P. 334. Helps.—Pope's Essay on Man:
If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined,
The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind.
The other allusions are to Johnson, Byron, Shelley, and Keats.
P. 337. Crabbe.—It is explained by Crabbe that while composing 'The Library' he 'was honoured with the notice and assisted by the advice of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke: part of it was written in his presence, and the whole submitted to his judgement; receiving, in its progress, the benefit of his correction'. The poem was published in 1781.
P. 354. Saxe.—Aristophanes' The Clouds, ridiculing Socrates.
P. 355. Drummond.—Of Sir Thomas Bodley old Anthony Wood says: 'Though no writer, worth the remembrance, yet hath he been the greatest promoter of learning that hath yet appeared in our nation.'
It may be recalled that R. de Bury had a fine idea, although it did not fructify, to wit:—'We have for a long time held a rooted purpose in the inmost recesses of our mind, looking forward to a favourable time and divine aid, to found, in perpetual alms, and enrich with the necessary gifts, a certain Hall in the revered University of Oxford, the first nurse of all the liberal Arts; and further to enrich the same, when occupied by numerous scholars, with deposits of our books, so that the books themselves and every one of them may be made common as to use and study, not only to the scholars of the said Hall, but through them to all the students of the aforesaid University for ever.'
P. 357. Cowper.—'This ode,' Cowper states, 'is rendered without rhime, that it might more adequately represent the original, which, as Milton himself informs us, is of no certain measure. It may possibly for this reason disappoint the reader, though it cost the writer more labour than the translation of any other piece in the whole collection.'
P. 360. Cowley.—
Who now reads Cowley? if he pleases yet,
His moral pleases, not his pointed wit.
Forgot his epic, nay, Pindaric art!
But still I love the language of his heart.—Pope.