Ultimately, then, Harte seemed aware that the dunces pose a colossal threat, a threat which warrants Pope's numerous echoes of _Paradise Lost_. Harte's _Essay_, in fact, contains several echoes of the same poem. Though, like most of Pope's, these Miltonic echoes are given a comic turn which indicates a wide gap between the real satanic host and its London auxiliary, there is little doubt that Harte grasped the underlying seriousness of his mentor's analogies and his own. * * * * * A few words remain to be said about Boileau's _Discourse of Satires Arraigning Persons by Name_, which so far as I know appeared with all early printings of Harte's _Essay_. The _Discourse_ was first published in 1668, with the separately printed edition of Boileau's ninth satire; in the same year it was included in a collected edition of the satires. It was occasioned, evidently, by a critic's complaint that the modern satirist, departing from ancient practice, "offers insults to individuals."[24] The only English translation of the _Discourse_ that I have discovered before 1730 appears in volume two (1711) of a three-volume translation of Boileau's works. This, however, is not the same translation as the one accompanying Harte's _Essay_; it is noticeably less fluent and lacks (as does the French) the subtitle "arraigning persons by name." The 1730 translation is faithful to the original, and the subtitle calls attention to the aptness of the _Discourse_ as a defense of Pope's satiric practice.[25] It is so apt, indeed, that one could almost suspect Pope himself of making the translation and submitting it to Harte or his publisher. Pope had already invoked Boileau's name and precedent in the letter from "William Cleland"; nothing could be more logical than for Pope to turn the esteemed Boileau's self-justification to his own ends. Cornell College NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION [1] Robert W. Rogers, _The Major Satires of Alexander Pope_, Illinois Studies in Language and Literature, XL (Urbana, 1955), p. 140, dates the Essay January 7-14, 1731, N. S., on the evidence of _The Grub-Street Journal_; No. 484 of _The London Evening-Post_ (Saturday, January 9, to Tuesday, January 12, 1731) advertises its publication for the following day. [2] Rogers, p. 141. Thomas Park, _Supplement to the British Poets_ (London, 1809), VIII, 21-36; Alexander Chalmers, _The Works of the English Poets_ (London, 1810), XVI, 348-352; Robert Anderson, _A Complete Edition of the Poets of Great Britain_ (London, 1794), IX, 825-982 [_sic_]. [3] _Pope's "Dunciad": A Study of Its Meaning_ (Baton Rouge, 1955), p. 54n. [4] _The Correspondence of Alexander Pope_, ed. George Sherburn (Oxford, 1956), II, 430 n., 497. [5] George Puttenham, _The Arte of English Poesie_ (1589), in _Elizabethan Critical Essays_, ed. G. Gregory Smith (Oxford, 1904), II, 27.