d'ye call, a crisis." In 1714, Steele wrote a famous pamphlet called The Crisis. "Plebian Britons," five lines below, reminds us of his four pamphlets, The Plebeian, on the Peerage Bill of 1719.