No More Learning

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.


'588 tax:'

blame, find fault with.


'591'

In Pope's time noblemen could take degrees at the English universities
without passing the regular examinations.


'617'

Dryden's 'Fables' published in 1700 represented the very best narrative
poetry of the greatest poet of his day. D'Urfey's 'Tales', on the other
hand, published in 1704 and 1706, were collections of dull and obscene
doggerel by a wretched poet.


'618 With him:'

according to "the bookful blockhead. "


'619 Garth:'

a well-known doctor of the day, who wrote a much admired mock-heroic
poem called 'The Dispensary'. His enemies asserted that he was not
really the author of the poem.
'623'

Such foolish critics are just as ready to pour out their opinions on a
man in St. Paul's cathedral as in the bookseller's shops in the square
around the church, which is called St. Paul's churchyard.


'632 proud to know:'

proud of his knowledge.


'636 humanly:'

an old form for "humanely. "


'642 love to praise:'

a love of praising men.


'648 Maeonian Star:'

Homer. Maeonia, or Lydia, was a district in Asia which was said to have
been the birthplace of Homer.


'652 conquered Nature:'

Aristotle was a master of all the knowledge of nature extant in his day.


'653 Horace:'

the famous Latin poet whose 'Ars Poetica' was one of Pope's models for
the 'Essay on Criticism'.


'662 fle'me:'

phlegm, according to old ideas of physiology, one of the four "humours"
or fluids which composed the body. Where it abounded it made men dull
and heavy, or as we still say "phlegmatic. "


'663-664'

A rather confused couplet. It means, "Horace suffers as much by the
misquotations critics make from his work as by the bad translations that
wits make of them. "


'665 Dionysius:'

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a famous Greek critic. Pope's manner of
reference to him seems to show that he had never read his works.