Astronomy at Oxford, who studied the principle of weights and measures
in the Roman Foot and the Denarius, and whose visit to the Pyramids in
1638, by aid of his patron Laud, was described in his 'Pyramidographia.'
That work had been published in 1646, sixty-five years before the
appearance of the 'Spectator', and Greaves died in 1652. But in 1706
appeared a tract, ascribed to him by its title-page, and popular enough
to have been reprinted in 1727 and 1745, entitled, 'The Origine and
Antiquity of our English Weights and Measures discovered by their near
agreement with such Standards that are now found in one of the Egyptian
Pyramids.' It based its arguments on measurements in the
'Pyramidographia,' and gave to Professor Greaves, in Addison's time, the
same position with regard to Egypt that has been taken in our time by
the Astronomer-Royal for Scotland, Professor Piazzi Smyth.]


[Footnote 5: publick]


[Footnote 6: 'Will's' Coffee House, which had been known successively as
the 'Red Cow' and the 'Rose' before it took a permanent name from Will
Urwin, its proprietor, was the corner house on the north side of Russell
Street, at the end of Bow Street, now No. 21. Dryden's use of this
Coffee House caused the wits of the town to resort there, and after
Dryden's death, in 1700, it remained for some years the Wits' Coffee
House. There the strong interest in current politics took chiefly the
form of satire, epigram, or entertaining narrative. Its credit was
already declining in the days of the 'Spectator'; wit going out and
card-play coming in.]