Alexander Pope: Selected Poetry and Prose

4 Chartres the notorious rake mentioned in the ‘Epistle
to a lady’ (line 64).
6 Lord Fanny Lord Hervey.
8 Counsel Fortescue was a Whig lawyer and friend of
Walpole (as well as a friend of Pope). A lawyer
(Trebatius) had been addressed in the original.
18 Lettuce and cowslip wine to induce sleep.
Probatum est it is proven, a legal phrase.
19 Celsus the chief Roman writer on medicine.
20 Hartshorn ammonia.
21 Caesar ironically referring to George II.
22 bays the laureateship, held from 1730–57 by Colley
Cibber.
23 Sir Richard Blackmore, author of several dull
patriotic epics.
24 Brunswick George II belonged to the house of
Brunswick.
27 Budgell author of a celebration of George II whose
horse had been shot from under him at the battle of
Oudenarde.
31 Amelia the third child of George II and Queen
Caroline.
34 twice a year at new year and on the king’s birthday.
The king disliked poetry.
38 quadrille a fashionable card game slighted in the third
moral essay.
42 Timon...Balaam Timon occurs in the ‘Epistle to
Burlington’ (lines 99ff) and Balaam in the ‘Epistle to
Bathurst’ (lines 399ff); both are composite portraits
and therefore represented by Pope here as fictions.
44 Bond...Harpax a specific target and a general one.
Harpax means robber.
46 Scarsdale...Darty a known drunkard and an epicure.
47 Ridotta a type of society lady, derived from the
Italian for a musical assembly.
49 F—probably Stephen Fox, an MP.
Hockley-hole a beargarden.
52 Shippen a leading Jacobite MP admired for his
honourable loyalty to his cause.