'I studied, priz'd, and wish'd that I had known
Ingenious Cowley! . . . courtly though retir'd,
Though stretch'd at ease in Chertsey's silent bowr's,
Not unemploy'd, and finding rich amends

For a lost world in solitude and verse.'

1. 80. What boy but hears the sayings of old Ben. Jonson had been dead exactly a century in 1737, yet his mots were still repeated by tradition in the coffee-houses. The only printed record of them is his Conversations with Drummond, whom he visited at Hawthornden, walking on foot to Scotland for the purpose.

1. 82. Johnson's art-Shakespear's nature. Pope again, Dunciad, 2. 223: To move, to raise, to ravish ev'ry heart,

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With Skakspeare's nature, or with Jonson's art.'

Milton had stamped the contrast in L'Allegro, 132, between Jonson's learned sock' and Shakspeare's 'wood-notes wild,' and it was repeated without reflection by the vulgar critics.

1. 84. How Beaumont's judgment check'd what Fletcher writ. These opinions are not Pope's. They are intended as characteristic of the random judgments of the public. 'Interdum vulgus recte videt, est ubi peccat.'

1. 85. How Shadwell hasty, Wycherley was slow. The allusion is to Rochester (Chalmers, 8. 249):

Of all our modern wits none seem to me
Once to have touch'd upon true comedy,
But hasty Shadwell and slow Wycherley.'

Pope adds a note to his own line: 'Nothing was less true than this. But the whole paragraph must be taken for the common chat of the pretenders to criticism.' But Rochester meant, as Warburton observes, not to design the difference of their talents, but the number of their productions.'

1. 86. Southern. Thomas Southerne, 1660-1746, wrote ten plays, of which only two obtained stage celebrity-Isabella; or, The Fatal Marriage, and Oroonoko. Hallam says he was the first English writer who denounced the traffic in negro slaves.

Rowe. Nicholas Rowe, 1674-1718, Poet Laureate. His Fair Penitent and Jane Shore kept possession of the stage for a century. He is one of the few Whigs whom Pope has named without tacking to his name some depreciating epithet.

1. 87. These, only these, support the crouded stage. We may ask why is Otway omitted, who exerted more power over the passions than either Rowe or Southerne, and whose Venice Preserved was oftener produced than any piece of theirs, especially as Pope treats him so well below in ll. 277, 278.

1. 88. eldest Heywood. John Heywood, died 1565-eldest, to distinguish

him from Thomas Heywood, a dramatic writer of the time of James I. John Heywood's Interludes are a species of composition between the Moralities and the Drama.

1. 91. Gammer Gurton. 'Gammer Gurton's Needle' is the title of a dramatic piece which was supposed to be the earliest specimen of English comedy, until the discovery of Ralph Royster Doyster.' Its authorship is uncertain. It was probably produced about 1565, for acting by the students at Cambridge.

1. 92. Careless Husband. By Colley Cibber; a piece so superior to his other plays, that he was thought to have had the assistance of Arthur Maynwaring in writing it.

1. 97. Spenser himself affects the obsolete. The language of Spenser (died 1599) is not the English of his own time, nor of any time, but an artificial archaism affected for the sake of effect. Ben Jonson said of him that 'he writ no language.'

1. 98. And Sidney's verse balts ill on Roman feet. English hexameters were attempted by Sir Philip Sidney (died 1586) in the Arcadia, book 1: 'Lady, reserv'd by the heav'ns to doe pastors companie honor,' &c. 1. 100. sweeps.

Observe how the antithesis is injured by the use of the word sweeps, which when said of movement denotes majesty. The word wanted was 'creeps on,' but the metre would not admit it. Dryden had said, Mac-Fleckno,'' Or swept the dust in Psyche's humble strain.'

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1. 104. slashing Bentley. Cf. Sat. and Ep., Prol. 164, note.

desperate book. It seems obvious to understand this, as most of the commentators do, of the bill-hook of the hedger with which he slashes, or plashes, the quick fence. Notwithstanding, having in view Pope's note on Dunciad, 4. 194, I think that Warburton may be right of the books, or brackets in which Bentley enclosed lines he chose to declare spurious.

1. 106. bates whate'er be read at school. The allusion is to some lines of Lord Hervey, entitled 'Letter to a Doctor of Divinity,' in which he pleads that he

long

Had taken leave of Greek or Latin song,
All that I learn'd from Dr. Friend at school,
By Gradus, Lexicon, or Grammar-rule,

Has quite deserted this poor John-trot head,

And left plain native English in its stead.'

1. 107. wits of either Charles's days. Dug. Stewart, Elements, 3. 235: Wit is commonly regarded as one of the elements of poetical genius. So intimate is the connection between them, that by the authors of Queen Anne's reign poets were very generally called wits." Below, 179:

'We wake next morning in a raging fit,

And call for pen and ink to show our wit.'

1. 108. The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease. Cf. Prior's sarcasm (Chalmers, 10. 133):

the world agrees

That he writes well, who writes with ease,

Then he, by sequel logical,

Writes best, who never thinks at all.'

Pope, ap. Spence, Anecd. p. 105: Lord Dorset and Lord Rochester should be considered as holiday writers, as gentlemen that diverted themselves now and then with poetry, rather than as poets.'

1. 109. Sprat. Thomas Sprat, became, 1684, Bishop of Rochester, died 1713. In his youth he published some academical verses, of which the principal are, To the Memory of the Lord Protector, and The Plague of Athens. In the latter, he enumerates among the sufferers the Pythagoreans and the Stoics. Of Cromwell's fame he says that, like man it will grow white, as it grows old.' Yet for the enlightened interest he took in literature and learning, he has been complimented by having his verses included in the Collections of British Poets. Pope, ap. Spence, Anecd. p. 116, calls him 'a worse Cowley.'

Carew. Thomas Carew, died 1639, has left only short occasional pieces. The longest is a mask, entitled 'Coelum Britannicum.' He holds an intermediate place between the frigid affectation of the poets of the Restoration, and the impassioned fantasy of the Elizabethan amatory poetry.

Sedley. Sir Charles Sedley, died 1701, was so highly applauded for his taste and judgment that Charles II. said, 'Nature had given him a patent to be Apollo's viceroy.' He effaced his brilliant endowments by conduct which was esteemed indecent even in that licentious age. Dryden in dedicating one of his plays to Sedley, describes the genial nights of mingled discourse and raillery' passed in his society. See Scott's Dryden, Works, 4. 351.

1. 110. miscellanies. Volumes under this title in which the smaller pieces of the popular poets of the day were collected. Among the more celebrated of these collections are the Miscellanies of Pope and Swift, 3 vols., 1727. Gay, Ep. 14, gives Bernard Lintot a receipt for the composition of such an olio to rival Tonson's:

'As when some skilful cook to please each guest,' &c.

1. 113. Or lengthen'd thought that gleams through many a page. This characterises the best versifiers of the Restoration period, even Dryden. Their habit of composition was to take any idea, and play variations upon it, through any number of verses. Pope followed the opposite, or classical method, viz. to reduce a given meaning to its shortest expression.

1. 119. On Avon's bank, where flow'rs eternal blow. Carruthers, Life

of Pope. 'Pope's Preface to his Shakspeare, published in 1725, must be pronounced inferior to Johnson's, but it is what no other author of the day, after Addison's death, could have written. Remembering the generally low appreciation of Shakspeare, Pope will not be found deficient in reverence and admiration.'

1. 120. If I but ask, if any weed can grow. Pope, Pref. to Shakspeare: 'One cannot wonder if Shakspear, having no other aim in his writings than to procure a subsistence, directed his endeavours to hit the taste and humour that then prevailed. The audience was generally composed of the meaner sort of people, therefore the images of life were to be drawn from those of their own rank, tradesmen or mechanicks. In tragedy nothing was so sure to cause admiration as the most strange and unnatural incidents, the most exaggerated thoughts, the most bombast expression, the most pompous rhymes, and thundering versification. In comedy nothing was so sure to please as mean buffoonery, vile ribaldry, and unmannerly jests of fools and clowns,'

1. 122. Betterton-Booth. Betterton, died 1710, was the leading actor of Dryden's age, and Booth (died 1733) of Pope's. Booth acted Cato when it was first brought out in 1712.

1. 127. the former reign= the reigns of the sovereigns before George's age. 1. 132. Merlin's prophecy. A collection of Prophecies in Latin, which had great currency in the Middle Ages, was circulated under the name of Merlin. Thomas Heywood published these 'Predictions in English, and their truth made good by our English annals,' 1641. Merlin, Prophet and Enchanɩer, is a purely fictitious personage, the creation of romance. But he was transferred to history by Geoffrey of Monmouth, who places him in the reign of Vortigern, tells how he defeated the Saxons at the Mons Badonicus, and transported Stonehenge out of Ireland to Salisbury plain. The English

metrical romance of Merlin is extant, and was printed by Wynkyn de Worde

in 1510.

1. 142. A line adapted from 'Lansdowne's Progress of Beauty' (Chalmers, II. 21):

From the loud palace to the silent grove

All, by the King's example, live and love.'

11. 149, 150. One of Pope's happiest couplets. Warton compares Antipater (Anthol. Græca, 2. 103. Jacobs): 'H тakepaîs λevσσovσa kopaîs μaλaκώτερον ὕπνου.

1. 153.

On each enervate string they taught the note

To pant.

The first Operas brought on the stage in England were płoduced by Sir W. Davenant at his theatre in Charterhouse-yard, which he opened in spite of the Puritan government in 1656.

1. 183. Radcliff's doctors. John Radcliffe, M.D., died 1714, founded his Fellowships in University College, Oxford, for Masters of Arts entered on the Physic line, tenable for ten years, the half of which time, at least, they are to travel in parts beyond sea for their better improvement.'

1. 186. Ripley. Ripley was patronised by the government, hence Pope's sneer. Ripley built Houghton for Sir Robert Walpole, and Woolverton for Lord Walpole; also the Admiralty in Whitehall. Cf. Dunciad, 3.

327:

'See under Ripley rise a new Whitehall,

While Jones' and Boyle's united labours fall.'

See Sat. and Ep. 2. 120, note.

1. 195. Flight of cashiers. Knight, cashier to the South Sea Company, escaped to France, carrying with him the secret register called the green book.' The cashier of the Charitable Corporation, George Robinson, M.P.

for Marlow, absented himself in October, 1731.

1. 211.

Or virtue or religion turn to sport,

To please a lewd or unbelieving Court.

Cf. Scott, Marmion, canto I, Introd.:

'And Dryden in immortal strain

Had rais'd the Table Round again,

But that a ribald king and court

Bade him toil on to make them sport;
Demanded for their niggard pay,

Fit for their souls, a looser lay,

Licentious satire, song, and play.'

1. 214. Roscommon. Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon, died 1684. Besides occasional pieces, he translated Horace, Art of Poetry, and wrote An Essay on Translated Verse.

1. 215. excuse some courtly stains. Warburton told Spence that Pope meant this of Addison's Lines to the Princess of Wales, 1714. In these Addison seems to take credit for his Cato as a political play, though, while the Tory administration seemed firmly seated, he had displayed the greatest anxiety to have it considered neutral.

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1. 221. Let Ireland tell how wit upheld her cause. Scott, Life of Swift, Works, I. 274: From these studies the Dean was roused in the year 1720, and again appeared on the stage as a political writer, no longer the advocate of a ministry, but the undaunted and energetic defender of the rights of an oppressed people. No nation ever more needed a patriotic champion than Ireland at this period. The power of legislating for Ireland was assumed by the English Parliament, and it was so exercised as to fetter, as far as possible, the commerce of the kingdom.' Among other things the importation of Irish wool into England was prohibited.