Here lies Similis;
In the seventieth year of his age
But only the seventh of his life.
In a note it is stated that 'This story is related by Dion Cassius and from him told by Spizelius in his Infelix Literarius'.
P. 190. Donne.—This is the title given by Donne's editors, but is nonsense. Grosart explains that Pindar's instructress was Corinna the Theban, and that Lucan's 'help' is probably his helpmeet—Argentaria Polla, his wife who survived him.
P. 192. Dante.—This is the famous passage in Canto V referring to Paolo and Francesca.—(Cary's translation.)
P. 196. Moore.—
For where is any author in the world
Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?
Shakespeare. Love's Labour's Lost, Act IV. Sc. iii.
P. 198. More.—Warton thinks it probable that Sir Thomas More—'one of the best jokers of the age'—may have written this epigram, which he considers the first pointed epigram in our language. But by some the lines are credited to Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, who is memorable, among other things, for introducing the sonnet from Italy into England, a distinction which he shares with Wyatt.
P. 199. Moore.—'Mamurra was a dogmatic philosopher, who never doubted about anything, except who was his father; Bombastus, one of the names of the great scholar and quack Paracelsus. St. Jerome was scolded by an angel for reading Cicero, as Gratia tells the story in his Concordantia discordantium Canonum, and says, that for this reason bishops were not allowed to read the classics'.
P. 203. Scott.—The Roxburgh Club was inaugurated on the day of the sale of the Duke of Roxburgh's library in 1812 in order to print for members rare books or manuscripts. The club had numerous offspring, including the Bannatyne Club (see p. [270], and the note thereon). The Duke of Roxburgh's library, which was celebrated for its Caxtons, sold for £23,341.