The poet contradicts himself with regard to the principle he is here laying down in lines 271-272 where he laughs at Dennis for
Concluding all were desperate sots and fools
Who durst depart from Aristotle's rules.]
[!--Line Note 180--] [Line 180: Homer nods—Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus, 'even the good Homer nods'—Horace, Epistola ad Pisones, 359.]
[!--Line Note 183--] [Lines 183, 184: Secure from flames.—The poet probably alludes to such fires as those in which the Alexandrine and Palatine Libraries were destroyed. From envy's fiercer rage.—Probably he alludes to the writings of such men as Maevius (see note to line 34) and Zoilus, a sophist and grammarian of Amphipolis, who distinguished himself by his criticism on Isocrates, Plato, and Homer, receiving the nickname of Homeromastic (chastiser of Homer). Destructive war—Probably an allusion to the irruption of the barbarians into the south of Europe. And all-involving age; that is, time. This is usually explained as an allusion to 'the long reign of ignorance and superstition in the cloisters,' but it is surely far-fetched, and more than the language will bear.]
[!--Line Note 193--] [Lines 193, 194:
'Round the whole world this dreaded name shall sound,
And reach to worlds that must not yet be found,"—COWLEY.]
[!--Line Note 216--] [Line 216: The Pierian spring—A fountain in Pieria, a district round Mount Olympus and the native country of the Muses.]
[!--Line Note 248--] [Line 248: And even thine, O Rome.—The dome of St Peter's Church, designed by Michael Angelo.]
[!--Line Note 267--] [Line 267: La Mancha's Knight.—Don Quixote, a fictitious Spanish knight, the hero of a book written (1605) by Cervantes, a Spanish writer.]
[!--Line Note 270--] [Line 270: Dennis, the son of a saddler in London, born 1657, was a mediocre writer, and rather better critic of the time, with whom Pope came a good deal into collision. Addison's tragedy of Cato, for which Pope had written a prologue, had been attacked by Dennis. Pope, to defend Addison, wrote an imaginary report, pretending to be written by a notorious quack mad-doctor of the day, entitled The Narrative of Dr. Robert Norris on the Frenz of F. D. Dennis replied to it by his Character of Mr. Pope. Ultimately Pope gave him a place in his Dunciad, and wrote a prologue for his benefit.]