Man hath weav'd out a net, and this net throwne
Upon the Heavens, and now they are his owne.
Page 275, l. 133. Whose hand, &c. The singular is the reading of all the MSS., and is pretty certainly right. The minute and second hands were comparatively rare at the beginning of the seventeenth century. See the illustrations in F. J. Britten's Old Clocks and Watches and their Makers, &c. (1904); and compare: 'But yet, as he that makes a Clock, bestowes all that labour upon the severall wheeles, that thereby the Bell might give a sound, and that thereby the hand might give knowledge to others how the time passes,' &c. Sermons 80. 55. 550.
Page 276, l. 154. And great Sun-dyall to have set us All. Compare:
The lives of princes should like dyals move,
Whose regular example is so strong,
They make the times by them go right or wrong.
Webster, White Devil, I. ii. 313.
Page 279, l. 250. French soldurii. The reading of the editions is a misprint. The correct form is given in D, H49, Lec, and is used by Donne elsewhere: 'And we may well collect that in Caesars time, in France, for one who dyed naturally, there dyed many by this devout violence. For hee says there were some, whom hee calls Devotos, and Clientes (the latter Lawes call them Soldurios) which enjoying many benefits, and commodities, from men of higher ranke, alwaies when the Lord dyed, celebrated his Funerall with their owne. And Caesar adds, that in the memorie of man, no one was found that ever refused it.' Biathanatos, Part I, Dist. 2, Sect. 3. The marginal note calls them 'Soldurii', and refers to Caes., Bell. Gall. 3, and Tholosa. Sym. lib. 14, cap. 10, N. 14.