[26] 'Mantua:' Virgil's birth-place.

[27] 'Such was the Muse:' Essay on poetry by the Duke of Buckingham.

[28] 'Caryll:' Mr Caryll (a gentleman who was secretary to Queen Mary, wife of James II., whose fortunes he followed into France, author of the comedy of 'Sir Solomon Single,' and of several translations in Dryden's Miscellanies) originally proposed the subject to Pope, with the view of putting an end, by this piece of ridicule, to a quarrel that had arisen between two noble families, those of Lord Petre and of Mrs Fermor, on the trifling occasion of his having cut off a lock of her hair. The author sent it to the lady, with whom he was acquainted; and she took it so well as to give about copies of it. That first sketch (we learn from one of his letters) was written in less than a fortnight, in 1711, in two cantos only, and it was so printed; first, in a miscellany of Ben. Lintot's, without the name of the author. But it was received so well that he enlarged it the next year by the addition of the machinery of the Sylphs, and extended it to five cantos.

[29] 'Sylph:' the Rosicrucian philosophy was a strange offshoot from Alchemy, and made up in equal proportions of Pagan Platonism, Christian Quietism, and Jewish Mysticism. See Bulwer's 'Zanoni.' Pope has blended some of its elements with old legendary stories about guardian angels, fairies, &c.

[30] 'Baron:' Lord Petre.

[31] Burns had this evidently in his eye when he wrote the lines 'Some hint the lover's harmless wile,' &c., in his 'Vision.'

[32] 'Atalantis:' a famous book written about that time by a woman: full of court and party-scandal, and in a loose effeminacy of style and sentiment which well suited the debauched taste of the better vulgar.

[33] 'Winds:' see Odyssey.

[34] 'Thalestris:' Mrs Morley.

[35] 'Sir Plume:' Sir George Brown.

[36] 'Maeander:' see Ovid.

[37] 'Partridge:' see Pope's and Swift's Miscellanies.

[38] This poem was written at two different times: the first part of it, which relates to the country, in the year 1704, at the same time with the Pastorals; the latter part was not added till the year 1713, in which it was published.

[39] 'Stuart:' Queen Anne.

[40] 'Savage laws:' the forest-laws.

[41] 'The fields are ravish'd:' alluding to the destruction made in the New Forest, and the tyrannies exercised there by William I.

[42] 'Himself denied a grave:' the place of his interment at Caen in Normandy was claimed by a gentleman as his inheritance, the moment his servants were going to put him in his tomb: so that they were obliged to compound with the owner before they could perform the king's obsequies.

[43] 'Second hope:' Richard, second son of William the Conqueror.

[44] 'Queen:' Anne.

[45] 'Still bears the name:' the river Loddon.

[46] 'Trumbull:' see Pastorals.

[47] 'Cooper's Hill:' celebrated by Denham.

[48] 'Flowed from Cowley's tongue:' Mr Cowley died at Chertsey, on the borders of the forest, and was from thence conveyed to Westminster.

[49] 'Noble Surrey:' Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, one of the first refiners of English poetry; who flourished in the time of Henry VIII.

[50] 'Edward's acts:' Edward III., born here.

[51] 'Henry mourn:' Henry VI.

[52] 'Once-fear'd Edward sleeps:' Edward IV.

[53] 'Augusta:' old name for London.

[54] 'And temples rise:' the fifty new churches.

[55] The author of 'Successio,' Elkanah Settle, appears to have been as much hated by Pope as he had been by Dryden. He figures prominently in 'The Dunciad.'

[56] This was written at twelve years old.

[57] This ode was written in imitation of the famous sonnet of Adrian to his departing soul. Flaxman also supplied hints for it. See 'The Adventurer.'

[58] See Memoir.

[59] 'But what with pleasure:' this alludes to a famous passage of Seneca, which Mr Addison afterwards used as a motto to his play, when it was printed.

[60] Done by the author in his youth.

[61] Dr Johnson in the _Literary Review_ highly commends this piece.

[62] This, it is said, was intended for Queen Caroline.

[63] 'Zamolxia:' a disciple of Pythagoras.

[64] 'The youth:' Alexander the Great: the tiara was the crown peculiar to the Asian princes: his desire to be thought the son of Jupiter Ammon, caused him to wear the horns of that god, and to represent the same upon his coins; which was continued by several of his successors.

[65] 'Timoleon:' had saved the life of his brother Timophanes in the battle between the Argives and Corinthians; but afterwards killed him when he affected the tyranny.

[66] 'He whom ungrateful Athens:' Aristides.

[67] 'May one kind grave:' Abelard and Eloisa were interred in the same grave, or in monuments adjoining, in the monastery of the Paraclete: he died in the year 1142; she in 1163.

[68] 'Robert, Earl of Oxford:' this epistle was sent to the Earl of Oxford with Dr Parnell's poems, published by our author, after the said earl's imprisonment in the Tower, and retreat into the country, in the year 1721.

[69] 'Secretary of State:' in the year 1720.

[70] 'Work of years:' Fresnoy employed above twenty years in finishing his poem.

[71] 'Worsley:' Lady Frances, wife of Sir Robert Worsley.

[72] 'Voitnre:' a French wit, born in Amiens 1598, died in 1648; a favourite of the Duke of Orleans, and member of the French Academy.

[73] 'Monthansier:' Mademoiselle Paulet.

[74] 'Coronation:' of King George the First, 1715.

[75] 'M.B.:' Martha Blount.