those of Pizarro (who conquered Peru in 1530-3); and the death of
Montezuma, king of the Aztecs (who was slain by his own subjects, because
he urged them to submission), with that of the Inca Atahualpa (who was
tried for heresy by Father Vincent and condemned to be burnt; but who,
on accepting baptism, had his sentence commuted to strangulation).

1. 66. Isaiah xiv. 10, II.

1. 67. Iberia;—i.e. Spain; so named from its principal river, the Iberus
(now called the Ebro).

1. 135. Cp. St. Luke i. 19, 26.

1. 137-95. See note on The Task, ii. 42.

1. 162. Cp. Prov. iii. 17.

1. 217. Cp. Prov. xiv. 31.

1. 230. Isaiah lxi. 3.

1. 239. Cp. Pope's Universal Prayer, verse 4:

'What Conscience dictates to be done,

Or warns me not to do,

This teach me more than hell to shun,

That more than heaven pursue.'

1. 253. John Thornton (born 1720, died 1790) was a wealthy and philan-
thropic Russia-merchant in London. He was brother-in-law to Dr. Conyers
(cp. Truth, 1. 358), and his sister was married to an uncle of Wilberforce.
He was the friend and patron of Mr. Newton; supplied both him and
Cowper with funds for the relief of the poor at Olney; took 1000 copies
of the Olney Hymns; and sent the volume of 1782 (in which this poem
was included) to Benjamin Franklin. At his death Cowper wrote some
verses to his memory.

1. 296. John Howard, the Philanthropist' (born 1726, died 1790), being
on a voyage to the scene of the earthquake at Lisbon, in 1756, was taken
as a prisoner of war. The interest thus excited in the condition of prisoners was
increased by his official appointment as Sheriff of Bedfordshire, in 1773. He
personally inspected all the gaols in Great Britain, and afterwards the principal
prisons throughout Europe; received the thanks of the House of Commons
for his valuable evidence on the subject, in 1774; and in 1777 published his
work on The State of the Prisons in England and Wales.' Extending his
researches next to hospitals, both at home and abroad, he himself fell a
victim to the plague, at Cherson in the Crimea. His statue, by Bacon,
was set up in St. Paul's Cathedral.

1. 410. So Dido, in Virg. Aen. i. 630:

'Non ignara mali miseris succurrere disco.'

King Lear, iv. 6:

A most poor man, made tame by fortune's blows;
Who by the art of known and feeling sorrows
Am pregnant to good pity.'

Fanning their odoriferous wings dispense

Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy spoils.'

1. 456. Cp. Pope's Rape of the Lock, iii. 16:

'At every word a reputation dies.'

And Churchill, The Apology, l. 47:

Quick-circulating slanders mirth afford;

And reputation bleeds in every word.'

1. 460. Mantle-tree :-originally, when open fireplaces were in use, the beam of wood over the opening, and from which things depended. So R. Herrick, in his poem entitled 'To Larr':

'No more shall I from mantle-trees hang down

To honour thee, my little parsley crown.'

In Cowper's time it meant what we now call the mantle-shelf,' on which things are set. So Swift: If you break any china on the mantle-tree or cabinet, gather up the fragments.'

1. 469. A Brief was a 'licence and protection,' issued by the Sovereign under the Great Seal, to all the clergy, to impower them to ask, collect, and receive the alms' of the people, for some specified object; as, on occasion of some great loss or calamity, general or local. A specimen of such a brief for the rebuilding of the church after a fire at Holt Market, Norfolk, in 1708, may be seen quoted in extenso in the Eastern Counties' Collectanea, vol. i. p. 22. See a list of such briefs, dating from 1675, in the parish of Ormesby S. Margaret, Norfolk, in Notes and Queries, 2nd Ser., ii. 22. The Preamble contained a brief' statement of the circumstances which led to the appeal: hence the name of the document. They were abolished by 9 Geo. IV, July 15, 1828.

1. 491. Cp. The Task, ii. 315-25.

1. 499. Dr. Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's from 1713 till his death in 1745. 'Swift's darling motto was, Vive la bagatelle! a good wish for a philosopher of his complexion, the greater part of whose wisdom, whencesoever it came, most certainly came not from above.'-To Unwin, Nov. 18, 1782. The use of the preposition 'in' after the verb to instance' is now obsolete. It seems to imply that the verb was formerly regarded as intransitive. Thus

the phrase I might instance in the Dean' would be equivalent to the form 'I might bring forward an instance, in (the case of) the Dean.'

11. 521-6. The law of libel was very severe until the passing of Lord Campbell's Act, 6 and 7 Vict., intituled 'An Act to amend the law respecting Defamatory Words and Libel.' As an illustration of the practice referred to by our poet, take an example, almost at random, from 'The Foundling Hospital for Wit,' 1763, p. 18:

Sir J- -n's clear Head and sense profound,

Blaz'd out in P-t;

G- -n, for Eloquence renown'd,

To grace the C- -t you sent.
To these congenial Souls you join'd
Some more, as choice and proper,
Bright B- -tle! Darling of Mankind!
Good L- -k- and sage H- -r.

1. 588. Cp. St. John. xv. 15.

1. 609. dipped and washed. It would seem that the Baptist controversy has always been conducted with peculiar virulence.

1. 613. Niccolo del' Machiavelli (born 1469, died 1527) was a diplomatist and statesman of Florence. When the Medici seized that city, in 1512, he suffered imprisonment in the cause of liberty. He was also a poet, dramatist, and historian. His great work,' Del Principe' (written in 1515, but not published till 1532), is an exposition of the principles of statecraft current in those days. Viewed in the light of modern opinion, it exhibited so much political immorality, that the name of a Machiavel' became a proverbial one for a scheming and unprincipled knave; and that of Machiavellism' for a policy of unscrupulous self-aggrandisement.

CONVERSATION.

Written in July and August, 1781. The original design was, that this poem should 'perform the same office in a second' volume, as Table Talk in the first: viz. by way of introductory fiddle to the band that follows.'To Newton, July 22, 1781. 'It is not a dialogue, as the title would lead you to surmise; nor does it bear the least resemblance to Table Talk, except that it is serio-comic, like all the rest. My design in it is to convince the world that they make but an indifferent use of their tongues; . .. to point out the abuses, which is the jocular part of the business, and to prescribe the remedy, which is the grave and sober.'-To Mrs. Newton, Aug. 1781. So early as 1756, Cowper had made 'Conversation' the subject of a prose essay in the second volume of The Connoisseur' (No. 138)—a weekly periodical conducted by his friends George Colman and Bonnell Thornton.

1. 19. Cp. Geo. Herbert, Church Porch, st. 76:

'Sum up at night what thou hast done by day.'

J. 25. Cp. St. Matthew xii. 36.

1. 55. Hebrews vi. 16.

1. 58. G. A. B. Vestris (born in Florence, 1729; died 1808) made his débût in Paris in 1748, and succeeded to Dupré's title of 'Dieu de la Danse.' He retired in favour of his son, in 1781; on which occasion Cowper wrote some verses entitled 'A Card.' He appeared once more on the boards in Paris, in 1800, on the occasion of his grandson's débút. (Bourrienne, Mémoires: iii. p. 70). In his Account of the Treatment of his Hares,' he says, 'After supper they would frisk, and bound, and play a thousand gambols; in which Bess, being remarkably strong and fearless, was always superior to the rest, and proved himself the Vestris of the party.' (S. iv. 424). Cp. Tirocinium 1. 542.

11. 163-202. These strictures on what was then the fashionable vice of duelling, were perhaps suggested by the scandal occasioned by two political duels in the previous year (1780). One was between Fox and Mr. W. Adam, and the other between the Earl of Shelburne and Col. Fullarton. Both arose from offence taken in the freedom of Parliamentary debate; and Sir J. Lowther took up the subject in the House of Commons. If,' he said, 'there are to be these constant appeals to arms, the Parliament of England will become no better than a Polish Diet.'-Stanhope, History of England, ed. 1858, vii. 10. 1. 198. Dares and Entellus are the two pugilists, whose combat is described by Virgil, Aen. v. 362-472.

1. 243. The marvellous adventures of Guy, Earl of Warwick, have little or nothing of an historical character. Yet the romances of which. he is the hero date from the earlier half of the fourteenth century. He is supposed to have lived in the days of the Saxon king Athelstan.

...

1. 251. Cowper disliked tobacco, but he was free from the superstition which attaches a moral stigma to those who like it. His two great friends, Mr. Newton and Mr. Bull, were habitual smokers. In allusion to the present passage the poet wrote to the former, Sept. 18, 1781, I have often promised myself a laugh with you about your pipe.. You will observe however, for your comfort and the honour of that same pipe, that it hardly falls within the line of my censure. You never fumigate the ladies, or force them out of company. Your friends indeed have reason to complain that it frequently deprives them of the pleasure of your own conversation, while it leads you either into your study or your garden; but in all other respects it is as innocent a pipe as can be. Smoke away therefore.' And in his poetical Epistle to Mr. Bull, dated June 22, 1782, he thus adverts to the line before us :

'Forgive the bard, if bard he be,

Who once too wantonly made free

To touch with a satyric wipe

That symbol of thy power, the pipe.'

1. 268. milder herb;-namely, Cowper's favourite beverage, tea; the 'fragrant lymph' of The Task, iii. 391; the cups that cheer but not inebriate' of Book iv. 40.

1. 271. phiz;—an abbreviation of 'physiognomy' (of which 'visnomy' was an older form of contraction). This is now regarded as a slang' word, but is allowed by Dr. Johnson, and used by Churchill (The Ghost, Bk. iv. 635), and by Goldsmith (The Double Transformation, 1. 67).

1. 284. puss-gentleman;- because the perfume which he affects is obtained from the civet-cat. So in the Fatal Dowry, by Massinger (act iii. 1), Romont exclaims, on the exit of Novall the young exquisite,

'What a perfume the musk-cat leaves behind him!'

1. 299. Budge, as a sb., is fur; and Minshew says, particularly, lamb's fur:—which is confirmed by a passage in the Cambridge Statutes, directing facings to be made "furruris buggeis sive agninis," the Latin word being evidently intended to explain the barbarous one.' (Nares' Glossary, s.v.) Milton writes ('On the Articles of Peace with the Irish'), They are become so liberal as to part freely with their own budge gowns from off their backs, and bestow them upon the magistrate.' Hence budge,' as an adj., came to mean solemn,' affecting the airs of academic dignity in its fur-faced academic gown-in a word, 'donnish.' So here; and so in Comus, 1. 707, 'budge doctors of the Stoic fur,' where see further Mr. R. C. Browne's note (Milton, Clar. Press Ser. i. 295). Mr. Oakley writes in Notes and Queries, 4th Ser. xi. 164, that in this sense the word is still in common use among peasants and schoolboys of the midland counties (who, however, pronounce it bug, on the principle of brig for bridge).'

1. 352. Cp. Rochefoucauld, 'Il n'est jamais plus difficile de bien parler, que quand on a honte de se taire.'

1. 358. There is an old belief in 'perpetual lamps,' which have continued burning in the tombs of the dead for a thousand years, or may go on burning for ever. In the time of Pope Paul III one was said to have been found alight in the tomb of Cicero's daughter Tullia, which had been shut up for 1500 years. Out of many allusions in our poets to this notion, cp. Butler, Hudibras, Part ii. Canto i. ll. 309-12:

'Love in your heart as idly burns

As fire in antique Roman urns,
To warm the dead, and vainly light
Those only that see nothing by 't.'

Pope, Eloisa to Abelard, 1. 261:

'Ah hopeless lasting flames! like those that burn
To light the dead, and warm the unfruitful urn.'