Notes

1] The Dunciad, often regarded as Pope's masterpiece, grew out of Pope's association with Swift and others in the Scriblerus Club. Although Pope did not begin work on the actual poem until around 1726, his work demonstrates a continuity with the aims of his earlier Scriblerian venture. The Dunciad was first published in 1728 in three books in verse without any other apparatus. In 1729, after drawing out critics to attack the poem, Pope published The Dunciad Variorum, which added "Proeme, Prolegomena, Testimonia Scriptorum, Index Authorum, and Notes Variorum" under the editorship of Martinus Scriblerus, the figure of a learned blockhead created by the Scriblerus group. This was Martinus' second major Popean work: the first was the Peri Balhous or the Art of Sinking in Poetry (March 1728). The mocking notes signed "Scriblerus" are included with other authorial notes below. This earlier version of The Dunciad employed Lewis Theobald, a hack dramatist, editor, and scholar as hero. In 1726 Theobald had published a critique of Pope's edition of Shakespeare entitled Shakespeare Restored, or a Specimen of the Many Errors as well Committed as Unamended by Mr. Pope. Theobald's criticism was well taken, for he was a better scholar of Elizabethan literature and a sounder editor than the poet. As a selection for hero, however, the choice was apt for his work showed the pedantic folly, lumbering dulness, and heavy style characteristic of so many of the verbal scholarly analysts of the day. The first book of this version dealt with the selection of a successor to the Kingdom of Dulness, the second book with heroic games to honour the goddess and celebrate the accession of the king, and the third book with a Pisgah vision in which the future of the reign of Dulness is shown to the new king. Echoes of heroic literature from the Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, and Paradise Lost employed throughout. For the next decade, Pope allowed this version of The Dunciad to remain virtually unaltered. In 1741, however, he wrote a fourth book to complete his structure. In this book the satire is extended from the literary world to the world of learning by way of showing the fulfilment of the prophecies in Book III. This fourth book appeared in 1741, under the title The New Dunciad. The next year, Pope revised The New Dunciad and added the first three books with commentary, as well as some additional notes and appendices to his work. This was published under the title The Dunciad, in Four Books. The additional prose material included "the Hypercritics of Aristarchus, and his Dissertation on the Hero of the Poem. " In this expanded and revised version Pope changed his hero from Theobald to Colley Cibber, who is treated as "the anti-Christ of wit." Pope had personal reasons for choosing Cibber, but there were also reasons understandable in terms of Cibber's role in eighteenth-century literature. Colley Cibber (1671-1757) was an incapable Poet Laureate to George II. As a political appointee of Walpole he was somewhat of a yes man, but, more important, he was nationally famous as an actor, dramatist, and theatrical personality, who, while a coxcomb and shallow in intellect, was both shrewd and impudent. He had, for example, compared himself favourably to Ben Jonson, and in his Apology had preached his impudent attitude and defended a box-office view of theatrical worth. In Pope's new version, Cibber became hero because Pope thought the worst dunces were not fools, but men of limited and specialized wisdom who over-rated their abilities.
Pope's summary of The Dunciad is as follows: "The poet being, in this book, to declare the completion of the prophecies mentioned at the end of the former, makes a new invocation; as the greater poets are wont, when some high and worthy matter is to be sung. He shows the Goddess coming in her majesty, to destroy order and science, and to substitute the Kingdom of the Dull upon earth. How she leads captive the Sciences, and silenceth the Muses, and what they be who succeed in their stead. All her children, by a wonderful attraction, are drawn about her; and bear along with them divers others, who promote her empire by connivance, weak resistance, or discouragement of arts; such as half-wits, tasteless admirers, vain pretenders, the flatterers of dunces, or the patrons of them. All these crowd round her; one of them offering to approach her is driven back by a rival, but she commends and encourages both. The first who speak in form are the geniuses of the schools, who assure her of their care to advance her cause, by confining youth to words, and keeping them out of the way of real knowledge. Their address, and her gracious answer; with her charge to them and the universities. The universities appear by their proper deputies, and assure her that the same method is observed in the progress of education. The speech of Aristarchus on this subject. They are driven off by a band of young gentlemen returned from travel with their tutors; one of whom delivers to the Goddess, in a polite oration, an account of the whole conduct and fruits of their travels: presenting to her at the same time a young nobleman perfectly accomplished. She receives him graciously, and endues him with the happy quality of want of shame. She sees loitering about her a number of indolent persons abandoning all business and duty, and dying with laziness: To these approaches the Antiquary Annius, entreating her to make them virtuosos, and assign them over to him: But Mummius, another antiquary, complaining of his fraudulent proceeding, she finds a method to reconcile their difference. Then enter a troop of people fantastically adorned, offering her strange and exotic presents: Amongst them, one stands forth and demands justice on another, who had deprived him of one of the greatest curiosities in nature: but he justifies himself so well, that the Goddess gives them both her approbation. She recommends to them to find proper employment for the indolents before-mentioned, in the study of butterflies, shells, birds' nests, moss, etc., but with particular caution, not to proceed beyond trifles, to any useful or extensive views of Nature, or of the Author of Nature. Against the last of these apprehensions, she is secured by a hearty address from the minute philosophers and freethinkers, one of whom speaks in the name of the rest. The youth, thus instructed and principled, are delivered to her in a body, by the hands of Silenus, and then admitted to taste the cup of the Magus, her High Priest, which causes a total oblivion of all obligations, divine, civil, moral, or rational. To these her adepts she sends priests, attendants, and comforters, of various kinds; confers on them orders and degrees; and then dismissing them with a speech, confirming to each his privileges, and telling what she expects from each, concludes with a yawn of extraordinary virtue: The progress and effects whereof on all orders of men, and the consummation of all, in the restoration of Night and Chaos, conclude the poem.

2] dread Chaos and eternal Night: cf. Paradise Lost, II, 894-1009.

3] darkness visible: Paradise Lost, I, 63.

7] force inertly strong: "[Pope] Alluding to the Vis inertiae of Matter, which, though it really be no Power, is yet the Foundation of all the Qualities and Attributes of that sluggish Substance."

9] Dog Star's ... ray: cf. Epistle to Arbuthnot, note on line 3.

10] bay: wreath of leaves indicating poetic power in the classical world.

11] owl: sacred to Athene, the goddess of wisdom.

15] Of dull and venal: "[Pope] The allegory continued; dull referring to the extinction of Light or Science, venal to the destruction of Order, or the Truth of Things."

16] Saturnian days. Saturn's reign was the legendary "golden age," but Saturn is also the name for lead. The new Saturnian age is leaden in dulness and golden in its love of money.

18] all below reveal'd: "[Pope] Vet. Adg. The higher you climb, the more you show your A ... Verified in no instance more than in Dulness aspiring. Emblematized also by an Ape climbing and exposing his posteriors...."

26] Billingsgate: abusive language.

28] furs: the ermine robe of the judges; hence, the law.
lawn: fine linen used in sleeves of bishops' robes; hence, the church.

31] Mathésis: i.e., mathematics.

35-36] Pope refers to the Act of 1737 requiring that plays be licensed.

39] But sober History. ''[W.] History attends on tragedy, satire on comedy, as their substitutes in discharge of their distinct functions...."

41] Thalia: the Muse of Comedy.

43] Nor couldst thou.... "[Pope] This Noble Person in the year 1737, when the Act aforesaid was brought into the House of Lords, opposed it in an excellent speech . . ." (Srible).

45] Harlot form. "[Pope] The attitude given to this phantom represents the nature and genius of the Italian opera; its affected airs, its effeminate sounds, and the practice of patching up these operas with favourite songs, incoherently put together. These things were supported by the subscriptions of the nobility. This circumstance that opera should prepare for the opening of the grand Sessions was prophesied of in Bk. III, line 304: 'Already Opera prepares the way,/The sure forerunner of her gentle sway'."

53] that train: the Muses.

54] "[Pope] Alluding to the false taste of playing tricks in Music with numberless divisions, to the neglect of that harmony which conforms to the sense, and applies to the passions. Mr. Handel had introduced a great number of hands, and more variety of instruments into the orchestra, and employed even drums and cannon to make a fuller chorus; which proved so much too manly for the fine gentlemen of his age, that he was obliged to remove his music into Ireland ...."
division: (1) music, variations on a theme; (2) discord. chromatic: refers to chromaticism in music, characterized by the extensive use of altered chords, appoggiaturas, etc., in order to heighten the emotional tension of music.

61] another Phoebus. "[Pope] Tuus jam regnat Apollo [Virgil, Eclogues, 410]. Not the ancient Phoebus, the god of harmony, but a modern Phoebus of French extraction, married to the Princess Galimathia, one of the handmaids of Dulness and assistant to Opera, of whom see Bouhors and other critics of that nation [Scrib. P.,W.]". Bouhors in the Art of Logick and Rhetorick says, "The French express this kind of nonsense by the term 'Phebus; in which figure, if we may so call it, there must be an appearance of light glimmering over the obscurity, a semblance of meaning without any real sense; whereas in Galimathias the obscurity is complete . . ." [trans. J. Oldmixon, 1728]. Pope echoes Virgil's messianic eclogue in the opening line of the note. This relates to the theme of the anti-Christ of wit.

64] If music meanly borrows aid from sense; i.e., as in Handel's oratorios.

65] Handel: Georg Friedrich Handel (1685-1759), composer and conductor, patronized by Pope's friend Burlington, one of the leading musical figures of the day.

66] Briareus: the hundred-headed giant of Greek myth.

70] Hibernian shore: Ireland, where Handel was enjoying great success after neglect in England. Cf. note on line 54.

71] Fame's posterior trumpet: "[P., W.] Posterior, viz. her second or more certain report: unless we imagine this word posterior to relate to the position of her trumpets...."

73-78] The young ... around. The metaphor is Newtonian.

79] orb on orb: cf. Paradise Lost, V, 596: the angels responding to the "imperial summons."

84] vortex: "in older theories of the universe (esp. Descartes) a supposed rotary movement of cosmic matter around a centre or axis . . ." (OED). The language in this paragraph is also meant to suggest Newton's theories.

88] toupee: "a curl or artificial lock of hair, esp. as a crowning feature of a periwig."

93] Phoebus: here, Apollo proper. Cf. line 61. Baal: Local deity of the Cannanites (e.g., Jos. 13-17), here used in the sense of any false god.

94] Word: in the theological sense of Christ, the Word, as well. See note to line 61 and introductory materials describing Cibber as anti-Christ of wit.

96] Withold ... head: neglect the poet while alive and commemorate him in sculpture after he is dead.

100] the Muse's hypocrite: ''[W.] He who thinks the only end of poetry is to amuse, and the only business of the poet is to be witty."

103-04] Narcissus: see Moral Epistle II, note on line 53.

105] Montalto: "[P., W.] An eminent person [Sir Thomas Hanmer], who was about to publish a very pompous Edition of a great Author [Shakespeare], at his own expense. Sir Thomas Hanmer (1677-1746), baronet, Speaker of the House of Commons, and editor of Shakespeare. Although Hanmer was pompous and dull, he is included chiefly because of his quarrel with Warburton about the edition of Shakespeare.

110] bold Benson. "[P., W.] This man endeavoured to raise himself to fame by erecting monuments, strikingcoins, setting up heads, and procuring translations, of Milton; and afterwards by as great passion for Arthur Johnston, a Scotch physician's version of the Psalms, of which he printed many fine editions. See more of him, Bk. III, 1. 325."

112] Johnston: see note on line 110.

116] Apollo's Mayor and Aldermen: the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford and the heads of the various colleges.

117] gold-capped youths: the gold tassel on the gentleman-commoner's hats.

121-22] Medea ... Aeson: "[P., W.] Of whom Ovid (very applicable to these, restored authors) Aeson miratur /Dissimilenque animum subiit.... " In Metamorphoses, VIII, Medea, at Jason's request restores the youth of his father by removing his blood and replacing it with her magic concoction.

123] standard. Pope is playing with the sense of "banner" as well as "admitted merit."

137, 138] Dunce scorning dunce. "[W.] This is not to be ascribed so much to the different manners of a court and a college, as to the different effects which a pretence to learning and a pretence to wit, have on Blockheads. For as Judgment consists in finding out the differences in things and wit in finding out their likenesses, so the dunce is all discord and dissension, and constantly busied in reproving, examining, confuting, etc. while the Fop flourishes in peace, with Songs and Hymns of Praise, Addresses, Characters, Epithalamiums, etc."

139-74] Pope's portrait is general, not specific--the schoolmaster as dunce.

141] beaver'd brown i.e., wearing the scholar's furred cap.

142] Cf. Moloch in Paradise Lost, 1, 392-93: "besmear'd with blood/Of human sacrifice and parents' tears."

144] Winton: Winchester College.

145] Westminster: Westminster School.

147] boy senator: new member of Parliament graduated from one of the schools mentioned in the text.

151] like the Samian letter. "[P., W.] The letter Y, used by Pythagoras as an emblem of the different roads of Virtue and Vice. Et tibi quae Samios diduxit litera ramos. Persius [Satire iii, 56]."

160] pale: fenced-in area.

162] We hang one jingling padlock: refers to the old classical educational strategy of employing rhymes to assist the memory.

166] House or Hall: Westminster Hall and the House of Commons.

167] Wyndham: William Wyndham (1687-1740), leader of Tory opposition and close ally of Bolingbroke.

168] Talbot: Charles Talbot, Baron Talbot (1685-1737), Lord Chancellor 1733. Pope wrote an elaborate commendation of Talbot in the original edition of Moral Essay III but later omitted it.

169] Murray: William Murray, first Earl of Mansfield (1705-93), lawyer and Parliamentarian who gained fame and popularity by a speech in support of the merchant's petition concerning Spanish depredation, 1738.

170] Pult'ney: William Pulteney, Earl of Bath (1684-1764), Parliamentary opponent of Walpole after 1721, who was acquainted with Gay, Pope, and Swift.

174] that masterpiece of man: "[P., W.| Viz. an Epigram. The famous Dr. South declared a perfect Epigram to be as difficult a performance as an Epic Poem. And the Critics say, "an Epic Poem is the greatest work human nature is capable of.

176] James 1: renowned for his pedantic learning.

182] arbitrary sway. James was a learned proponent of the Divine Right of Kings. Cf. line 188.

190] sable shoal: referring to the crowd of professors in academic robes and comparing them to a school of fish.

193] Isis: Oxford.

194] Christ Church. Pope excepted this college of Oxford because of the group of wits there (e.g., Atterbury, Freind, who attacked Bentley).

196] still expelling Locke. "[P., W.] In the year 1703 there was a meeting of the heads of the University of Oxford to censure Mr. Locke's Essay on Human Understanding, and to forbid the reading it. See his Letters in the last Edition."

198] Crousaz ... Burgersdyck: Jean Pierre de Crousaz (1663-1748), Swiss logician, who had attacked Pope's Essay on Man for its Leibnitzian ideas. His attack was based on a French translation. Francis Burgersdyck (1590-1629) was a Dutch professor of logic and philosophy.

199] "[P., W.] The River Cam; running by the walls of these Colleges, which are particularly famous for their skill in Disputation."

200] Margaret, Clare Hall: Cambridge colleges.

201 ff.] Bentley: cf. Epistle to Arbuthnot, note on line 64. Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, tempestuous, because he quarrelled with his fellows.

202] sleeps in port: "[P., W.] 'Now retired into harbour, after the tempests that had long agitated his society.' So Scriblerus. But the learned Scipio Maffei understands it of a certain Wine called Port, from Oporto, a city of Portugal, of which this Professor invited him to drink abundantly. SCIP. MAFF. De Compotationibus Academicis."

206] Walker: Dr. Richard Walker (1679-1764), Vice-Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1734. A close friend and ally of Bentley; with reverence refers ironically to the fact that he was a Doctor of Divinity as well as Professor of Moral Philosophy.

207] "He kingly, did but nod": Paradise Lost, XI, 249-507 "--He, kingly, from his State/Declin'd not--."

208] upright. Pope is punning on the word alluding to the fact that Quakers do not bow when they worship.

210] Aristarchus: "[P., W.] A famous Commentator, and Corrector of Homer, whose name has been frequently used to signify a complete Critic." The complete 1743 edition of The Dunciad was preceded by the "Hypocritics of Aristarchus" and "Aristarchus on the Hero of the Poem." At this point Pope applies the name to Bentley. In the introductory sections it is used as a separate persona.

211] scholiast: commentator.

212] Made Horace dull, and humbled Milton's strains: refers to Bentley's editions of Horace, 1711, and of Paradise Lost, 1732.

215-18] Roman ... all. Bentley made the major discovery of the importance of the Greek letter digamma (F) in Homeric poetry.

217] like Saul: Saul "from his shoulders and upward ... was higher than any of his people" (I Samuel 9:2).

220-22] Disputes ... K: used as examples of academic controversies which assume greater importance than they deserve.

223-24] Freind: Robert Freind (1667-1751), Headmaster of Westminster School. 223-24.
Pope said the portraits "go on Horace's old method of telling a friend some less fault while you're commending him."

224] Alsop: Dr. Anthony Alsop (d. 1726), poet and scholar, admired for his Latinity and for a translation of Aesop. He was after considered to be indecorous often in his jokes.

225] Pliny: Roman man of letters, especially noted for his Natural History, whose chapters on painting and sculpture were of great artistic importance.

226] Manilius: Latin poet who wrote the Astronomica, a didactic poem dealing with astrology. Bentley wrote a commentary on this relatively prosaic work.
Solinus: a third-century Latin writer who wrote the Collectanea rerum memorabilium, an epitome of Pliny's Natural History.

227] attic phrase. "Let no one doubt, then, that of the three styles that of the Attics is by far the best ... there is something common to all that is written in this style, ... a keen and exact judgment" (Quintilian, Institutes of Oratory, XII, x, 21).

228 ff.] Suidas, Gellius, Stobaeus. "[P., W.] The first a Dictionary writer, a collector of impertinent facts and barbarous words; the second a minute Critic; the third an author, who gave his Commonplace book to the public, where we happen to find much Mincemeat of old books."

237] Kuster: Ludolph Kuster (1670-1716), a Westphalian scholar whom Bentley assisted with an edition of the lexicographer Suidas.
Burman: Peter Burman (1668-1741), Dutch scholar who published Bentley's emendations to the fragments of Menander and Philemon.
Wasse: Joseph Wasse (1672-1738), a classical scholar, who addressed a Latin elegy to Bentley and assisted Kuster in his edition of Suidas.

244] And such Divinity without a {{Novs}}. "[P., W.] A word much affected by the learned Aristarchus [Bentley] in common conversation to signify genius or natural acumen. But this passage has a further view: {{Nous}} was the Platonic term for Mind, or the first Cause, and that system of Divinity is here hinted at which terminates in blind Nature without a {{Nous}}: such as the Poet afterwards describes (speaking of the dreams of one of these later Platonists) [see lines 486-87]."

245] Barrow ... Atterbury. "[P., W.] Isaac Barrow [1630-1677], Master of Trinity, Francis Atterbury, Dean of Christ Church both great Geniuses and eloquent Preachers; one more conversant in the sublime Geometry, the other in classical Learning; but who equally made it their care to advance the polite Arts in their several Societies."
block: (1) block of stone used by sculptor, (2) blockhead.

247] the heavy canon. "[P., W.] Cannon here, if spoken of artillery, is in the plural number; if of the canons of the house, in the singular, and meant only of one; in which case I suspect the pole to be a false reading, and that it should be the poll, or head of that canon. It may be objected, that this is a mere paronomasia or pun. But what of that? Is any figure of speech more apposite to our gentle Goddess, or more frequently used by her and her Children, especially of the University? Doubtless it better suits the Character of Dulness, yea of a Doctor, than that of an Angel; yet Milton fear'd not to put a considerable quantity into the mouths of his. It hath indeed been observed, that they were the Devil's Angels, as if he did it to suggest the Devil was the Author as well of false wit, as of false Religion, and that the Father of Lies was also the Father of Puns. But this is idle: It must be own'd a Christian practice, used in the primitive times by some of the Fathers, and later by most of the Sons of the Church; till the debauch'd reign of Charles the second, when the shameful Passion for Wit overthrew every thing: and even then the best Writers admitted it, provided it was obscene, under the name of the Double entendre. Scribl."

267] cement: accent on the first syllable.

274] Ajax's spectre. "[Scriblerus, W.] See Homer Odyssey xi, where the Ghost of Ajax turns sullenly from Ulysses ... who had succeeded against him in the dispute for the arms of Achilles."

459 ff.] Pope refers to Deistical clergymen who sought to rationalize the element of mystery, i.e., revelation, out of Christianity.

462] "[P., W.] Alluding to a ridiculous and absurd way of some Mathematicians, in calculating the gradual decay of Moral Evidence by mathematical proportions: according to which calculation, in about fifty years it will be no longer probable that Julius Caesar was in Gaul, or died in the Senate House. See Craig's Theologiae Christianae Principia Mathematica. But as it seems evident, that facts of a thousand years old, for instance, are now as probable as they were five hundred years ago; it is plain that if in fifty more they quite disappear, it must be owing, not to their Arguments, but to the extraordinary Power of our Goddess; for whose help therefore they have reason to pray."
moral evidence: the argument from morality that the Christian narrative is true.

463] implicit faith: faith based on the Church's authority.

471] the high priori road. "[P., W.] Those who, from the effects in this Visible world, deduce the Eternal Power and Godhead of the First Cause, though they cannot attain to an adequate idea of the Deity, yet discover so much of him, as enables them to see the End of their Creation, and the Means of their Happiness: whereas they who take this high Priori Road (such as Hobbes, Spinoza, Descartes, and some better Reasoners) for one that goes right, ten lose themselves in Mists, or ramble after Visions, which deprive them of all sight of their End, and mislead them in the choice of wrong means."

473] Make Nature still. "[P., W.] This relates to such as, being ashamed to assert a mere Mechanic Cause, and yet unwilling to forsake it entirely, have had recourse to a certain Plastic Nature, Elastic Fluid, Subtile Matter, etc."

475-76] "[P., W.] The first of these Follies is that of Descartes; the second of Hobbes; the third of some succeeding Philosophers."

479] local: applying Virtue only to man and his world, not relating it to God's eternal world.

484] Such as Lucretius drew. In De Natura Rerum, I, 57. Lucretius describes the gods as having no thought for mankind.

487] Or that bright image. "[Scriblerus, W.] Bright Image was the Title given by the later Platonists to the Idea of Nature, which they had formed in their fancy, so bright, that they called it {{autopton agalna}}, or the Self-seen Image--i.e., seen by its own light."

488-90] Which Theocles... academic groves. Theocles is the philosopher and main speaker in Shaftesbury's dialogue The Moralists, a Philosophical Rhapsody, who rhapsodizes about "Nature" as if Nature were God.

492] Tindal: Matthew Tindal (1657-l733), a well-known Deist author of Christianity as Old as the Creation (1730), a book illustrating that revelation was unnecessary. Silenus. "[P., W.] Silenus was an Epicurean Philosopher, as appears from Virgil Eclogue vi, where he sings the principles of that Philosophy in his drink."

493] bousy: boozy.

494] seeds of fire: "[P., W.] The Epicurean language, Semina rerum, or Atoms, Virgil Eclogue vi [31 ff.]. Semina ignis--semina flammae."

496] gown: i.e., a clerical gown.

510] pension ... punk. They have become enslaved to the court or to mistresses (punk: whore).

511] K--B--: never have been identified with certainty, although they may be the Duke of Kent and the third Earl of Berkeley.

513] W--: perhaps the Earl of Warrick.

517] With that a wizard old... "[Scriblerus] Here beginneth the celebration of the greater Mysteries of the Goddess, which the Poet in his Invocation ver. 5, promised to sing. For when now each Aspirant, as was the custom, had proved his qualification and claim to a participation, the High Priest of Dulness first initiateth the Assembly by the usual way of Libation. And then each of the Initiated, as was always required, putteth on a new Nature, described from ver. 518 to 529. When the High-Priest and Goddess have thus done their parts, each of them is delivered into the hands of his Conductor, an inferior Minister or Hierophant, whose names are Impudence, Stupefaction, Self-conceit, self-interest, Pleasure, Epicurism, etc., to lead them through the several apartments of her Mystic Dome or Palace. When all this is over, the sovereign Goddess, from ver. 565 to 600 conferreth her Titles and Degrees; rewards inseparably attendant on the participation of the Mysteries .... Hence being enriched with so many various Gifts and Graces, Initiation into the Mysteries was anciently, as well as in these our times, esteemed a necessary qualification for every high office and employment, whether in Church or State. Lastly the great Mother shutteth up the Solemnity with her gracious benediction, which concludeth in drawing the Curtain, and laying all her Children to rest. It is to be observed that Dulness, before this her Restoration, had her Pontiffs in Partibus; who from time to time held her Mysteries in secret, and with great privacy. But now, on her Re-establishment, she celebrateth them, like those of the Cretans (the most ancient of all Mysteries) in open day, and offereth them to the inspection of all men." The Wizard, as Elwin and Courthope suggest, is almost certainly Walpole. In the lines that follow, Pope is probably thinking in particular of William Pulteney. Though he was not made Earl of Bath till 1742, Pulteney had been growing steadily more lukewarm in opposition, and rumours that he was willing to be silenced by a peerage had been circulating for some years. The concluding sentence of Warburton's note seems to suggest that the dull are not longer confined to particular societies (e.g., Freemasons): they have now overflowed into public life.
cup: Walpole's payroll joined to the cup of Circe (cf. line 528 n.). See also Odyssey, Bk. X.

520] Star: worn by the Knights of the Garter or Knights of the Bath.
Endymion: given eternal youth and placed in an eternal state of sleep for love of Selene, the moon.

521] feather: worn in their caps by knights of the Garter.

528] still keep the human shape. "[P., W.] The effects of the Magus's cup are just contrary to that of Circe. Hers took away the shape and left the human mind: This takes away the mind and leaves the human shape."

532] Cimmerian. In Homer, this fabulous group lives in a land of mist and cloud where the sun never shines. Pope plays with the phonetic similarity to Cibberian.

538] party-colour'd: playing with the word "party."

541] Siren sisters: the Muses of opera compared ironically to the Sirens (see the Odyssey, Book XII).

545] C--, H--, P--, R--, K--: probably Lords William Cowper, Simon Harcourt, Thomas Parker, Robert Raymond, and Peter King: men of importance whose children did not amount to much.

549 ff.] Pope applies religious terms to cookery.

553] specious miracles: punning on the theological terminology of "species." specious: "outwardly respectable" (OED), but punning on the root sense from Latin, speciouosus (fair).

556] seve: "the fineness and strength of flavour proper to any particular wine" (OED). verdeur: "piquancy (as applied to wine)" (OED).

558] Perigord ... Bayonne. These places were famous for these products respectively.

560-61] Bladen ... Knight: "[P., W.] Names of Gamesters. Bladen is a black man. Robert Knight, Cashier of the South Sea Company, who fled from England in 1720 (afterwards pardoned in 1742).--These lived with the utmost magnificence at Paris, and kept open Tables frequented by persons of the first Quality of England, and even by Princes of the Blood of France."

568] Who ... Court: referring to lawyers who dabbled in Shakespearean criticism.

569] vertú: a taste for the arts.

570] F.R.S.: Fellow of the Royal Society.

572] Pythagoras: Greek philosopher who advanced mathematical, geometrical, and astronomical science, and made ascetic demands on his disciples with respect to food and to preserving an absolute silence. There was a strong element of mathematical mysticism in the Pythagorean sect, and Pope is paralleling this to the secrecy and geometrical symbolism of the Freemasons.

574] an annual feast: annual banquet of a learned society.

576] Gregorians and Gormogon: two associations founded to ridicule the Freemasons.

578] Cam: Cambridge.
her: Dulness.

585-96] These lines describe the several careers open to the Followers of Dulness: horse racing (585), foot racing (586), stage-coach travel (587-88), drawing butterfies (589), weaving silk made by spiders (590), the Revels of the Inns of Court (591), Parliamentarians as cricketeers (592), clerics as gourmets (593-94).

590] Arachne: challenged Athena to a weaving match and was turned into a spider.

599] son: probably Walpole.

605] but yawned. "[P., W.] This verse is truly Homerical; as is the conclusion of the Action, where the great Mother composes all, in the same manner as Minerva at the period of the Odyssey."
yawn'd ... nods: with puns on both words.

608] leaden: cf. "Saturnian age of lead and gold."
Gilbert: John Gilbert (1693-1761), Bishop of Llandof at the time, presumably an eloquent and impressive preacher.

610] Convocation: House of Convocation, an ecclesiastical assembly of the Church of England.

612] unison: monotone.

614] Palinurus: Aeneas' pilot, who fell into the sea. Pope here applies the name to Walpole, the pilot of the Ship of State.

615] vapour: see Rape of the Lock, IV.

620] Wits have short memories. "[P., W.] This seems to be the reason why the Poets, whenever they give us a Catalogue, constantly call for help on the Muses, who, as the Daughters of Memory, are obliged not to forget anything. So Homer Iliad ii 788 ff., And Virgil Aeneid vii 645-646. But our Poet had yet another reason for putting this Task upon the Muse, that all besides being asleep, She only could relate what passed. Scribl."

629] the sable throne behold. "[W.] The sable thrones of Night and Chaos, here represented as advancing to extinguish the light of the sciences in the first place blot out the colours of Fancy, and damp the fire of Wit, before they proceed to their greater work."

635-36] As one by one: Seneca, Medea, IV, ii, where Medea's charm includes an address to the skies.

637] As Argus' eyes. Hermes, the messenger god, at Zeus's request, put to sleep the hundred-eyed giant Argus, who had been set to guard Io and then killed him. See Ovid, Metamorphoses, 1, 622 ff., esp. 687-97, 713-14.

641] "[Pope] Alluding to the saying of Democritus, That Truth lay at the bottom of a deep well, from whence he had drawn her: Though Butler says, He first put her in, before he drew her out."

654] uncreating word: alludes to the Word (logos).

Other poems by Alexander Pope