Page:Tixall Poetry.djvu/423



P. 144. This Song, of the Witches, was composed by Sir William Davenant, and introduced into his alteration of the tragedy of "Macbeth," in 1674. I have left it among these poems chiefly on account of that strange line,

As a striking instance, how the words, and sense of an author may be corrupted, and destroyed, by an ignorant, or careless copier; the true reading is,

Had the former been the only reading known, and the latter supplied by some ingenious commentator, it might have been considered, as one of the happiest emendations of conjectural criticism.

P. 152. XXXV. "By Sir Charles Sedley, in Sir George Etherege's comedy of The Man of Mode." Ritson, "Songs," v. i. 177.

[Mr Nichols, in his collection, gives this 'from the French of Madame de la Suze,' by Sir Car Scrope.]—.

P. 158. I have found this short description of a storm, in a little miscellany,