the Villiers would be heard clattering on horseback up the grand staircase of the new-built Buckingham House, like the marble statue in 'Don Juan,' with a double commission against the false duke and the Government as joint-traders in stolen goods. But if Pope were callous to the splendor of the true Buckingham, what was it that drew him to the false one? Pope must have been well aware that, amongst all the poetic triflers of the day, there was not one more ripe for the 'Dunciad.' Like the jaws of the hungry grave (_Acherontis avari_), the 'Dunciad' yawned for him, whilst yet only in dim conception as a remote possibility. He was, besides, the most vain-glorious of men; and, being anxious above all things to connect himself with the blood royal, he had conceived the presumptuous thought of wooing Queen Anne (then the unmarried Princess Anne). Being rejected, of course, rather than have no connection at all with royalty, he transferred his courtship to a young lady born on the wrong side of the blanket, namely, the daughter of James II. by Miss Sedley. Her he married, and they reigned together in great pomp over Buckingham House. But how should this have attracted Pope? The fact, I fear is, that Pope admired him, in spite of his verses, as a man rich and prosperous. One morning, in some of his own verses, he lodged a compliment to the Duke as a poet and a critic: immediately the Duke was down upon him with an answering salute of twenty-one guns, and ever afterwards they were friends. But I repeat that, in Pope's own judgment, nine out of ten who found their way into that great _menagerie_ of the 'Dunciad,' had not by half so well established their right of entrance as the Duke. NOTE 10. Even this is open to demur. The Roman literature during the main Punic War with Hannibal, though unavoidably reached by some slight influence from the literature of Greece, was rich in native power and raciness. Left to itself, and less disturbed by direct imitation applied to foreign models, the Roman literature would probably have taken a wider compass, and fulfilled a nobler destiny. NOTE 11. '_Joan of Arc's execution_'--viz., not by any English, but virtually by a French tribunal, as _now_, at last, is satisfactorily established by the recent publication, at Paris, of the judicial process itself in its full official records. NOTE 12. The notes are _now_ (_i. e._, in all modern editions) assigned to their separate authors; though not always in a way to prevent doubts. For instance, Roscoe's notes, except that they are always distinguished by kindness and good sense, are indicated only by the _absence_ of any distinguishing signature. But in the early editions great carelessness prevailed as to this point, and, sometimes, intentional dissimulation. NOTE 13.