Alexander Pope: Selected Poetry and Prose

espaliers trellis-work for the support of trees or
shrubs.
94 Dryads in Greek myth the spirits that inhabit
trees.
98 alley a walk in a garden generally bordered with trees
or bushes; an avenue.
99 Timon like Villario and Sabinus, an imaginary
character, though many of the details were drawn
from contemporary examples. Pope’s enemies
identified the villa with Cannons, the country seat of
the Duke of Chandos, who had earlier been a patron
of Pope. The poet denied this, and it is acknowledged
to be a composite portrait.
104 Brobdignag land of the giants in Swift’s Gulliver’s
Travels (1726).
117 Grove nods at grove See Critical commentary, p. 239.
118 platform a raised terrace.
123 Amphitrite a sea goddess.
126 Nilus’ dusty urn Nilus, the river god, whose urn is
incongruously dry instead of being the source of a
fountain.
127 majestic mien a grand facial expression and
demeanour.
136 Aldus...Du Sueil Aldo Manutio (1449–1515), the
famous Venetian printer of the classics, and the Abbé
du Sueil, an early eighteenth-century binder.
138 they are wood refers to the practice of filling the
upper shelves of libraries in great houses with painted
wooden books.
139 Locke John Locke (1632–1704), the recent
philosopher of enlightened and tolerant views.
146 Verrio or Laguerre Antonio Verrio painted ceilings at
Windsor and Hampton Court, and Louis Laguerre at
Blenheim.
154 Tritons water outlets in the shape of the classical sea
god, Triton.
156 hecatomb a solemn sacrifice of a hundred beasts.
160 Sancho’s dread doctor In Don Quixote by Cervantes,
the hungry Sancho is prevented from eating by a