[14] "I would add," says Dr. Johnson, in his Life of Parnell, "that the description of barrenness in his verses to Pope was borrowed from Secundus, but lately searching for the passage, which I had formerly read, I could not find it." The borrowed description is the only tolerable part of the poem, which is in a clumsy strain, unlike the usual easy style of Parnell.
[15] He was only son to the Lord Chancellor Harcourt, and died in 1720.—Roscoe.
[16] It was paying pitiful homage to rank to call an indifferent versifier, like the Duke of Buckingham, "great Sheffield," and pretend that he was the instructor and model of Pope.
[17] The comparison of the three Graces, admiring the reflection of themselves in Pope's works, to Narcissus enamoured of his own face in the stream, is a ludicrous conceit, and the execution is on a par with the idea.
[18] This paragraph refers to Pope's Temple of Fame.
[19] Pope's genius was not epic, and the only epic poem he composed was his juvenile effort, Alcander, which he burnt because it was too worthless to be preserved.
[20] This and the concluding verse are from the Temple of Fame.
[21] These lines first appeared in 1726, in the translation of the Odyssey, where they were appended by Broome to the final note. Pope inserted them in the 8vo edition of his works in 1736.
[22] This was a compliment our author could not take much pleasure in reading; for he could not value himself on his edition of Shakespeare.—Warton.
[23] The comparison on both sides is wanting in truth. The superficial researches, and meagre notes of Pope did not renovate Shakespeare, and no second Raphael has repainted the pictures of Raphael the first. Fitness of praise was a merit which the writers of commendatory verses commonly despised. Their study was to outvie each other in the grossness, and insincerity of their flattery.