The "long settle" and "scrowled chair" were two other kinds of seats in use from the time of Charles I. to that of James II.

In short, Mr. Settle was then a formidable rival to Mr. Dryden; and I remember very well, that not only the town, but the university of Cambridge, was very much divided in their opinions about the preference that ought to be given to them; and in both places the younger fry inclined to Elkanah.

This settle, in front of the door, was a capital point to perpetrate tricks on the constantly arriving throngs from the East, who, with characteristic enterprise, often stopped to inquire for employment.

"Nothing," says Dennis, "is more certain, than that Mr. Settle, who is now (1717) the city poet, was formerly a poet of the court.

SETTLE, ELKANAH, a playwright who lives in the pages of Dryden's satire "Absalom and Achitophel"; was an Oxford man and littérateur in London; enjoyed a brief season of popularity as author of "Cambyses," and "The Empress of Morocco"; degenerated into a "city poet and a puppet-show keeper," and died in the Charterhouse; was the object of Dryden's and Pope's scathing sarcasms (1648-1723).

The old-fashioned settles which gave so cosy an air in the olden time to the inn room, and which still linger in some of the houses, are not heremerely forms and cheap chairs.