[Page 41].—In this page Swift strikes in with his friends against the “dunces.” One may suspect that Tom Brown was in the first draught, and perhaps Dennis, Ward and Gildon being added later.
[Page 42], l. 6.—Ozell, the translator of Rabelais. Stevens I do not know or have forgotten, and the “Dunciad” knows him not.
[Page 44], l. 26. “The Craftsman.”—This must be one of the latest additions, the “Craftsman” being the organ of Pulteney and the Opposition in the great Walpolian battle.
[Page 46], ll. 11, 17. “Another for Alexander!”
[Page 50], l. 21. “Those of Sir Isaac.”—Mr. Craik and others have noticed that Swift’s grammar, especially in unrevised pieces, is not always impeccable. But this, like other things in this Introduction, is clearly writ in character, the character of the more polite than pedantic Wagstaff.
[Page 56], l. 26. “Wit at Will.”—Readers of the minor and even of the greater writers of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries will remember the interminable jingles and plays on these two words wherever they could be introduced. The phrase “Wit at will” survived most of its companions as a catchword.
[Page 58], l. 3. “Queen Elizabeth’s dead.”—A minute philosopher might be pleased with the inquiry when Queen Anne superseded her gracious predecessor in this phrase. Naturally that time had not come when the “Conversation” was first planned.
[Page 59], l. 2. “Push-pin.”—Allusions to this old children’s game are very common in the seventeenth century; rare, I think, in the eighteenth.
[Page 64], l. 20. “Vardi.”—See Introduction, p. 32, where the form is “Verdi.”
[Page 65], l. 28. “Lob’s pound” means an inextricable difficulty. In Dekker’s paraphrase of the “Quinze Joyes du Mariage,” it is used to render the French dans la nasse.