NOTES 



Others spring up, of vigorous growth and bloom ; 

 Ourselves and all thai ' ours, to death are due, 

 And why should words not be mortal too ? 



Martin's translation. 



PAGE 107 



peau de chagrin : skin of a wild ass. Balzac (1799- 

 1850) : a celebrated French novelist of the realistic school 

 of fiction. 



PAGE 109 



Barmecide feast : the allusion is to a story in the Arabian 

 Nights in which a member of the Barmecide family places 

 a succession of empty dishes before a beggar, pretending 

 that they contain a rich repast. 



PAGE 112 



modus operand! : method of working. 



PAGE 113 



Martinus Scriblerus : a reference to Memoirs of Martinus 

 Scribierus written principally by John Arbuthnot, and pub- 

 lished in 1741. The purpose of the papers is given by War- 

 burton and Spence in the following extracts quoted from 

 the Preface to the Memoirs of the Extraordinary Life, 

 Works and Discoveries of Martinus Scriblerus in Elwin and 

 Courthope's edition of Pope's works, vol. x, p. 273: 



" Mr. Pope, Dr. Arbuthnot, and Dr. Swift, in conjunction, 

 formed the project of a satire on the abuses of human learn- 

 ing ; and to make it better received, proposed to execute it 

 in the manner of Cervantes (the original author of this 

 species of satire) under a continued narrative of feigned ad- 

 ventures. They had observed that those abuses still kept their 

 ground against all that the ablest and gravest authors could 

 say to discredit them ; they concluded, therefore, the force 

 of ridicule was wanting to quicken their disgrace ; and ridi- 

 cule was here in its place, when the abuses had been already 

 detected by sober reasoning ; and truth in no danger to suf- 

 fer by the premature use of so powerful an instrument." 



" The design of this work, as stated by Pope himself, is to 

 ridicule all the false tastes in learning under the character 

 of a man of capacity enough, that had dipped into every art 

 and science, but injudiciously iu each. It was begun by a 

 club of some of the greatest wits of the age Lord Oxford, 

 the Bishop of Rochester, Pope, Congreve, Swift, Arbuthnot, 

 and others. Gay often held the pen ; and Addison liked it 

 very well, and was not disinclined to come into it." 

 accounted for the operation of the meat-jack : from 

 the paper " To the learned inquisitor into nature, Mai -thins 

 Scriblerus : the society of free thinkers greeting." Elwin 

 and Courthope, Pope's works, vol. ?, p. 332. 



