94. [What does impertinence mean here? What is its etymological meaning?] 96. [What is meant by treat?] See below, and Prior to Swift: "I have treated Lady Harriot at Cambridge, (a Fellow of a College treat!) and spoke verses to her in a gown and cap," &c. 41. 100. They keep re-arranging the affections, so to speak. Comp. Addison : Fans, silks, ribbands, laces, and gewgaws lay so thick together, that the heart was nothing else but a toyshop." [What is the sense of moving here ?] 101. Warburton quotes from Statius: 'Jam clypeus clypeis, umbone repellitur umbo, Ense minax ensis, pede pes, et cuspide cuspis." 102. Beau had been so completely adopted that it formed its plural according to the English rule. In Warburton's edition the French plural appears. drive: i.e. drive out, expel. 105. [What is meant by thy protection claim? What other meaning might the words have, not here, but with another context?] 108. "The language of the Platonists, the writers of the intelligible world of spirits," &c. (Pope.) 110. We should rather say "this morning's sun." 112. [What is meant here by pious? What other meaning has the word ?] 113. all thy guardian can = all that is in thy guardian's power. Comp. Dryden apud Johnson: "Mæcenas and Agrippa, who can most With Cæsar, are his foes." "The Rosicrucian doctrine was delivered only to Adepts, with the utmost caution, and under the most solemn injunctions of secrecy." (Warburton.) 42. 115. Shock. "A rough-coated dog." (Halliwell's Dict.) Shoughs" are mentioned as a species of dog in Macbeth, III. i. 94. "I would fain know," writes Locke, "why a shock and a hound are not distinct species." The word is cognate with shaggy, shag-haired. (Shakspere, 2 Henry VI. III. i. 367.) [What difference would our modern usage make in this line?] 121. Toilet is strictly the cloth covering the dressing-table; a diminutive of French toile. 128. Pride. Comp. Piers Ploughman, Prol. 23: "And some putten hem to pruyde; apparailed hem thereafter In contenaunce of clothing comen disguised." So in R. Brunne's Handlyng Synne, of Pride, amongst the Seven deadly Sins (Ed. Furnivall, for the Roxburgh Club). 131. [What is meant by nicely?] 138. See Vicar of Wakefield, chap. iv. See Spectator, No. 478; Prior's Hans Carvel: "An untouch'd Bible grac'd her toilet; No fear that hand of hers should spoil it." 146. set = adjust, arrange. See Swift's Cadenus and Vanessa: CANTO II. 152. [What does Lanch'd mean here? what is its strict meaning?] the silver Thames. See Spenser's Proth, 11. 43. 161. [What is meant by strike ?] 43. 167. to. Comp. Psalm xv. 4; 2 Kings xiv. 10, &c. "As a woodcock to my own springe, Osrick, 175. insnare = ensnare. So inquire, enquire, &c. Some persons pronounce "And tho' it be a two-foot trout, 'Tis with a single hair pulled out." Disraeli, in the Curiosities of Literature (in his chapter on "Poetical Imitations and Similarities "), more aptly, from Howell: ""Tis a powerful sex: they were too strong for the first, the strongest and wisest man that was; they must needs be strong when one hair of a woman can draw more than an hundred pair of oxen." Howell would seem to be referring to some older proverb or phrase. 186. twelve vast French Romances = the works of Calprenede, Mad. Scuderi, La Fayette, and others: e.g. Cleopatra, Le Grand Cyrus, Clelie, Zayde, &c. &c. Pope may well call them " vast; e.g. Clelie appeared in ten volumes of 800 pages each. The English translations were published in huge folios. See especially Spectator, No. 37. 193. See Virg. Æn. zi. 794-5. 196. tydes. Comp. Dryden: "But let not all the gold which Tagus hides, And pays the sea in tributary tides," &c. [What is meant by floating?] 44. 197. melting music. Comp. Il Penseroso, 165. 203. Denizens. The old French deinzein (from deins, Latin de intus), means properly one who dwells within, i.e. within the city, or who enjoys its franchise; then generally an inhabitant; then specially a naturalized citizen. Here his Denizens his fellow-inhabitants. 205. [What are the shrouds of a ship?] For other meanings of shrouds see note to Hymn Nat. 218. 207. [What is the force of insect here ?] See Paradise Lost, vii. 476-9. 208. waft: here in a middle sense. So wave in Il Penseroso, 148. in clouds of gold. This use of cloud is common enough: e.g. see Paradise Lost, i. 340: a pitchy cloud of locusts," &c. For gold see Paradise Lost, i. 483. Comp. "gilded butterfly" (King Lear, V. iii. 12; Coriolanus, I. ii. 65, &c.). 210. [What part of speech is half here?] 211. to the wind. See Lycid. 13. 212. filmy. Properly film means a thin skin or pellicle. See Paradise Lost, xi. 412. It is used for a very slender thread: Queen Mab's "lash" was of film. (Romeo and Juliet, I. iv. 63.) Here filmy dew seems to mean the film-like moisture that covers leaves, &c. glittring textures. Milton's "glittering tissues" (Paradise Lost, v. 592). and texture are radically identical. 213. dipt-tincture. See Paradise Lost, v. 283 and 285. 218. Superior by the head. See Hom. Il. iii. 168: Tissue 221. Sylphs and Sylphids. The feminine form sylphid is formed after the analogy of Achæid or Achæad (Iliad, v. 424), Troad, &c. Comp. Hom. II. : (Comp. Virg. Æn. ix. 616.) This id or ad is also the Greek feminine patronymic sign. Comp. Nereus and Nereid, &c. (The masculine is ida. Comp. Atreus and Atreides, &c.) This same termination is also specially used to denote a poem or work on some subject specified in the first part of the word: thus Thebaid = poem on Thebes; Æneid = poem on Æneas; Iliad poem on Ilium. (Iliad = a Trojan woman in Æn. i. 480, &c.) 44. 221. This is a parody of Paradise Lost, v. 600: See also 1. 772. "Hear, all ye angels, progeny of light, Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers." 222. Fays, Fairies, Genii, are names of Latin origin. Fays and fairies are romance from the same root, the Latin fatum. Elf is of Teutonic origin; dæmon of Greek. 223. spheres. Sphere-properly: = a ball, globe, and then specially a planet (see Hymn Nat.)-seems to be used also for a planet's path, or orbit, or circuit, and so for the area or region of its motion; then generally for any tract or district or province in which any body moves. Comp. Shakspere, 1 Henry IV. V. iv. 65: "Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere." So Gonzalo speaks of the moon's sphere. (Tempest, II. i. 182. Moon's sphere Midsummer Night's Dream, II. i. 7.) So Midsummer Night's Dream, II. i. 153: "And certain stars shot madly from their spheres moon in &c. &c. The general sense occurs in Antony and Cleopatra, II. vii. 15: "To be call'd into a huge sphere and not to be seen to move in 't," &c. Comp. orb in 1 Henry IV. V. i. 15: "Will you again unknit This churlish knot of all-abhorred war, And move in that obedient orb again Where you did give a fair and natural light?" &c. ""round." What other force has it?] (Comp. orb in Bacon, apud Johnson.) Comp. the uses of "circle," circuit," 226. [whiten. Mention other verbs with this termination. 227. wandring orbs = meteors. See Shakspere, passim. Strictly the term planets (see following line) means wanderers; but it is applied to stars that move along regular and calculated courses. " 230. See Paradise Lost, iv. 555-60, especially 556-7: Swift as a shooting star In autumn thwarts the night." Comus, 80-1. I. iii. 15: athwart. Comp. across, &c. For the simple word, see Troilus and Cressida, "Trial did draw, Bias and thwart." 232. See Paradise Lost, xi. 244: "Iris had dipt the woof." 233. main. 66 The full phrase is the "main sea;" so main flood" (Merchant of Venice, IV. i. 72); "the main waters" (Ib. V. i. 97). 234. [What is the meaning of kindly here? Comp. "gentle rain," in Merchant of Venice, IV. i. 185. What is meant by "the kindly fruits of the earth" in the Book of Common Prayer?] 44. 237. [Put these words in their proper order. What objection is there to such an inversion of an English sentence as they now present? Make your answer clear by quoting or making examples.] [What is meant by the care of Nations? What other meaning might the words possibly have? Comp. 1. 240.] Dryden proposed to introduce the guardian angels of kingdoms into his neverwritten Arthuriad. See Johnson's Life of Dryden. Dryden charged Blackmore with stealing his subject; "only," he adds, "the guardian angels of kingdoms were machines too ponderous for him to manage." Pope, following Dryden in this respect, as in many others, proposed to use the same supernatural agency in his epic on Brutus; but that, too, was never written. 239. Fair was commonly used as a substantive in the latter part of the seventeenth and in the eighteenth centuries, after the French; thus Spectator: "Gentlemen who do not design to marry yet pay their devoirs to one particular fair;" but it does not seem to have been adopted so far as to have a plural inflection. 45. 245. A wash. See Vicar of Wakefield, chap. vi. 246. [What is meant by airs here? What other various meanings has the word?] 248. Comp. Spectator: "She was flounced and furbelowed from head to foot, , every ribbon was crinkled, and every part of her garment in curl." Flounce. See note on frounced, Il Pens. 123. Furbelo = strictly a kind of flounce; commonly, the fringed border of a gown or petticoat. "Furbelows, fringe; any ornamental part of a female['s] dress. Var. dial." (Halliwell's Arch, and Prov. Dict.) Comp. German falbel. Perhaps the -ow is diminutival. Comp. (hole) hollow, (fur) furrow, morrow (= morning), (sper) sparrow (sperhauke = sparrowhawk, Piers Ploughman, Ed. Skeat, vi. 199). Perhaps the spelling of the word points to some popular attempt at an explanation of it. 251. slight. So sleight was variously spelt. We retain the word in the phrase "sleight of hand." In older English it was used much more commonly; e.g. see Shakspere, 3 Henry VI. IV. ii. 20, &c. 254. China jar. China-ware or porcelain 'was first introduced into Europe in the beginning of the sixteenth century. . . . For a long time it was erroneously believed that China alone furnished the proper kind of clay necessary for its manufacture, and this circumstance, along with the then extremely rude state of the potter's art in Europe, prevented, for nearly two hundred years subsequent to its first introduction, any attempt towards the fabrication of this article in the west," &c. &c. See Pop. Encycl. The great value set upon it about Queen Anne's reign is often referred to by the writers of that time. See Swift's Directions to Servants; Pope's "And mistress of herself, though china fall.” A visit to a china-shop cured ladies of the " vapours:" see Spectator, No. 336. See Macaulay's Hist. Eng. chap. xi. : "Mary had acquired at the Hague a taste for the porcelain of China, and amused herself by forming at Hampton a vast collection of hideous images, &c. &c. . . . The fashion . . . spread fast and wide," &c. &c. This taste, for which, perhaps there is something more to be said than that it is, in Macaulay's words, "frivolous and inelegant," has still its votaries, but now they are mostly of the opposite sex. See Gay's Epistle to a Lady on her Passion for old China. 255. brocade. "A stuff of gold, silver, or silk, raised and enriched with flowers, foliage, and other ornaments. Formerly it signified only a stuff woven all of gold or silver, in which silk was mixed. At present all stuffs . . . are so called if they are worked with flowers or other figures." (Pop. Encycl.) Comp. Gay: "Should you the rich brocaded suit unfold, Where rising flow'rs grow stiff with frosted gold." 45. 256. masquerade. See Spectator, Nos. 8, 14. From the Restoration onwards masquerades were extremely popular. They were suppressed by law in 1724, but presently revived with the connivance of the Government. See Fielding's novels, passim. 260. Fans were a notable part of a lady's equipment at this time. In a skilful hand they did much execution on manly bosoms. See Spectator, No. 102: see especially the passage on the fluttering of the fan. Gay devoted a poem to this fatal engine. substantives.] large blunt needle. Siopper and stopple are the originally a small dagger, as in Hamlet. Here, as in our modern usage, a 278. Shrink. See Hymn Nat. 203. 279. Ixion. See Class. Dict. 280. Mill chocolate mill. "Chocolate was introduced into Europe (from Mexico and the Brazils) about A.D. 1520. . . . It was sold in the London coffee-houses soon after their establishment, 1650." (Haydn's Dict. of Dates.) Mill would seem to have been pronounced meel. 46. 284. orb in orb = circle in circle. See The Dunciad, iv. 79, 80: See note on sphere. "Not closer, orb in orb, conglob'd are seen The buzzing bees about the dusky queen." 285. thrid: a various form of thread. See Dunciad, iv. 256. CANTO III. 290. [What is the force of rising?] 291. a structure, &c. = Hampton Court. It was built by Wolsey on the site of the manor-house of the Knights Hospitallers. 292. In the time of William III. and Queen Anne, Hampton Court was frequently the scene of Cabinet meetings. See Macaulay's Hist. Eng. chap. xi. &c. 294. foreign Tyrants: Louis XIV. 296. Tea was pronounced tay till towards the middle of the eighteenth century, a pronunciation surviving still amongst our lower classes. An advertisement in the Mercurius Politicus for September 20, 1658, speaks of the new "China drink' as "called, by the Chinians tcha, and by other nations tay, alias tea." Locke writes it thé. So bohea was pronounced bohay: see Pope's Ep. to Miss Blount, 1715. For other changes in pronunciation see Trench's English Past and Present. Tea was first brought into Europe from India by the Dutch in 1610. "That it was known [in England] in the time of the Protector was pretty evident, but it was only used as a regalia at high entertainments. Tea was sold at from six to ten guineas the pound. Thomas Garway, the founder of Garraway's Coffee House, first offered it at a more reasonable price, and in 1657 he advertised tea at fifty shillings a pound." (Our English Home.) Waller says wrongly that we owed "the best of herbs," as "the best of queens," to Portugal. It grew gradually into request in England in the latter half of the seventeenth century. Pepys drunk his first dish of tea in 1660. It was still a luxury in Pope's time. See Tatler and Spect. &c. passim. See Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature, Chambers' Book of Days. |