NOTE e.

At GUIDO’S call, &c.

Alluding to his celebrated fresco in the Rospigliosi Palace at Rome.

NOTE f.

And still the Few best lov’d and most rever’d

The dining-room is dedicated to Conviviality; or, as Cicero somewhere expresses it, “Communitati vitae atque victus.”  There we wish most for the society of our friends; and, perhaps, in their absence, most require their portraits.

The moral advantages of this furniture may be illustrated by the pretty story of an Athenian courtezan, “who, in the midst of a riotous banquet with her lovers, accidentally cast her eye on the portrait of a philosopher, that hung opposite to her seat:  the happy character of temperance and virtue struck her with so lively an image of her own unworthiness, that she instantly quitted the room; and, retiring home, became ever after an example of temperance, as she had been before of debauchery.”

NOTE g.

Read antient looks, or woo inspiring dreams;

The reader will here remember that passage of Horace, Nunc veterum libris, nunc somno, &c which was inscribed by Lord Chesterfield on the frieze of his library.

NOTE h.

And, when a sage’s lust arrests then there,

Siquidem non solum ex auro argentove, aut certe ex aere in bibliothecis dicantur illi, quorum immortales animae in iisdem locis ibi loquuntur:  quinimo etiam quae non sunt, finguntur, pariuntque desideria non traditi vultus, sicut in Homero evenit.  Quo majus (ut equidem arbitror) nullum est felicitatis specimen, quam semper omnes scire cupere, qualis fuerit aliquis.  PLIN.  Nat.  Hist.

Cicero speaks with pleasure of a little seat under Aristotle in the library of Atticus.  “Literis sustentor et recreor; maloque in illa tua sedecula, quam habes sub imagine Aristotelis, sedere, quam in istorum sella curuli!” Ep. ad Att. iv. 10.

Nor should we forget that Dryden drew inspiration from the “majestic face” of Shakespeare; and that a portrait of Newton was the only ornament of the closet of Buffon.  Ep. to Kneller.  Voyage a Montbart.

In the chamber of a man of genius we

Write all down: 
Such and such pictures;—­there the window;
.....the arras, figures,
Why, such and such.  CYMBELINE.

NOTE i.

Which gathers round the Wise of every Tongue,

Quis tantis non gaudeat et glorietur hospitibus, exclaims Petrarch.  —­Spectare, etsi nihil aliud, certe juvat.—­Homerus apud me mutus, imo vero ego apud illum surdus sum.  Gaudeo tamen vel aspectu solo, et saepe ilium amplexus ac suspirans dico:  O magne vir, &c.

Epist.  Var.  Lib. 20.

NOTE k.

Like those blest Youths,

See the Legend of the Seven Sleepers.  GIBBON, c. 33.

NOTE l.

Catch the blest accents of the wise and great.