To level is to aim, to point the shot at a mark. Shakespeare's meaning is, my poem is not a satire written with any particular view, or levelled at any single person; I fly like an eagle into the general expanse of life, and leave not, by any private mischief, the trace of my passage.
I.i.51 (276,8) I'll unbolt] I'll open, I'll explain.
I.i.53 (276,9) glib and slippery creatures] Hanmer, and Warburton after him, read, natures. Slippery is smooth, unresisting.
I.i.58 (276,1) glass-fac'd flatterer] That shows in his own look, as by reflection, the looks of his patron.
I.i.65 (277,3) rank'd with all deserts] Cover'd with ranks of all kinds of men.
I.i.67 (277,4) To propagate their states] To advance or improve their various conditions of life.
I.i.72 (277,5) conceiv'd to scope] Properly imagined, appositely, to the purpose.
I.i.82 (278,8) through him/Drink the free air] That is, catch his breath in affected fondness.
I.i.90 (278,9) A thousand moral paintings I can shew] Shakespeare seems to intend in this dialogue to express some competition between the two great arts of imitation. Whatever the poet declares himself to have shewn, the painter thinks he could have shewn better. (1773)
I.i.107 (279,1) 'Tis not enough to help the feeble up,/But to support him after] This thought is better expressed by Dr. Madden in his elegy on archbishop Boulter.