In the "Imitation of the 2nd Sat. Book I. of Horace," only to be found in modern editions, but attributed, I fear, too justly to Pope, there is an allusion to "poor E----s," who suffered by "_the fatal steel_," for an intrigue with a royal mistress. E----s is no doubt _John Ellis_, and the royal mistress the _Duchess of Cleveland_. (See Lord Dover's Introduction to the "Ellis Correspondence," and "Anecdotes of the Ellis Family," _Gent. Mag_. 1769. p. 328.) But I cannot discover any trace of the circumstances alluded to by Pope. Yet Ellis was a considerable man in his day;--he had been Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in the reign of Charles II., and was Under-Secretary of State under William III.; he is said to have afterwards sunk into the humbler character {246} of a "London magistrate," and to have "died in 1788, at 93 or 95, immensely rich." I should be glad of any clue to Pope's allusion. J.W.C. Feb 12. 1850. * * * * * "Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow; The rest is all but leather and prunello." _Essay on Man_, Epistle IV. 203. Will your correspondent "P.C.S.S." (No. 13), evidently a critical reader of Pope, and probably rich in the possession of various editions of his works, kindly inform me whether any commentator on the poet has traced the well-known lines that I have quoted to the "Corcillum est, quod homines facit, caetera quisquilia omnia" of Petronius Arbiter, cap. 75.? Pope had certainly both read and admired the _Satyricon_, for he says:-- "Fancy and art in gay Petronius please, The scholar's learning with the courtier's ease." _Essay on Criticism_, sect. 3 I find no note on the lines either in the edition of Warton, 9 vols. 8vo., London, 1797, or in Cary's royal 8vo., London, 1839; but the similarity strikes me as curious, and deserving further examination. C. FORBES. Temple. * * * * * BELVOIR CASTLE. In Nichol's _History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester_, vol. ii., part i., containing the Framland Hundred, p. 45 of the folio ed. 1795, occurs the following quotation, in reference to the rebuilding of Belvoir castle by Henry, second Earl of Rutland, in 1555:-- "That part of the more ancient building, which was left by both unaltered, is included in the following concise description by an ingenious writer, who visited it in 1722:-- 'AEdes in culmine montis sitae, scilicet, [Greek: aipeia kolonen En pedio apaneuthe, peridromos entha kai entha]'