No More Learning

'79 Dunciad':

see Introduction, p. xviii.


'85 Codrus':

a name borrowed from Juvenal to denote a foolish poet. Pope uses it here
for some conceited dramatist who thinks none the less of himself because
his tragedy is rejected with shouts of laughter.


'96'

Explain the exact meaning of this line.


'97 Bavius':

a stock name for a bad poet. See note on 'Essay on Criticism', l. 34.


'98 Philips':

Ambrose Philips, author among other things of a set of 'Pastorals' that
appeared in the same volume with Pope, 1709. Pope and he soon became
bitter enemies. He was patronized by a Bishop Boulter.


'99 Sappho':

Here as elsewhere Pope uses the name of the Greek poetess for his enemy,
Lady Mary Wortley Montague.


'109 Grubstreet':

a wretched street in London, inhabited in Pope's day by hack writers,
most of whom were his enemies.


'111 Curll'

(see note to l. 53) had printed a number of Pope's letters without the
poet's consent some years before this poem was written.
'113-132'

Pope here describes the flatterers who were foolish enough to pay him
personal compliments. They compare him to Horace who was short like
Pope, though fat, and who seems to have suffered from colds; also to
Alexander, one of whose shoulders was higher than the other, and to
Ovid, whose other name, Naso, might indicate that long noses were a
characteristic feature of his family. Pope really had large and
beautiful eyes. Maro, l. 122, is Virgil.


'123'

With this line Pope begins an account of his life as a poet. For his
precocity, see Introduction, p. xii.


'129 ease:'

amuse, entertain.


'friend, not Wife:'

the reference is, perhaps, to Martha Blount, Pope's friend, and may have
been meant as a contradiction of his reported secret marriage to her.


'132 to bear:'

to endure the pains and troubles of an invalid's life.


'133 Granville:'

George Granville, Lord Lansdowne, a poet and patron of letters to whom
Pope had dedicated his 'Windsor Forest. '


'134 Walsh:'

see note on 'Essay on Criticism,' l. 729.


'135 Garth:'

Sir Samuel Garth, like Arbuthnot, a doctor, a man of letters, and an
early friend of Pope.


'137'

Charles Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury; John, Lord Somers; and John
Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham; all leading statesmen and patrons of
literature in Queen Anne's day.