[Footnote 3: The description of Thersites in the second book of the Iliad is thus translated by Professor Blackie: 'The most Ill-favoured wight was he, I ween, of all the Grecian host. With hideous squint the railer leered: on one foot he was lame; Forward before his narrow chest his hunching shoulders came; Slanting and sharp his forehead rose, with shreds of meagre hair.' Controversies between the Scotists and Thomists, followers of the teaching of Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas, caused Thomist perversion of the name of Duns into its use as Dunce and tradition of the subtle Doctor's extreme personal ugliness. Doctor Subtilis was translated The Lath Doctor. Scarron we have just spoken of. Hudibras's outward gifts are described in Part I., Canto i., lines 240-296 of the poem. 'His beard In cut and dye so like a tile A sudden view it would beguile: The upper part thereof was whey; The nether, orange mix'd with grey. This hairy meteor, &c.' The 'old Gentleman in _Oldham_' is Loyola, as described in Oldham's third satire on the Jesuits, when 'Summon'd together, all th' officious band The orders of their bedrid, chief attend.' Raised on his pillow he greets them, and, says Oldham, 'Like Delphic Hag of old, by Fiend possest, He swells, wild Frenzy heaves his panting breast, His bristling hairs stick up, his eyeballs glow, And from his mouth long strakes of drivel flow.'] * * * * * No. 18. Wednesday, March 21, 1711. Addison. Equitis quoque jam migravit ab aure voluptas Omnis ad incertos oculos et gaudia vana. Hor. It is my Design in this Paper to deliver down to Posterity a faithful Account of the Italian Opera, and of the gradual Progress which it has made upon the English Stage: For there is no Question but our great Grand-children will be very curious to know the Reason why their Fore-fathers used to sit together like an Audience of Foreigners in their own Country, and to hear whole Plays acted before them in a Tongue which they did not understand. 'Arsinoe' [1] was the first Opera that gave us a Taste of Italian Musick. The great Success this Opera met with, produced some Attempts of forming Pieces upon Italian Plans, [which [2]] should give a more natural and reasonable Entertainment than what can be met with in the elaborate Trifles of that Nation. This alarm'd the Poetasters and Fidlers of the Town, who were used to deal in a more ordinary Kind of Ware; and therefore laid down an establish'd Rule, which is receiv'd as such to this [Day, [3]] 'That nothing is capable of being well set to Musick, that is not Nonsense.'