[20] A. U. C. 608.
[21] A. U. C. 607.
[22] The word and renders this passage ungrammatical.—Malone.
[23] Mr Malone justly conjectures, that Dryden here thought of his old master James II., whose economy bordered on penury, and whose claims of prerogative approached to tyranny.
[24] Philip de Commines, author of the excellent Memoirs of his own time. He was born in Flanders, and was for several years a distinguished ornament of the court of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, his native sovereign; but was tempted to divert his service for that of Louis XI. by whom he was employed in several negociations. After the death of that monarch, Commines fell into disgrace with his successor, and was long detained in prison: he died in 1509. It was of this historian Catherine de Medicis was wont to say, “that he made as many heretics in the state, as Luther in the Church.”
[25] In the year of Rome 568.
[26] I believe the most enthusiastic admirers of Livy must tire of these unvaried prodigies. Et bos locutus occurs as often, and is mentioned with as much indifference, as a nomination of sheriffs in Hall, Stowe, or Speed.
[27] See Vol. XIII. p. 68. where our author, in his “Essay on Satire,” controverts keenly the position of Casaubon.
[28] In his thirty-eight year, forty-three being the legal age.
[29] The elegant translator, however, gives us no information on that subject; his preface being principally a panegyric upon good discipline, which, without much risque of contradiction, he affirms to be the “substance and sum total of military science.”