I, book 3,
ch. 7.--_W. E. B._]
[Footnote 4: Stella.]
[Footnote 5: The Duke of Marlborough was accused of having received large
sums, as perquisites, from the contractors, who furnished bread, forage,
etc., to the army.--_Scott_.]
[Footnote 6: Scott prints this word "plumes," substituting a false
meaning for the real point of the poem.--_Forster_.]
[Footnote 7: The result of the investigations of the House of Commons was
the removal of the Duke of Marlborough from his command, and all his
employments.--_Scott_.]
TOLAND'S INVITATION TO DISMAL[1] TO DINE WITH THE CALVES' HEAD CLUB
Written A.D. 1712.--_Stella._
Imitated from Horace, Lib. i, Epist. 5.
Toland, the Deist, distinguished himself as a party writer in behalf
of the Whigs. He wrote a pamphlet on the demolition of Dunkirk, and
another called "The Art of Reasoning," in which he directly charged
Oxford with the purpose of bringing in the Pretender. The Earl of
Nottingham, here, as elsewhere, called Dismal from his swarthy
complexion, was bred a rigid High-Churchman, and was only induced to
support the Whigs, in their resolutions against a peace, by their
consenting to the bill against occasional conformity. He was so
distinguished for regularity, as to be termed by Rowe
"The sober Earl of Nottingham,
Of sober sire descended.
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