363 Japhet Japhet Crook, a forger convicted in 1731. He
was jailed and had his ears cut off.
365 Knight of the post one who lived by giving false
evidence for money.
[knight] of the shire an MP for one of the counties.
369 Sappho Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, a former
friend now ‘biting’ Pope.
371 distress The satirist (Pope) wrote a prologue to a play
performed for Dennis’s benefit in 1733.
373 Moore who plagiarized from Pope.
375 Welsted Leonard Welsted, a long-standing enemy of
Pope. It is not certain which particular lie Pope had in
mind.
378 Budgell accused Pope of contributing to the Grub-
Street Journal. He was said to have forged a will in
his own favour.
380 Curlls the publisher (line 53) and Lord Hervey.
391 Bestia a Roman consul who was bribed by the enemy
into making a dishonourable peace, perhaps referring
here to the Duke of Marlborough.
398 schoolman’s subtle art scholastic casuistry.
410 a mother’s breath The lines were written in his
mother’s last illness. She had in fact died by the time
that the epistle was published.
417 queen Arbuthnot had been the physician of Queen
Anne.
THE FIRST SATIRE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF
HORACE IMITATED(1733) Printed alongside the Latin original. It is sometimes
referred to as ‘To Mr Fortescue’. In the ‘Advertisement’ Pope
wrote: ‘The occasion of publishing these Imitations was the
clamour raised on some of my Epistles. An answer from
Horace was both more full, and of more dignity, than any I
could have made in my own person.’ For further discussion
see Critical commentary, pp. 240–1.
3 Peter Peter Walter, MP, a wealthy moneylender to the
aristocracy (see line 40).