[125] 'Lee:' Nathaniel, a wild, mad, but true poet of Dryden's day.

[126] 'Budgell:' Addison's relation, who drowned himself in the Thames.

[127] 'And he whose lightning:' Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough, a man distinguished by the rapidity of his military movements--a petty Napoleon.

[128] 'Oldfield:' this eminent glutton ran through a fortune of fifteen hundred pounds a-year in the simple luxury of good eating.--_P_.

[129] 'Bedford-head:' a famous eating-house.

[130] 'Proud Buckingham:' Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.

[131] 'Aristippus:' the licentious parasite of Dionysius.

[132] 'Sticks:' Exchequer tallies--an old mode of reckoning.

[133] 'Barnard:' Sir John Barnard, an eminent citizen of the day.

[134] 'Lady Mary:' Montague, who was as great a sloven as a beauty.

[135] 'Murray:' afterwards Lord Mansfield.

[136] 'Creech:' the translator of Horace.

[137] 'Craggs:' his father was originally a humble man.

[138] 'Cornbury:' an excellent and high-minded nobleman, great-grandson of Lord Clarendon, the historian.

[139] 'Tindal:' the infidel, author of 'Christianity as Old as the Creation.'

[140] 'Anstis:' Garter King-at-Arms.

[141] 'Luckless play:' Young's 'Buseris;' the name of the spendthrift is not known.

[142] 'Augustus:' referring ironically to George II., then excessively unpopular for refusing to enter into a war with Spain, which was supposed to have insulted our commerce.

[143] 'Skelton:' poet laureate to Henry VIII.

[144] 'Christ's Kirk o' the Green:' a ballad made by James I. of Scotland.

[145] 'The Devil:' the Devil Tavern, where Ben Johnson held his poetical club.

[146] 'Horse-tail bare:' referring to Sertorius, who told one of his soldiers to pluck off a horse's tail at one effort. He failed, of course. Sertorius then told another to pluck it away, hair by hair. He succeeded; and thus Sertorius taught the lesson of hard-working, patient perseverance.

[147] 'Gammer Gurton:' one of the first printed plays in English, and therefore much valued by some antiquaries.

[148] 'All, by the king's example:' a line from Lord Lansdown.

[149] 'Lely:' Sir Peter, who painted Cromwell and all the celebrities of his day.

[150] 'Ripley:' the government architect who built the Admiralty; no favourite except with his employers.

[151] 'Van:' Vanbrugh.

[152] 'Astraea:' Miss Bolin, author of obscene, but once popular novels.

[153] 'Old Edward's armour beams on Cibber's breast:' the coronation of Henry VIII. and Queen Anne Boleyn, in which the play-houses vied with each other to represent all the pomp of a coronation. In this noble contention, the armour of one of the kings of England was borrowed from the Tower, to dress the champion.--_P_.

[154] 'Bernini:' a great sculptor. He is said to have predicted Charles the First's melancholy fate from a sight of his bust.

[155] 'Colonel:' Cotterel of Rousham, near Oxford.

[156] 'Blois:' a town where French is spoken with great purity.

[157] 'Sir Godfrey:' Sir Godfrey Kneller.

[158] 'Monroes:' Dr Monroe, physician to Bedlam Hospital.

[159] 'Oldfield, Daitineuf:' two celebrated gluttons mentioned formerly.

[160] 'Tooting, Earl's Court:' two villages within a few miles of London.

[161] 'Composing songs:' Burns imitates this in the 'Vision'--

'Stringin' blethers up in rhyme, For fules to sing.'

[162] 'Stephen:' Mr Stephen Duck.

[163] 'Servile chaplains:' Dr Kenett, who wrote a servile dedication to the Duke of Devonshire, to whom he was chaplain.

[164] 'Abbs Court:' a farm over against Hampton Court.

[165] 'Townshend's turnips:' Lord Townshend, Secretary of State to Georges the First and Second. When this great statesman retired from business, he amused himself in husbandry, and was particularly fond of the cultivation of turnips; it was the favourite subject of his conversation.

[166] 'Bu----:' Bubb Doddington.

[167] 'Oglethorpe:' employed in settling the colony of Georgia.

See Boswell's 'Johnson.'

[168] 'Belinda:' in 'The Rape of the Lock.'

[169] 'Tips with silver:' occurs also in the famous moonlight scene in the 'Iliad'--

'Tips with silver every mountain's head.'

[170] 'Adieu!' how like Burns's lines, beginning--

"But when life's day draws near the gloaming, Farewell to vacant, careless roaming!" &c.

[171] 'Donne:' Pope, it is said, imitated Donne's 'Satires' to show that celebrated men before him had been as severe as he. Donne was an extraordinary man--first a Roman Catholic, then a barrister, then a clergyman in the Church of England, and Dean of St Paul's,--a vigorous although rude satirist, a fine Latin versifier, the author of many powerful sermons, and of a strange book defending suicide; altogether a strong, eccentric, extravagant genius.