[7] In the Dramatis Personæ of Absalom and Achitophel only two women appear, and they are spoken of in the poem in a complimentary way.
[8] Byron particularly emphasizes the correctness and moral tone of Pope: he is “the most perfect of our poets and the purest of our moralists” (Letters, v., 559); “his moral is as pure as his poetry is glorious” (Letters, v., 555); “he is the only poet that never shocks” (Letters, v., 560).
[9] Gay’s Alexander Pope, his safe Return from Troy (1720) is interesting as being one of the rare examples of the use of the English octave stanza between Lycidas and Beppo.
[10] Letters, v., 252.
[11] In speaking of the art of rhyming to Trelawney, Byron said:—“If you are curious in these matters, look in Swift. I will send you a volume; he beats us all hollow, his rhymes are wonderful.”
[12] Cf. Swift’s The Puppet Show with Byron’s Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog.
[13] For a contemporary characterization of the unscrupulous satirists of the period see Cowper’s Charity, 501–532, in the passage beginning,
“Most satirists are indeed a public scourge.”
[14] Examples are The Thimble (1743) by William Hawkins (1722–1801) and the Scribleriad (1752) by Richard Owen Cambridge (1717–1802).
[15] State Dunces (1733) and The Gymnasiad (1738) by Paul Whitehead (1710–1744); The Toast (1736) by William King (1685–1763); and a succession of anonymous poems, The Battle of the Briefs (1752), Patriotism (1765), The Battle of the Wigs (1763), The Triumph of Dulness (1781), The Rape of the Faro-Bank (1797), and The Battle of the Bards (1799).