Page:Tixall Poetry.djvu/388



The Copernican system of the universe, which was first published to the world about the year 1540, appears not at this time, after the revolution of about 100 years, nor for some time after, to have obtained an absolute undisputed footing in England. In that admirable lesson of sublime morality, which the Archangel Raphael delivers to our first parent, (P. L. B. .) after much information on the motion of the heavenly bodies, the exhortation thus concludes:—

P. 13. This poem evidently alludes to some threatened invasion of Christendom by the Turks, but I am unable to point out the particular period.

L. 5. Now every rustick hind and every boore, &c.

Virgil has described, in a very lively manner, the agitation of a people preparing to resist an invasion: