539. Born to be saved. A sarcastic reference to the doctrine of election. 544. Zimri. George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, who in The Rehearsal had satirized Dryden as "John Bayes." In his Discourse Concerning Satire Dryden afterwards wrote: The character of Zimri in my Absalom is, in my opinion, worth the whole poem: 'tis not bloody, but 'tis ridiculous enough; and he for whom it was intended was too witty to resent it as an injury." 585. Shimei. Slingsby Bethel, whom the Whigs had elected one of the two Sheriffs in 1680. 201. 617. No Rechabite, etc. "The words of Jonadab the son of Rechab, that he commanded his sons not to drink wine, are performed; for unto this day they drink none." Jeremiah, xxxv: 14. 202. 817. Barzillai. James Butler, Duke of Ormond, always a staunch loyalist. 899. Amiel. Edward Seymour, who from 1673 to 1679 was Speaker of the House of Commons. 902. The Sanhedrin. The House of Commons. 910. Unequal ruler of the day. Apollo's son Phaethon, who could not guide successfully his father's car of the sun. 203. 921. The true successor. James, Duke of York. MAC FLECKNOE 204. After the release of Shaftesbury in 1681, his Whig friends caused a medal to be struck commemorating the event. Dryden at once published The Medal: A Satire Against Sedition. Among the replies was a violent one by Thomas Shadwell, The Medal of John Bayes. In October, 1682, Dryden answered with Mac Flecknoe, than which nothing illustrates more effectively the caustic nature of his satire. 3. Flecknoe. An inoffensive poet who had died in 1678, over whose shoulder Dryden strikes Shadwell. 29. Heywood and Shirley. Elizabethan dramatists, not deserving of such harsh criticism. 36. To King John of Portugal I sung. King John had entertained Flecknoe at Lisbon. 42. In Epsom blankets tossed. Tossing in a blanket is the punishment visited upon Sir Samuel Hearty in The Virtuoso. There is also a reference to the title of 204. 43. The new Arion. Arion was a Greek musician of the eighth century B. C. 53. St. André. A French dancing-master. 54. Thy own Psyche. One of Shadwell's plays. 205. 57. Singleton. A contemporary singer who had taken the rôle of Villerius in Davenant's The Siege of Rhodes. 64. Fair Augusta. London, which at the 78. Maximin. A defiant character in 79, 80. Buskins, socks. See notes on L'Allegro, l. 132, and Il Penseroso, l. 102. 81. Gentle Simkin. A clown. 84. Panton. "A celebrated punster, according to Derrick." (Scott.) 105. Herringman. A contemporary publisher. 122. Love's Kingdom. A play by Fleck noe. 206. 149. Let Virtuosos, etc. The Virtuoso was a play by Shadwell. 151. Gentle George. Sir George Ether- 163. Let no alien Sedley interpose. Sir 168. Sir Formal. Sir Formal Trifle appears in Shadwell's The Virtuoso. 172. By arrogating Jonson's hostile name. Shadwell was fervid in his praise of Ben Jonson. 179. Prince Nicander. A character in Shadwell's Psyche. 185. Oil on water's flow. Flow is a 207. 43. The Boar. The Anabaptists. 49. In German forests. "The sect originated in Germany, where their early history is connected with a revolt of the peasantry." (Noyes.) 208. 53. False Reynard. The Unitarians. Athanasius (293-373) was instrumental in having the early church embody the Trinitarian conception of God in the Nicene creed. Socinus was opposed to this orthodox Trinitarian belief. 327. The Panther. The Church of England. 338. The Wolf. The Presbyterians. SONG FOR ST. CECILIA'S DAY On this day, November 22, a London musical society annually held a festival in honor of St. Cecilia, patron saint of music. Pope and others wrote similar songs. ALEXANDER'S FEAST 209. 29. Spires. Coils. LINES UNDER THE PORTRAIT OF MILTON 211. The three poets referred to are Homer, Virgil, and Milton. ESSAY OF DRAMATIC POESY 1. Neander. The essay is in dialogue form, Neander representing Dryden; Eugenius may be Charles Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, afterwards Earl of Dorset. 2. The Silent Woman. A play by Ben Jonson. 212. 36. Clenches. Puns. 43. Quantum lenta, etc. As the cypresses rise above the low shrubs. 45. Mr. Hales of Eton. John Hales (1584-1656), fellow of Eton, an English scholar and critic. 54. The last king. Charles I. 84. Humor. A man's particular bent, or ruling passion, was called his "humor." 213. 156. The greater wit. The greater genius. THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS 216. The Dissenters, or Nonconformists, were members of the various anti-episcopal sects which had flourished during the Civil War, had been suppressed, sometimes by the sword, under Charles II and his brother James, and had again revived under the sympathetic government of William III. In the spring of 1702 Anne, a Stuart, succeeded to the throne; in November of the same year a Tory ministry introduced a bill against "occasional conformity." The practice thus attacked was a means whereby Dissenters, through occasional attendance at the Church of England, made themselves eligible to office. Had the bill passed, and the Queen was ardently in favor of it, this avenue of escape would have been closed, and the pains and penalties of the old Stuart régime, with some modifications, would have been again in force. Defoe, a Nonconformist, at once attacked the government in this pamphlet. Writing with an ironic gravity hardly surpassed by Swift in his Modest Proposal, he argued that at last the time had arrived for wiping the Dissenters out of existence, and proposed measures far more rigorous than Tory or High-churchman had dreamed of. At first neither party saw through the veil of irony, and the pamphlet was accepted at its face value. But when the government discovered that it had been hoaxed, Defoe was arrested, fined, exhibited three times in the pillory, and imprisoned in Newgate, and his pamphlet was burned in public by the hangman. 1. Sir Roger L'Estrange. A seventeenth century pamphleteer, founder of The Gazette. 13. Some people. The Nonconformists. 23. Near fourteen years. William III took the throne, by invitation of Parliament, in 1688. 216. 56. Act of Toleration. Passed in 1689, abolishing the old penalties for nonconformity. 217. 72. A Dutch government. William III was Prince of Orange. III. The Huguenots in France. The French Protestants had been persecuted more viciously than English Nonconformists; in 1685 they were expelled from the country. 143. A sordid impostor. Cromwell. 218. 213. Rye House Plot. A conspiracy, discovered in 1683, to murder Charles II and his brother James. Although certain men were executed for their complicity in the plot, many persons felt that there was little besides party jealousy at the bottom of the exposé. 232. The late king. James II. 219. 291. The common enemy. France. 351. The act "De heretico comburendo." For burning heretics. 374. Delenda est Carthago. must be destroyed. Carthage 226. A Tale of a Tub was published anonymously in 1704; Swift had written it some time before, during the closing years of the seventeenth century. It consisted of eleven sections, and was introduced by four satirical prefaces. Of the eleven sections constituting the body of the work, five (II, IV, VI, VIII, XI) contain the story of the three brothers, in the course of which Swift pictures the development of Christian faith to the end of the seventeenth century. The other sections are more general in their import, and, like Gulliver's Travels, expose the vanity and absurdity of human nature in the large. 226. 35. Hobbes's Leviathan. The Leviathan of Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), which appeared in 1651, was an inquiry into the nature of the State, and the theory of government. 227. 25. My will. The New Testament. 52. Duchess D'Argent, etc. Duchess of Money, My Lady of Great Titles, and the Countess of Pride. 63. Locket's, Will's. The first was a London inn; the second, the coffee house which Dryden and the wits of the age frequented. 70. Sub dio. In the open air. 228. 96. A sort of idol. The tailor, god of the fashionable world. 112. Primum mobile. In the Ptolemaic 117. Water-tabby. Tabby was a material, 229. 200. Tertio modo. By a third method. 226. In the passage omitted Swift tells how as the fashions changed, and shoulder knots gave place to gold lace, and gold lace to satin linings, the brothers juggled with their father's will, and in each case gratified their desires. 232. A certain lord. This was Constantine the Great, from whom the popes pretended a donation of St. Peter's patrimony, which they have never been able to produce. (Swift's note.) Section IV tells how Peter, representing the church of Rome, got the upper hand of his brothers after driving the legal heirs out and getting the " certain lord's house for himself. His pride increased with his success; he claimed to be his father's sole heir, and assumed the titles of Father Peter, My Lord Peter, and finally Emperor Peter. When the two other brothers finally protested, Peter drove them from the house. The story is resumed in section VI. 230. 66, 68. Martin. Martin Luther; Jack. John Calvin. Martin stands for the moderate reform in the Church of England; Jack, for the more violent reform of the Dissenters. armed attempts to recover the crown of England, and intrigued with the Spaniards for assistance. 236. " JOURNAL TO STELLA The brightest part of Swift's story, the pure star in that dark and tempestuous life of Swift's, is his love for Hester Johnson. It has been my business, professionally of course, to go through a deal of sentimental reading in my time, and to acquaint myself with love making as it has been described in various languages and at various ages of the world; and I know of nothing more manly, more tender, more exquisitely touching, than some of these brief notes, written in what Swift calls his little language' in his journal to Stella." (Thackeray: Swift, in English Humorists.) In the "little language " MD stands for my dears, Stella and her companion, Mrs. Dingley; or sometimes for Stella alone; Presto is Swift; so is Pdfr. 2. Premunire. A legal term frequently used for a penalty incurred. 20. Harley. Robert Harley, Chancellor of the Exchequer, afterwards Lord Treasurer and Earl of Oxford. 30. Lord Halifax. Statesman and writer, one of the leaders of the Whigs. 71. Will Penn the Quaker. The founder of Pennsylvania. 81. St. John. One of the ablest of the Tory ministry, created Viscount Bolingbroke in 1714. 86. Bring me over. I. e., to the Tory party. 98. Fatal. Fated. 237. 102. Tooke. A London bookseller, who 134. Steele. Steele had lost his office of A young fellow whom Swift befriended and established as editor of a new series of Tatlers, after the failure of Steele's Tatler. 155. Mr. Harley . . . yesterday. Harley had sent Swift a bank note for fifty pounds; this action Swift regarded as an insult. 186. Patrick. Swift's servant, whom he at length was obliged to discharge for drunkenness. 238. 251. Most of the "little language " becomes intelligible on the substitution of certain consonants in place of the ones used; Swift commonly, as in this letter, writes for r, and r for !. Richar = little. FW is "farewell"; ME is Madame Elderly, Mrs. Dingley; and Lele apparently means" there." 238. 256. The Duke of Hamilton had fought with Lord Mohun. The reader of Henry Esmond will recall the use Thackeray makes of this incident. 305. Ben-box sent to Lord-Treasurer. A band-box containing a pair of loaded pistols had been sent to Lord Oxford; the Tories saw in the affair a Whig plot to assassinate him. ADDISON THE CAMPAIGN 239. Addison's poem was published in 1704, celebrating the victory of Marlborough at Blenheim. ADDISON AND STEELE THE TATLER: PROSPECTUS 240. 55. White's Chocolate-house. During Queen Anne's reign the chocolate and coffee-houses served as resorts for men of letters and of fashion much as the taverns had done in the time of Elizabeth. The distinguishing characteristics of the group that frequented the various houses are indicated in Steele's paragraph. 241. 67. Plain Spanish. Perhaps wine; perhaps a syrup made of licorice and wine, which was a favorite throat remedy. 70. Kidney. One of the waiters. 81. A figure. A horoscope. The remaining portion of the essay, which is not here reprinted, consists of letters from the three coffee-houses and from Steele's "own apartment." DUELLING The section here reprinted is the first third of the essay. 10. From hence. From White's Coffeehouse. 242. 88. Ingenuity. Ingenuousness. NED SOFTLY 8. Mr. Bickerstaff. Steele chose this as his pseudonym in writing The Tatler. 243. 36. Little Gothic ornaments. Addison uses the term contemptuously, as equivalent to rude, barbaric. FROZEN WORDS 244. 8. Sir John Mandeville. The name assumed by the author of The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, written c. 1360. The Travels are famous for their exaggerations and wonders. 12. Ferdinand Mendez Pinto. Portuguese adventurer (1509-1583), navigator, and missionary to Japan. His account of his travels, the Peregrination, was published in 1614. 262. 129. The Mantuan Muse. Virgil; the Maro of 1. 130. 138. The Stagirite. Aristotle. 263. 16. The Pierian spring. The sacred well of the Muses in Thessaly. 89. Conceit. Fantastic expression. 264. 137. Numbers. Metrical correctness. 174. Timotheus' varied lays. The reference is to Dryden's Alexander's Feast. THE RAPE OF THE LOCK: CANTO I The poem is founded on an actual occurrence. Lord Petre, the baron of the poem, clipped a lock of Miss Arabella Fermor's hair. John Caryll, a friend of both persons, suggested to Pope that a humorous poem on the subject might relieve the unpleasantness which the theft of the lock occasioned. Miss Fermor appears in the poem as Belinda. In form, the poem is a mock epic, or 'heroicomical poem," retaining many of the external characteristics of the epic, but enlivened throughout by Pope's mildly satirical view of the society he was representing. 265. 18. The pressed watch. A repeater," or watch that would strike the nearest hour. 32. The silver token. Fairies were supposed to put silver coins in the slippers of good house-maids. 44. The Ring. A circular drive in Hyde Park. |