[Footnote 5:  Dr. Johnson tells the story of Rowe having applied to Lord Oxford for promotion, and being asked whether he understood Spanish.  Elated with the prospect of an embassy to Madrid, Rowe hurried home, shut himself up, and for months devoted himself to the study of a language the possession of which was to make his fortune.  At length, he reappeared at the Minister’s levee and announced himself a Spanish scholar.  “Then,” said Lord Oxford, shaking his hand cordially, “let me congratulate you on your ability to enjoy Don Quixote, in the original.”  Johnson seems to throw doubt on the story, because Rowe would not even speak to a Tory, and certainly would not apply to a Tory minister for advancement.  But Oxford was once a Whig, and was in office as such; and it was probably at that period the incident occurred.]

[Footnote 6:  Battle of the Poets, 1725.]

[Footnote 7: 

  “Harmonious Cibber entertains
  The court with annual birthday strains,
  Whence Gay was banished in disgrace,
  Where Pope will never show his face,
  Where Young must torture his invention
  To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.”

SWIFT, Poetry, a Rhapsody, 1733.]

[Footnote 8: 

  “Know, Eusden thirsts no more for sack or praise;
  He sleeps among the dull of ancient days;
  Where wretched Withers, Ward, and Gildon rest,
  And high-born Howard, more majestic sire,
  With fool of quality completes the choir. 
  Thou, Cibber! thou his laurel shalt support;
  Folly, my son, has still a friend at court.”

Dunciad, Bk.  I.

Warburton, by-the-by, exculpates Eusden from any worse fault, as a writer, than being too prolix and too prolific.—­See Note to Dunciad, Bk.  II. 291.]

[Footnote 9:  Duck stands at the head of the prodigious school in English literature.  All the poetical bricklayers, weavers, cobblers, farmer’s boys, shepherds, and basket-makers, who have since astonished their day and generation, hail him as their general father.]

[Footnote 10:  The antiquary may be pleased to know that the “Devil” tavern in Fleet Street, the old haunt of the dramatists, was the place where the choir of the Chapel Royal gathered to rehearse the Laureate odes.  Hence Pope, at the close of Dunciad I.,

  “Then swells the Chapel-Royal throat;
  ‘God save King Cibber!’ mounts in every note. 
  Familiar White’s ‘God save King Colley!’ cries;
  ‘God save King Colley!’ Drury-Lane replies;”]

[Footnote 11: 

  “On his own works with laurel crowned,
  Neatly and elegantly bound,—­
  For this is one of many rules
  With writing Lords and laureate fools,
  And which forever must succeed
  With other Lords who cannot read,
  However destitute of wit,
  To make their works for bookcase fit,—­
  Acknowledged master of those seats,
  Cibber his birthday odes repeats.”