Part 20 (1/2)

”n.o.body was angry but Sir George Brown, and he was a good deal so, and for a long time. He could not bear that Sir Plume should talk nothing but nonsense.”

'124 a clouded cane':

a cane of polished wood with cloudlike markings. In the 'Tatler', Mr.

Bickerstaff sits in judgment on canes, and takes away a cane, ”curiously clouded, with a transparent amber head, and a blue ribband to hang upon his wrist,” from a young gentleman as a piece of idle foppery. There are some amusing remarks on the ”conduct” of canes in the same essay.

'133'

The baron's oath is a parody of the oath of Achilles ('Iliad', I, 234).

'142'

The breaking of the bottle of sorrows, etc., is the cause of Belinda's change of mood from wrath as in l. 93 to tears, 143-144.

'155 the gilt Chariot':

the painted and gilded coach in which ladies took the air in London.

'156 Bohea:'

tea, the name comes from a range of hills in China where a certain kind of tea was grown.

'162 the patch-box:'

the box which held the little bits of black sticking-plaster with which ladies used to adorn their faces. According to Addison ('Spectator', No.

81), ladies even went so far in this fad as to patch on one side of the face or the other, according to their politics.

CANTO V

'5 the Trojan:'

aeneas, who left Carthage in spite of the wrath of Dido and the entreaties of her sister Anna.

'7-36'

Pope inserted these lines in a late revision in 1717, in order, as he said, to open more clearly the moral of the poem. The speech of Clarissa is a parody of a famous speech by Sarpedon in the 'Iliad', XII, 310-328.

'14'