[xxxvi] P. 26, line 12.Mist: Nathaniel Mist, Tory journalist. See TE, 5, 448. Eusden: Laurence Eusden, Poet Laureate 1718-30, often ridiculed by Pope.

[xxxvii]   line 14. Cibber's opera is Love in a Riddle (1729), designed to capitalize on the craze for ballad opera created by The Beggar's Opera.

[xxxviii] P. 27, line 5. Censor: Sir Richard Steele as Isaac Bickerstaffe, the nominal author of The Tatler.

[xxxix] P. 29, line 6. Where Edmund Curll stood was in the pillory.

[xl] P. 31, line 3. Hugo Grotius's classic of political science, De jure belli ac pacis, was published in 1625 and translated in 1654.

[xli] P. 32, line 1. Wickfort: Abraham de Wicquefort, l'Ambassadeur et ses fonctions (La Haye, 1680). It was summarized in The Craftsman of 23 Sept. 1727.

[xlii]   line 4. John Banks was the author of The Unhappy Favourite; or the Earl of Essex (1681) and of The Island Queens, or the Death of Mary, Queen of Scotland (prohibited in 1684; a revision was produced in 1704). Bell says that although "written in the most contemptible language, yet they never fail to melt the audience into tears, merely by the force of judicious and well-arranged plots and incidents."

[xliii] P. 33, line 1. Arch-Bishop: William Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury since 1716. He was 72 in 1729. Master of the Rolls: Sir Joseph Jekyll, who had held the office since 1717, was about 66 in 1729.

[xliv]   line 12. Spence: Thomas Spence (d. 1737), Serjeant-at-Arms.

[xlv] P. 34, line 3. Toft: In 1726 one Mary Toft claimed to have given birth to seventeen live rabbits, and some who should have known better believed her. See Pope's poem on her, TE, 6, 259, and Hogarth's engraving.