16 ([return])
[ 'Atossa:' Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough.]
17 ([return])
[ 'Chloe:' Mrs Howard, afterwards Countess of Suffolk.]
18 ([return])
[ 'Mahomet:' servant to the late king, said to be the son of a Turkish pasha, whom he took at the siege of Buda, and constantly kept about his person—P.]
19 ([return])
[ 'Parson Hale;' Dr Stephen Hale, not more estimable for his useful discoveries as a natural philosopher, than for his exemplary life and pastoral charity as a parish priest.—P.]
20 ([return])
[ 'Epistle III.:' this epistle was written after a violent outcry against our author, on a supposition that he had ridiculed a worthy nobleman merely for his wrong taste. He justified himself upon that article in a letter to the Earl of Burlington; at the end of which are these words: 'I have learnt that there are some who would rather be wicked than ridiculous; and therefore it may be safer to attack vices than follies. I will therefore leave my betters in the quiet possession of their idols, their groves, and their high places; and change my subject from their pride to their meanness, from their vanities to their miseries; and as the only certain way to avoid misconstructions, to lessen offence, and not to multiply ill-natured applications, I may probably, in my next, make use of real names instead of fictitious ones.'—P.]