On which their father promised to return.
I will only point out to attention the beautiful and happily expressed simile of the eagle in stanzas 107 and 108, and then, in imitation of honest John Bunyan,
No more detain the readers in the porch,
Or keep them from the day-light with a torch.
The title of Annus Mirabilis did not, according to Mr Malone, originate with Dryden; a prose tract, so intitled, being published in 1662.[87] Neither was he the last that used it; for, the learned editor of "Predictions and Observations, collected from Mr J. Partridge's Almanacks for 1687 and 1688," has so entitled his astrological lucubrations.
The Annus Mirabilis was first printed in octavo, in 1667, the year succeeding that which was the subject of the poem. The quarto edition of 1688, which seems very correct, has been employed in correcting that of Derrick in a few trifling instances.