[28] Roscommon, it must be remembered, was born in Ireland, where his property also was situated. But the Dillons were of English extraction.
[29] In this verse, which savours of the bathos, our author passes from Roscommon to Mulgrave; another "author nobly born," who about this time had engaged with Dryden and others in the version of Ovid's Epistles, published in 1680. The Epistle of Helen to Paris, alluded to in the lines which follow, was jointly translated by Mulgrave and Dryden, although the poet politely ascribes the whole merit to his noble co-adjutor. See Vol. XII. p. 26.
[30] Vol. IX. p. 402.
[31] Vol. IX. p. 344.
[32] Vol. X. p. 366. Otway furnished an epilogue on the same night.
[33] Vol. XIII. p. 108.
[34] "They tell me my old acquaintance, Mr Dryden, has left off the theatre, and wholly applies himself to the study of the controversies between the two churches. Pray heaven, this strange alteration in him portends nothing disastrous to the state; but I have all along observed, that poets do religion as little service by drawing their pens for it, as the divines do poetry, by pretending to versification." This letter is dated 21st October, 1689.
[35] Charles, 2d Earl of Middleton, a man of some literary accomplishment. He had been Envoy Extraordinary to the Emperor of Germany, and was now one of the secretaries of state for Scotland.
[36] Graf, or Count.
[37] Countess.