[76] 'Southern:' author of 'Oronooko,' &c. He lived to the age of eighty-six.

[77] 'A table:' he was invited to dine on his birthday with this nobleman, who had prepared for him the entertainment of which the bill of fare is here set down.

[78] 'Harp:' the Irish harp was woven on table-cloths, &c.

[79] 'Prologues:' Dryden used to sell his prologues at four guineas each, till, when Southern applied for one, he demanded six, saying, 'Young man, the players have got my goods too cheap.'

[80] 'Mr C.:' Mr Cleland, whose residence was in St James's Place, where he died in 1741. See preface to 'The Dunciad.'

[81] 'Trumbull:' one of the principal Secretaries of State to King William III., who, having resigned his place, died in his retirement at Easthamstead, in Berkshire, 1746.

[82] 'Heaven's eternal year is thine:' borrowed from Dryden's poem on Mrs Killigrew.

[83] 'Fenton:' Pope's joint-translator of Homer's Odyssey. See Johnson's 'Lives of the Poets.'

[84] His only daughter expired in his arms, immediately after she arrived in France to see him.

[85] Lady Mary Montague wrote a rejoinder to this poem, in a caustic, sneering vein.

[86] 'Vindicate the ways,' &c.: borrowed from Milton.

[87] 'Egypt's God:' Apis.

[88] 'Thin partitions' from Dryden.

[89] 'Glory, jest, and riddle of the world:' Pascal in his 'Pensees' has a thought almost identical with this.

[90] 'Good bishop:' De Belsance, who distinguished himself by attention to the sick of the plague, in his diocese of Marseilles in 1720.

[91] 'Bethel:' a benevolent gentleman in Yorkshire, a great friend of Pope's.

[92] 'Chartres:' Colonel, infamous for every vice--a fraudulent gambler, &c. &c.

[93] 'Cromwell:' it is not necessary now to answer this insult to the greatest of Britain's kings. It is a clever ape chattering at a dead lion.

[94] 'Good John:' John Serle, his old and faithful servant.

[95] 'Mint:' a place to which insolvent debtors retired, to enjoy an illegal protection, which they were there suffered to afford one another, from the persecution of their creditors.--P.

[96] 'Pitholeon:' The name taken from a foolish poet of Rhodes, who pretended much to Greek.--P.

[97] 'Butchers, Henley:' Orator Henley used to declaim to the butchers in Newport market.

[98] 'Freemasons, Moore:' he was of this society, and frequently headed their processions.

[99] 'Bishop Boulter:' friend of Ambrose Philips.

[100] 'Burnets, &c.:' authors of secret and scandalous history.

[101] 'Gildon:' a forgotten critic and dramatist--a bitter libeller of Pope.

[102] 'A Persian tale:' Ambrose Philips translated a book called the 'Persian Tales.'

[103] 'Bufo:' most commentators refer this to Lord Halifax.

[104] 'Sir Will:' Sir William Young.

[105] 'Bubo:' Babb Dodington.

[106] 'Who to the dean, and silver bell:' meaning the man who would have persuaded the Duke of Chandos that Mr P. meant him in those circumstances ridiculed in the 'Epistle on Taste.'--_P_.

[107] 'Sporus:' Lord Hervey.

[108] 'The lie so oft o'erthrown:' as, that he received subscriptions for Shakspeare; that he set his name to Mr Broome's verses, &c., which, though publicly disproved, were nevertheless shamelessly repeated.--_P_.

[109] 'The imputed trash:' such as profane psalms, court-poems, and other scandalous things, printed in his name by Curll and others.--_P_.

[110] 'Abuse:' namely, on the Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Burlington, Lord Bathurst, Lord Bolingbroke, Bishop Atterbury, Dr Swift, Dr Arbuthnot, Mr Gay, his friends, his parents, and his very nurse, aspersed in printed papers, by James Moore, G. Ducket, L. Wolsted, Tho.

Bentley, and other obscure persons.--_P_.

[111] 'Sappho:' Lady M.W. Montague.

[112] 'Welsted:' accused Pope of killing a lady by a satire.

[113] 'Budgell:' Budgell, in a weekly pamphlet called _The Bee_, bestowed much abuse on him.

[114] 'Except his will:' alluding to Tindal's will, by which, and other indirect practices, Budgell, to the exclusion of the next heir, a nephew, got to himself almost the whole fortune of a man entirely unrelated to him.--_P_.

[115] 'Curlls of town and court:' Lord Hervey.

[116] 'Noble wife:' alluding to the fate of Dryden and Addison.

[117] 'An oath:' Pope's father was a nonjuror.

[118] Curll set up his head for a sign.

[119] His father was crooked.

[120] His mother was much afflicted with headaches.

[121] 'Fortescue:' Baron of Exchequer, and afterwards Master of the Mint.

[122] 'Fanny:' Hervey.

[123] 'Falling horse:' the horse on which George II. charged at the battle of Oudenarde.

[124] 'Shippen:' the only member of parliament Sir R. Walpole found incorruptible.