Footnotes: 
1.  John, Lord Vaughan, was the eldest surviving son of Richard, Earl
   of Carbery, to which title he afterwards succeeded.  He was a man of
   literature, and president of the Royal Society from 1686 to 1689. 
   Dryden was distinguished by his patronage as far back as 1664,
   being fourteen years before the acting of this play.  Lord Vaughan
   had thus the honour of discovering and admiring the poet’s genius,
   before the public applause had fixed his fame; and, probably better
   deserved the panegyric here bestowed, than was Usual among Dryden’s
   patrons.  He wrote a recommendatory copy of verses, which are
   prefixed to “The Conquest of Granada.”  Mr Malone informs us, that
   this accomplished nobleman died at Chelsea, on 16th January,
   1712-13.

2.  The great popish plot, that scene of mystery and blood, broke out
   in August 1678.

3.  Flecknoe was a Roman Catholic priest, very much addicted to
   scribbling verses.  His name has been chiefly preserved by our
   author’s satire of “Mack-Flecknoe;” in which he has depicted
   Shadwell, as the literary son and heir of this wretched poetaster. 
   A few farther particulars concerning him may be found prefixed to
   that poem.  Flecknoe, from this dedication, appears to have been
   just deceased.  The particular passage referred to has not been
   discovered; even Langbaine had never seen it:  but Mr Malone points
   out a letter of Flecknoe to the Cardinal Barberini, whereof the
   first sentence is in Latin, and the next in English.  Our author, in
   an uncommon strain of self-depreciation, or rather to give a neat
   turn to his sentence, has avouched himself to be a worse poet than
   Flecknoe.  But expressions of modesty in a dedication, like those of
   panegyric, are not to be understood literally.  As in the latter,
   Dryden often strains a note beyond Ela, so, on the present
   occasion, he has certainly sounded the very base string of
   humility.  Poor Flecknoe, indeed, seems to have become proverbial,
   as the worst of poets.  The Earl of Dorset thus begins a satire on
   Edward Howard: 

     Those damned antipodes to common sense,
     Those toils to Flecknoe, pr’ythee, tell me whence
     Does all this mighty mass of dulness spring,
     Which in such loads thou to the stage dost bring?

4.  There is a very flat and prosaic imitation of this sentiment in the
   Duke of Buckingham’s lines to Pope: 

     And yet so wondrous, so sublime a thing
     As the great Iliad, scarce could make me sing;
     Except I justly could at once commend
     A good companion, and as firm a friend;
     One moral, or a mere well-natured deed,
     Does all desert in sciences exceed.

   Thus prose may be humbled, as well as exalted; into poetry.