No More Learning

'338-339'

An allusion to Pope's abandoning the imaginative topics to his early
poems, as the 'Pastorals' and 'The Rape of the Lock', and turning to
didactic verse as in the 'Essay on Man', and the 'Moral Epistles'.


'347'

An allusion to a story circulated, in an abusive pamphlet called 'A Pop
upon Pope', that the poet had been whipped for his satire and that he
had cried like a child.


'349'

Dull and scandalous poems printed under Pope's name, or attributed to
him by his enemies.


'351 the pictur'd shape':

Pope was especially hurt by the caricatures which exaggerated his
personal deformity.


'353 A friend in exile':

probably Bishop Atterbury, then in exile for his Jacobite opinions.


'354-355'

Another reference to Hervey who was suspected of poisoning the mind of
the King against Pope.


'361 Japhet':

Japhet Crooke, a notorious forger of the time. He died in prison in
1734, after having had his nose slit and ears cropped for his crimes;
see below, l. 365.


'363 Knight of the post':

a slang term for a professional witness ready to, swear to anything for
money. A knight of the shire, on the other hand, is the representative
of a county in the House of Commons.


'367 bit':

tricked, taken in, a piece of Queen Anne slang. The allusion is probably
to the way in which Lady Mary Wortley Montague allowed Pope to make love
to her and then laughed at him.


'369 friend to his distress':

in 1733, when old Dennis was in great poverty, a play was performed for
his benefit, for which Pope obligingly wrote a prologue.


'371'

Colley Gibber, actor and poet laureate.
Pope speaks as if it were an act
of condescension for him to have drunk with Gibber. --'Moore': James
Moore Smythe (see note on l. 23), whom Pope used to meet at the house of
the Blounts. He wrote a comedy, 'The Rival Modes', in which he
introduced six lines that Pope had written. Pope apparently had given
him leave to do so, and then retracted his permission. But Moore used
them without the permission and an undignified quarrel arose as to the
true authorship of the passage.


'373 Welsted',

a hack writer of the day, had falsely charged Pope with being
responsible for the death of the lady who is celebrated in Pope's 'Elegy
to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady'.


'374-375'

There is an allusion here that has never been fully explained. Possibly
the passage refers to Teresa Blount whom Pope suspected of having
circulated slanderous reports concerning his relations with her sister.


'376-377'

Suffered Budgell to attribute to his (Pope's) pen the slanderous gossip
of the 'Grub Street Journal',--a paper to which Pope did, as a matter of
fact, contribute--and let him (Budgell) write anything he pleased except
his (Pope's) will. Budgell, a distant cousin of Addison's, fell into bad
habits after his friend's death. He was strongly suspected of having
forged a will by which Dr. Tindal of Oxford left him a considerable sum
of money. He finally drowned himself in the Thames.


'378 the two Curlls':

Curll, the bookseller, and Lord Hervey whom Pope here couples with him
because of Hervey's vulgar abuse of Pope's personal deformities and
obscure parentage.


'380 Yet why':

Why should they abuse Pope's inoffensive parents?