FullReads

103. Rymer, Short View of Tragedy (1693), pp. 95, 6.

105. as Mr. Pope hath observed. Preface, p. 47.

Dacier, Bossu. See notes, pp. 18 and 86.

Rene Rapin (1621-1687). His fame as a critic rests on his Reflexions sur la Poetique d’ Aristote et sur les Ouvrages des Poetes anciens et modernes (1674), which was Englished by Rymer immediately on its publication. His treatise De Carmine Pastorali, of which a translation is included in Creech’s Idylliums of Theocritus (1684), was used by Pope for the preface to his Pastorals. An edition of The Whole Critical Works of Monsieur Rapin … newly translated into English by several Hands, 2 vols., appeared in 1706; it is not, however, complete.

John Oldmixon (1673-1742), who, like Dennis and Gildon, has a place in the Dunciad, was the author of An Essay on Criticism, as it regards Design, Thought, and Expression in Prose and Verse (1728) and The Arts of Logick and Rhetorick, illustrated by examples taken out of the best authors (1728). The latter is based on the Maniere de bien penser of Bouhours.

A certain celebrated Paper,– The Spectator.

semper acerbum, etc. Virgil, Aeneid, v. 49.

106. Note, “See his Letters to me.” These letters are not extant.

108. Saint Chrysostom … Aristophanes. This had been a commonplace in the discussions at the end of the seventeenth century, in England and France, on the morality of the drama.

Ludolf Kuster (1670-1716) appears also in the Dunciad, iv., l. 237. His edition of Suidas was published, through Bentley’s influence, by the University of Cambridge in 1705. He also edited Aristophanes (1710), and wrote De vero usu Verborum Mediorum apud Graecos. Cf. Farmer’s Essay, p. 176.

who thrust himself into the employment. Hanmer’s letters to the University of Oxford do not bear out Warburton’s statement.

109. Gilles Menage (1613-1692). Les Poesies de M. de Malherbe avec les Observations de M. Menage appeared in 1666.

Selden’s “Illustrations” or notes appeared with the first part of Polyolbion in 1612. This allusion was suggested by a passage in a letter from Pope of 27th November, 1742: “I have a particular reason to make you interest yourself in me and my writings. It will cause both them and me to make the better figure to posterity. A very mediocre poet, one Drayton, is yet taken some notice of, because Selden writ a few notes on one of his poems” (ed. Elwin and Courthope, ix., p. 225).

110. Verborum proprietas, etc. Quintilian, Institut. Orat., Prooem. 16.

Warburton alludes to the edition of Beaumont and Fletcher “by the late Mr. Theobald, Mr. Seward of Eyam in Derbyshire, and Mr. Sympson of Gainsborough,” which appeared in ten volumes in 1750. The long and interesting preface is by Seward. Warburton’s reference would not have been so favourable could he have known Seward’s opinion of his Shakespeare. See the letter printed in the Correspondence of Hanmer, ed. Bunbury, pp. 352, etc.

The edition of Paradise Lost is that by Thomas Newton (1704-1782), afterwards Bishop of Bristol. It appeared in 1749, and a second volume containing the other poems was added in 1752. In the preface Newton gratefully acknowledges this recommendation, and alludes with pride to the assistance he had received from Warburton, who had proved himself to be “the best editor of Shakespeare.”