No More Learning

It is worth
noting that both Dryden and Pope rewrote parts of Chaucer in modern
English.


'506-507'

Explain why "wit" is feared by wicked men and shunned by the virtuous,
hated by fools, and "undone" or ruined by knaves.


'521 sacred':

accursed, like the Latin 'sacer'.


'527 spleen':

bad temper.


'534 the fat age':

the reign of Charles II, as ll. 536-537 show, when literature became
notoriously licentious.


'538 Jilts . . . statesmen':

loose women like Lady Castlemaine and the Duchess of Portsmouth had
great influence on the politics of Charles II's time, and statesmen of
that day like Buckingham and Etheredge wrote comedies.


'541 Mask':

it was not uncommon in Restoration times for ladies to wear a mask in
public, especially at the theater. Here the word is used to denote the
woman who wore a mask.


'544 a Foreign reign':

the reign of William III, a Dutchman. Pope, as a Tory and a Catholic,
hated the memory of William, and here asserts, rather unfairly, that his
age was marked by an increase of heresy and infidelity.


'545 Socinus':

the name of two famous heretics, uncle and nephew, of the sixteenth
century, who denied the divinity of Christ.
'549'

Pope insinuates here that the clergy under William III hated an absolute
monarch so much that they even encouraged their hearers to question the
absolute power of God.


'551 admir'd:'

see note l. 391.


'552 Wit's Titans:'

wits who defied heaven as the old Titans did the gods. 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.