Note 9 — BRAMSTON'S "MAN OF TASTE"

Count Passeran was a freethinking nobleman who wrote A Philosophical Discourse on Death, in which he defended suicide, though he refrained from resorting to it himself. Pope refers to him in the Epilogue to the Satires, Dialogue i. 124:-- If Blount despatch'd himself, he play'd the man, And so may'st thou, illustrious Passeran!