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This seems to be an allusion to one of the dark peripatetical notions concerning the virtues of the magnet, which has been a kind of ignis fatuus to philosophers, and a prolific source of quackery in all ages.

P. 52. St Augustin, one of the most illustrious fathers of the church, and one of the most eminent characters in the literary history of the fourth century, was the son of St Monica, who took uncommon pains to bring him back to virtue, from the dissipated and licentious course of life into which he had fallen. But, finding all her efforts ineffectual, she at last had recourse only to prayers and tears. St Augustin relates in his Confessions, l. 3. c. 12. that his mother, on one occasion, applied to a holy bishop, to assist her in her endeavours to reclaim her son; and that having shed abundance of tears in his presence, he dismissed her with these words: "Go your way; God bless you; it cannot be that a child of such tears should perish." And soon after she had a vision, in which she saw herself shipwrecked, but was at last saved on a plank, and, looking round, beheld her son standing by her.

P. 54. The facts and persons alluded to in this poem are so well known to