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Notes.
345
De la foi d'un Chretien les mystères terribles
D' ornemens égayés ne sont point susceptibles.
L'Evangile à l'esprit n'offre de tous cotés,
Que penitence à faire, et tourmens mérites:
Et de vos fictions le mélange coupable
Même à ses vérités donne l'air de la fable.
L'Art Poet. ch. 2. v. 200.

See Johnson's "Life of Watts," in which he affirms, "that the paucity of topics of devotional poetry enforces perpetual repetition, and the sanctity of the matter rejects the ornaments of figurative diction:" and that "it is sufficient for Watts to have done better than others, what no man has done well."

The author of these poetical letters has very properly excepted the inspired writers.

Yet still except we prophets, saints, and kings;
Who hears a heaven's voice of heaven sings,
Nor fears he precipices that has wings.

P. 41. l. 16.You know temtation once brought me too in
To faigne a teare or two of Magdalen.

These two lines seem to point out Edward Thimelby as the author of the "Expostulation of St Mary Magdalen," the first poem in this collection.

P. 42. l. 8.———————— a better Boniface
To scoure of such a pantheon the brasse.

Pope Boniface IV. was the son of a physician, and came to the tiara in 607. He converted the pantheon into a church, which he dedicated to All the Saints. This conversion of a heathen temple into a Christian church was accompanied with many ceremonies, and gave rise to the festival of All Saints, still observed by the Roman Catholic church on the first of November.

P. 43 In 1626, Thomas Lord D'Arcy was created Viscount Colchester and Earl Rivers by King Charles I. He left at his death, in 1640, only two daughters, co-heiresses.