[434] 'Theocles:' thus this philosopher calls upon his friend, to partake with him in these visions:

'To-morrow, when the eastern sun With his first beams adorns the front Of yonder hill, if you're content To wander with me in the woods you see, We will pursue those loves of ours, By favour of the sylvan nymphs:

and invoking, first, the genius of the place, we'll try to obtain at least some faint and distant view of the sovereign genius and first beauty.' Charact. vol. ii. p. 245.--P. W.

[435] 'Society adores:' see the Pantheisticon, with its liturgy and rubrics, composed by Toland.--W.

[436] 'Silenus:' Silenus was an Epicurean philosopher, as appears from Virgil, Eclog. vi., where he sings the principles of that philosophy in his drink. He is meant for one Thomas Gordon.--P. W.

[437] 'First, slave to words:' a recapitulation of the whole course of modern education described in this book, which confines youth to the study of words only in schools, subjects them to the authority of systems in the universities, and deludes them with the names of party distinctions in the world,--all equally concurring to narrow the understanding, and establish slavery and error in literature, philosophy, and politics. The whole finished in modern free-thinking; the completion of whatever is vain, wrong, and destructive to the happiness of mankind, as it establishes self-love for the sole principle of action.--P. W.

[438] 'Smiled on by a queen:' i.e. this queen or goddess of Dulness.--P.

[439] 'Mr Philip Wharton, who died abroad and outlawed in 1791.

[440] 'Nothing left but homage to a king:' so strange as this must seem to a mere English reader, the famous Mons. de la Bruyere declares it to be the character of every good subject in a monarchy; 'where,' says he, 'there is no such thing as love of our country; the interest, the glory, and service of the prince, supply its place.'--De la Republique, chap.

x.--P.

[441] 'The balm of Dulness:' the true balm of Dulness, called by the Greek physicians [Greek: Kolakeia], is a sovereign remedy against inanity, and has its poetic name from the goddess herself. Its ancient dispensators were her poets; and for that reason our author, book ii. v.

207, calls it the poet's healing balm; but it is now got into as many hands as Goddard's Drops or Daffy's Elixir.--W.

[442] 'The board with specious miracles he loads:' these were only the miracles of French cookery, and particularly pigeons _en crapeau_ were a common dish.--P. W.

[443] '_Seve_ and _verdeur_:' French terms relating to wines, which signify their flavour and poignancy.--P. W.

[444] 'Bladen--Hays:' names of gamesters. Bladen is a black man. Robert Knight, cashier of the South Sea Company, who fled from England in 1720 (afterwards pardoned in 1742). These lived with the utmost magnificence at Paris, and kept open tables frequented by persons of the first quality of England, and even by princes of the blood of France.--P. W.

The former note of 'Bladen is a black man,' is very absurd. The manuscript here is partly obliterated, and doubtless could only have been, Wash blackmoors white, alluding to a known proverb.--Scribl. P. W.

Bladen was uncle to Collins the poet. See our edition of 'Collins.'

[445] 'Gregorian, Gormogon:' a sort of lay-brothers, slips from the root of the freemasons.--P. W.

[446] 'Arachne's subtile line:' this is one of the most ingenious employments assigned, and therefore recommended only to peers of learning. Of weaving stockings of the webs of spiders, see the Phil.

Trans.--P. W.

[447] 'Sergeant call:' alluding perhaps to that ancient and solemn dance, entitled, A Call of Sergeants.--P. W.

[448] 'Teach kings to fiddle:' an ancient amusement of sovereign princes, viz. Achilles, Alexander, Nero; though despised by Themistocles, who was a republican. 'Make senates dance:' either after their prince, or to Pontoise, or Siberia.--P. W.

[449] 'Gilbert:' Archbishop of York, who had attacked Dr King, of Oxford, a friend of Pope's.

[450] Verses 615-618 were written many years ago, and may be found in the state poems of that time. So that Scriblerus is mistaken, or whoever else have imagined this poem of a fresher date.--P. W.

[451] 'Truth to her old cavern fled:' alluding to the saying of Democritus, that Truth lay at the bottom of a deep well, from whence he had drawn her; though Butler says, he first put her in, before he drew her out.--W.

[452] Read thus confidently, instead of 'beginning with the word books, and ending with the word flies,' as formerly it stood. Read also, 'containing the entire sum of one thousand seven hundred and fifty-four verses,' instead of 'one thousand and twelve lines;' such being the initial and final words, and such the true and entire contents of this poem. Thou art to know, reader! that the first edition thereof, like that of Milton, was never seen by the author (though living and not blind). The editor himself confessed as much in his preface; and no two poems were ever published in so arbitrary a manner. The editor of this had as boldly suppressed whole passages, yea the entire last book, as the editor of Paradise Lost added and augmented. Milton himself gave but ten books, his editor twelve; this author gave four books, his editor only three. But we have happily done justice to both; and presume we shall live, in this our last labour, as long as in any of our others.--Bentl.

[453] Milbourn on Dryden's Virgil, 8vo, 1698, p. 6.

[454] Ibid. p. 38.

[455] Ibid. p. 192.

[456] Ibid. p. 8.

[457] Whip and Key, 4to, printed for R. Janeway, 1682, preface.

[458] Ibid.

[459] Milbourn, p. 9.

[460] Ibid. p. 176.

[461] Ibid. p. 39.

[462] Whip and Key, preface.

[463] Oldmixon, Essay on Criticism, p. 84.

[464] Milbourn, p. 2.

[465] Ibid. p. 35.

[466] Ibid. pp. 22, 192.

[467] Ibid. p. 72.

[468] Ibid. p. 203.

[469] Ibid, p. 78.

[470] Ibid, p. 206.

[471] Ibid. p. 19.

[472] Ibid. p. 144, 190.

[473] Ibid. p. 67.

[474] Milbourn, p. 192.

[475] Ibid. p. 125.

[476] Whip and Key, preface.

[477] Milbourn, p. 105.

[478] Ibid. p. 11.

[479] Ibid. p. 176.