library of Murray's (afterwards Lord Chief Justice) house in Lincoln's Inn Fields; and on one occasion the rising lawyer, being called away to a consultation, put into the poet's hand a volume of Latin epitaphs by Dr. Friend just published, saying "they had been much read and admired." Pope, who, like other great men, felt jealous of a supposed rival, was alarmed lest his own fame in epitaph-writing, on which he particularly valued himself, should be dimmed, and on Murray's return showed him the above epigram. The next night, Pope having produced a Latin epitaph of his own composition which he maintained to be equal to any of Friend's, Murray, detecting a false quantity in it, threw it into the fire, saying that the finest of English Poets, and he who had most embellished his own language, ought to write in no other.'-See Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices.

(27) Our modern celebrated clubs are founded upon eating and drinking, which are points wherein most men agree, and in which the learned and illiterate, the dull and the airy, the philosopher and the buffoon, can all bear a part. The Kit-cat Club is said to have its original from a muttonpie.-See Addison's Spectator, No. 9.

A list of its members (39) is given in Addisoniana. They consisted of noblemen and gentlemen of the first rank for quality, merit, and fortune, chiefly of Whig principles. Tonson, the eminent bookseller, the secretary. Their portraits were drawn by Sir G. Kneller. 'Each member gave Tonson his, and he is going to build a room for them at Barn Elms.' -Spence's Anecdotes. All portraits of the same size are to this day called kit-cat pictures. Horace Walpole says: 'The Kit-cat Club, generally mentioned as a set of wits, in reality the patriots that saved the nation.' It is doubtful whether Pope or Arbuthnot wrote the above epigram, in which the club is ridiculed.-See Bohn's Edition of Addison's works.

(28) In this poem Pope has given us one of the most sweeping, fierce, and brilliant philippics, in which, under the mask of a reprobation of bad writing and bad taste, genius ever revenged the injuries of self-love.'-See Shaw's Outlines of English Literature.

(29) The 2nd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 12th, 16th, 18th, and 23rd books of the Odyssey were by Broome, as well as the notes to the whole 24 books. He also made extracts from Eustathius for the notes to the translation of the Iliad; for all which he received from Pope 500l., with as many copies of the work as he wanted for his friends.-See Dr. Johnson's Life of Broome, Hazlitt's edition, vol. iii. P. 118.

(30) Josiah Hort, Bishop of Kilmore, afterwards Archbishop of Tuam, author of a New Proposal for the better Regulation and Improvement of Quadrille, for the publication of which Faulkner, the bookseller, was

imprisoned. The bishop, not having indemnified Faulkner, excited the ire of Swift, who penned the above satire.

(31) The musical world in the reign of Queen Anne was divided after the introduction of the Italian Opera into London into two factions, one favouring the Italian, Bononcini, and the other the German, Handel. Addison's papers in the Spectator against both are too well known to need remark. Swift, who seems never to have been partial to music, joined in the fray; and the above epigram was written by him expressive of his astonishment that 'such difference there should be 'twixt tweedledum and tweedle-dee.' Spite, however, of botn Swift's and Addison's ribaldry and humour, the Italian Opera still retains its hold of the British public, and though poor Bononcini is almost forgotten, Handel's fame is greater than ever: 'his excellency in every style of music, but more especially in sacred music of the choral kind, being universally acknowledged.'

(32) So in Gulliver's Travels, the most admirable satire ever conveyed in a narrative, and the most plausible disguise that fiction ever bore, Swift expresses his indignant contempt of his fellow-mortals. The king of Brobdingnag, after hearing the historical account of European affairs, exclaims: 'It was only a heap of conspiracies, rebellions, massacres, revolutions, banishments, the very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, envy, hatred, lust, malice and ambition could produce;' and adds: 'by what I have gathered from your own relation and the answers I have with much pains wrung and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin, that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the face of the earth.'

(33) In Swift's time two keen and memorable controversies divided the literary world, and in some respects were mingled with each other-A Comparison of Ancient and Modern Learning, a controversy which passed from France to Britain. Sir W: Temple published, in favour of the ancients, his Essay upon Ancient and Modern Learning, and Swift's powers of satire were exerted in behalf of his patron and caused him to write The Battle of the Books, in which it is remarkable he has omitted Milton's name, and no mention is made of Newton, who in 1686 had published his great and immortal work The Principia. Swift's piece caused the epigram to be written.-See W. Scott's edition of Swift's works.

(34) In 1724 a man named Wood obtained a patent to coin 180,000l. in halfpence and farthings for the kingdom of Ireland. To obstruct the currency of Wood's brass money, Swift wrote his celebrated letters under

the name of M. B. Drapier, to show the folly of giving gold and silver for coin not worth, as Swift said, a third part of its nominal value. The letters, it is needless to say, were successful, and the patent was withdrawn, much to the annoyance and indignation of the government; and henceforth Swift was idolised by the populace as the champion, patron, and instructor of Ireland.

(35) This is a translation of Martial (b. v. ep. 52).

(36) Shown by Mr. Singer to be an expert adaptation of a much older one, 'Johnnie Carnegie laisheer,' &c.-Notes and Queries, 1st series, vol. i. p. 482.

(37) The husband of the beautiful countess resided as English Ambassador in Paris during Addison's visit there, circa 1701. It was in compliment to her that he composed the above lines which were engraved on his toasting-glass at the Kit-cat Club. It was a rule of the club that each member on his admission should name the lady of his choice and write a verse to her beauty.

(38) 'Marlborough was insatiable of riches.'-Lord Macaulay's History of England. Swift said of him 'he was covetous as hell, and ambitious as the prince of it.' 'When I recollected this epigram, and saw that now by the genius of Brown a magnificent body of water was collected, I said, they have drowned the epigram.'-Boswell's Life of Johnson.

(39) 'On January 2, 1711, appeared the last number of the Tatler, and at the beginning of March following appeared the first of an incomparable series of papers, containing observations on life and literature by an imaginary spectator.' 'Every valuable essay in the series may be read with pleasure separately: yet the five or six hundred essays form a whole, and a whole which has the interest of a novel.' 'They have such grace, such wit, such humour, such pathos, such knowledge of the human heart, such knowledge of the ways of the world, that they charm us on the hundredth perusal.'-See Lord Macaulay's Essays, Life and Writings of Addison, Longman and Company Publishers.

(40) Budgell, Addison's relative, wrote some papers in the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian, Lives of the Family of the Boyles, and translated Theophrastus's Characters from the Greek.

(4) In 1722 Atterbury was imprisoned in the Tower on a very wellfounded charge of treason. Such cases were embarrassing to the ruling powers; and in the royal drawing-room the question had been mooted, 'What was to be done with the bishop?' The Cadogan of the above epigram was present and replied, 'Throw him to the lions.' The brutality of the suggestion may in some measure excuse the bishop's retaliation.

Atterbury's assertion that Cadogan was the 'offspring of hangman and of bawd' was too severe and not altogether correct; for if his grandfather, Sir C. Hardress Waller, was one of the judges of Charles I., Cadogan's mother, Bridget Waller, was certainly not open to the episcopal abuse.

(2) Dean of Christchurch, composer of two catches: viz., 'Hark, the bonny Christchurch bells,' and 'A Smoking Catch' to be sung by four men whilst smoking. He composed many services in music for the church, and no less than twenty anthems. His knowledge of architecture was considerable, as appears by Peckwater Square in Oxford, the Chapel of Trinity College, and the Church of All Saints, which were designed by him. He was appointed one of those persons who were intrusted with the publication of Lord Clarendon's History; and Bishop Burnet speaks highly of the part he took in the controversy with the Papists in James II.'s reign. The above epigram is a translation of the Dean's lines:

'Si bene commemini, causæ sunt quinque bibendi ;
Hospitis adventus; præsens sitis: atque futura;

Et vini bonitas; et quælibet altera causa.'

(43) William III. during his long absences from England, as general of the confederate armies of Spain and Germany against France, was compelled to invest the regal power in a council of nine; and among the governing junta of nine regents was included Tennyson, Archbishop of Canterbury. This gave rise to the above epigram.

(44) The first edition of Dryden's translation of Virgil's Æneid is somewhat oddly connected with the memory of William III. Jacob Tonson, the celebrated publisher, designed that the work should be dedicated to that monarch. Dryden, who had been deprived of his pension and laureateship by Queen Mary, swore that he would rather commit his manuscript to the flames, than submit to pay that compliment to the Dutch sovereign. He insisted on dedicating every canto to a separate Mecænas of his own among the aristocracy. The extensive patronage thus obtained for the work, induced the publisher to let the poet have his own way. Old Jacob, though baffled, was not foiled, having devised a notable plan for outwitting Dryden and flattering William at the same time; for he directed the artist whom he employed to illustrate the Eneid, to represent a lively portraiture of his majesty for the beau idéal of the person of the pious Æneas. As the features of the hero of Nassau cannot possibly be mistaken wherever they are seen, the likeness was staring, and the bookseller rejoiced in the success of his scheme. As for William himself, he no more cared for dedications by an English poet than he did for compliments in Chinese; either

way it was a matter of perfect indifference to him. Not so to Dryden, whose intense displeasure at the sight of the features of the pious Æneas vented itself in the above bitter epigram, the more bitter because founded on truth. See Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens of England.

(45) Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, wishing to possess a palace of her own, obtained of Queen Anne a grant for fifty years of that portion of the demesnes of St. James's on which the present Marlborough House stands, and which had been the private pleasure-garden of her uncle Charles II., and his consort, Catherine of Braganza. The building cost between forty and fifty thousand pounds: 'of which,' says the duchess, the queen paid not one shilling, although many angry people believed otherwise.' The rage of the people was, to do them justice, not at the outlay by the queen of the public money in favour of the duchess, but because, in laying the foundations of the palace, called to this day Marlborough House, she had caused to be rooted up a fine young oak tree, sprung from an acorn which King Charles had set with his own hand. The king had plucked the acorn from his friendly oak that screened him so well at Boscobel. The above epigram was succeeded by the two following, still more severe.

(46) This is an allusion to the scandals which pursued the memory of the Duchess of Marlborough's mother.

(47) Sidney, Lord (afterwards Earl of) Godolphin, being deeply disappointed at his endeavour to retain office as Lord Treasurer to Queen Anne, in a state of exasperation, on receiving the queen's final order of dismissal, not only broke his white staff, but flung it contemptuously into the fire. The incident gave rise to the above party epigram written by Dean Swift, who had arrived in London, suborned by the Tories to write them up, and to write their opponents down.'

(48) James II.

(49) The Pretender.

(50) The point of this epigram is taken from one by Pasquier on Beza's three wives. The Lady Cathcart, whose romantic story is mentioned in Miss Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent, was wont to say: 'I have been married three times; the first time for money, the second for rank, the third for love; and the third was worst of all.'

(51) The origin of this epigram was kindly communicated to me by Mr. Yates, of Well-bank House, Sandbach, county court judge for Cheshire (to whom the Editor is indebted for several most excellent epigrams in this collection). 'My ancestor,' said he, 'Mr. Yates of Peel Hall, and Mr. P. Dawson of Hornby Castle, were very lean spare men, and hap