Dryden, the head of English letters in the generation before Pope, had been bitterly a.s.sailed on various charges by parsons, like Jeremy Collier, critics like Milbourn, and fine gentlemen like the Duke of Buckingham. But his works remained when the jests that were made against them were forgotten.

'463'

Sir Richard Blackmore, a famous doctor in Dryden's day, was also a very dull and voluminous writer. He attacked Dryden in a poem called 'A Satire against Wit'. Luke Milbourn was a clergyman of the same period, who abused Dryden's translation of Virgil.

'465 Zoilus':

a Greek critic who attacked Homer.

'481'

The English language and the public taste had changed very rapidly during the century preceding Pope. He imagined that these changes would continue so that no poet's reputation would last longer than a man's life, "bare threescore," and Dryden's poetry would come to be as hard to understand and as little read as Chaucer's at that time. It is worth noting that both Dryden and Pope rewrote parts of Chaucer in modern English.

'506-507'

Explain why "wit" is feared by wicked men and shunned by the virtuous, hated by fools, and "undone" or ruined by knaves.

'521 sacred':

accursed, like the Latin 'sacer'.

'527 spleen':

bad temper.

'534 the fat age':

the reign of Charles II, as ll. 536-537 show, when literature became notoriously licentious.

'538 Jilts ... statesmen':

loose women like Lady Castlemaine and the d.u.c.h.ess of Portsmouth had great influence on the politics of Charles II's time, and statesmen of that day like Buckingham and Etheredge wrote comedies.

'541 Mask':

it was not uncommon in Restoration times for ladies to wear a mask in public, especially at the theater. Here the word is used to denote the woman who wore a mask.

'544 a Foreign reign':

the reign of William III, a Dutchman. Pope, as a Tory and a Catholic, hated the memory of William, and here a.s.serts, rather unfairly, that his age was marked by an increase of heresy and infidelity.

'545 Socinus':

the name of two famous heretics, uncle and nephew, of the sixteenth century, who denied the divinity of Christ.

'549'

Pope insinuates here that the clergy under William III hated an absolute monarch so much that they even encouraged their hearers to question the absolute power of G.o.d.

'551 admir'd:'

see note l. 391.

'552 Wit's t.i.tans:'

wits who defied heaven as the old t.i.tans did the G.o.ds. The reference is to a group of freethinkers who came into prominence in King William's reign.

'556 scandalously nice:'

so over-particular as to find cause for scandal where none exists.

'557 mistake an author into vice:'

mistakenly read into an author vicious ideas which are not really to be found in his work.

'575'

Things that men really do not know must be brought forward modestly as if they had only been forgotten for a time.

'577 That only:'

good-breeding alone.

'585 Appius:'

a nickname for John Dennis, taken from his tragedy, 'Appius and Virginia', which appeared two years before the 'Essay on Criticism'.

Lines 585-587 hit off some of the personal characteristics of this hot-tempered critic. "Tremendous" was a favorite word with Dennis.