[Line 393: Dullness here 'seems to be incorrectly used.
Ignorance is apt to magnify, but dullness reposes in stolid
indifference.']

[Line 441: Sentences--Passages from the Fathers of the Church
who were regarded as decisive authorities on all disputed points of
doctrine.]

[Line 444: Scotists--The disciples of Duns Scotus, one of the
most famous and influential of the scholastics of the fourteenth
century, who was opposed to Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274), another famous
scholastic, regarding the doctrines of grace and the freedom of the
will, but especially the immaculate conception of the Virgin. The
followers of the latter were called Thomists, between whom and the
Scotists bitter controversies were carried on.]

[Line 445: Duck Lane.--A place near Smithfield where old
books were sold. The cobwebs were kindred to the works of these
controversialists, because their arguments were intricate and obscure.
Scotus is said to have demolished two hundred objections to the doctrine
of the immaculate conception, and established it by a cloud of proofs.]

[Line 459: Parsons.--This is an allusion to Jeremy Collier,
the author of _A Short View etc, of the English Stage_. Critics,
beaux.--This to the Duke of Buckingham, the author of _The
Rehearsal_.]

[Line 463: Blackmore, Sir Richard (1652-1729), one of the
court physicians and the writer of a great deal of worthless poetry. He