Paracelsus] Philippus Aureolus Theophrastas Bombastus Von Hohenheim (1493-1541), physician and alchemist.

14

Harvey] William Harvey (1578—1657) discovered the circulation of the blood, a discovery much insisted on by the advocates for the moderns.

15

calones ... L‘Estrange] Roman grooms or soldiers’ servants. Swift is pointing his satire and contempt against all sorts of mercenary scribblers. Sir Roger L’Estrange (1616—1704) was distinguished by his activity in this dirty warfare in the reigns of Charles II, and James.

16

These are pamphlets, which are not bound or covered.

17

Momus ... Pallas] Momus was the Greek god of blame and mockery; Pallas, or Athene, was the Greek goddess of wisdom.

18

Hic ... desunt.] Here there is a little missing.

19

wounded aga] Dr. Harvey. It was not thought proper to name his antagonist, but only to intimate that he was wounded; other moderns are spared by the hiatus that follows.

20

Desunt nonnulla] A small section is missing.

21

Ingens ... MS.] Huge gap in the manuscript here.

22

Gondibert] a heroic poem by Sir William Davenant (1606-68).

23

Vid. [See] Homer.

24

Sir John Denham’s [1615—69] poems are very unequal, extremely good and very indifferent, so that his detractors said he was not the real author of Cooper’s Hill [1642].

25

Sam Wesley ... Fontenelle] Sam Wesley (1662-1735), divine and poet, father of John Wesley (1703-91), the Methodist leader; Charles Perrault (1628-1703), whose “The Age of Louis the Great” set modern authors above the Greek and Roman classical writers; Bernard Le Bovier, sieur de Fontanelle (1657-1757), scientist and philosopher.

26

Dryden] John Dryden published his translation of The Works of Virgil in 1697.

27

Alter ... MS.] A second gap in the manuscript.

28

Lucan] Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (AD 39-65), poet and republican patriot.

29

Æsculapius] or Asclepius, Greek god of medicine, son of Apollo and the nymph Coronis.

30

Pauca desunt] A little missing.

31

Creech] Thomas Creech (1659-1700), a translator whose works included a popular verse translation of Lucretius’ de Natura rerum, published in 1682.

32

Ogleby] John Ogilby (1600—76), printer, poet and translator of Æsop, Virgil and Homer; he was ridiculed by Dryden in MacFlecknoe and by Alexander Pope (1688-1744) in The Dunciad.

33

Pindar ... Amazon] Pindar (c. 522 BC—c. 438 BC), Greek choral lyricist; John Oldham (1653-83), imitator and translator of classical satires; Aphra Behn (1640-89), prolific and successful dramatist, poet and novelist.

34

I do not approve the author’s judgment in this, for I think Cowley’s Pindarics are much preferable to his Mistress [a collection of love poems published in 1647].

35

Hiatus ... MS.] Extremely lamentable gap in the manuscript.

36

The person here spoken of is famous for letting fly at everybody without distinction, and using mean and foul scurrilities.

37

Scaliger] Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540-1609), classical scholar, philologist and historian.

38

Aldrovandus’s tomb] Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522—1605), Renaissance naturalist and physician; tomb is a pun on tome.

39

This is according to Homer, who tells the dreams of those who were killed in their sleep.

40