No More Learning

'79 Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts':

these are the losing cards played by Belinda and the third player on the
baron's winning diamonds.


'99'

Pope's old enemy, Dennis, objected to the impropriety of Belinda's
filling the sky with exulting shouts, and some modern critics have been
foolish enough to echo his objection. The whole scene is a masterpiece
of the mock-heroic. The game is a battle, the cards are warriors, and
Belinda's exclamations of pleasure at winning are in the same fashion
magnified into the cheers of a victorious army.


'100 long canals':

the canals which run through the splendid gardens of Hampton Court, laid
out by William III in the Dutch fashion.


'106 The berries crackle':

it would seem from this phrase that coffee was at that time roasted as
well as ground in the drawing-room. In a letter written shortly after
the date of this poem Pope describes Swift as roasting coffee "with his
own hands in an engine made for that purpose. "

Coffee had been introduced into England about the middle of the
seventeenth century. In 1657 a barber who had opened one of the first
coffeehouses in London was indicted for "making and selling a sort of
liquor called coffee, as a great nuisance and prejudice of the
neighborhood. " In Pope's time there were nearly three thousand
coffee-houses in London.


'The mill':

the coffee-mill.


'107 Altars of Japan':

japanned stands for the lamps.


'117-118'

The parenthesis in these lines contains a hit at the would-be omniscient
politicians who haunted the coffee-houses of Queen Anne's day, and who
professed their ability to see through all problems of state with their
eyes half-shut. Pope jestingly attributes their wisdom to the inspiring
power of coffee.


'122 Scylla':

the daughter of King Nisus in Grecian legends.
Nisus had a purple hair
and so long as it was untouched he was unconquerable. Scylla fell in
love with one of his enemies and pulled out the hair while Nisus slept.
For this crime she was turned into a bird. The story is told in full in
Ovid's 'Metamorphoses', Bk. VIII.


'127 Clarissa':

it does not appear that Pope had any individual lady in mind. We do not
know, at least, that any lady instigated or aided Lord Petre to cut off
the lock.


'144 An earthly Lover':

we know nothing of any love affair of Miss Fermor's. Pope mentions the
"earthly lover" here to account for Ariel's desertion of Belinda, for he
could only protect her so long as she "rejected mankind"; compare Canto
I, ll. 67-68.


'147 Forfex':

a Latin word meaning scissors.


'152'

Pope borrowed this idea from Milton, who represents the wound inflicted
on Satan, by the Archangel Michael as healing immediately--

Th' ethereal substance closed
Not long divisible.

--'Paradise Lost', VI, 330-331.


'165 Atalantis': 'The New Atalantis',

a four-volume "cornucopia of scandal" involving almost every public
character of the day, was published by a Mrs. Manley in 1709. It was
very widely read.