[15] 'Lady Mary,' says Byron, 'was greatly to blame in that quarrel for having encouraged Pope.... She should have remembered her own line,
'"He comes too near who comes to be denied."'
[16] Studies in English Literature, p. 47.—Stanford.
[17] Quin (1693-1766) was the famous actor, and Patterson was Thomson's deputy in the surveyor-generalship of the Leeward Isles, and ultimately his successor.
[18] The Earl of Peterborough, the meteor-like brilliancy of whose actions forms one of the most striking chapters in the history of his time.
[19] Life of Pope, p. 216.
[20] 'Pope and Swift,' says Dr. Johnson, 'had an unnatural delight in ideas physically impure, such as every other tongue utters with unwillingness, and of which every ear shrinks from the mention.'
[21] Clarendon Press, Oxford.
[22] No doubt many distinguished foreigners who appreciated the beauty of the poem had read it in the original.
[23] Stephen's Pope, p. 163.