MADAM,
Your Majesty's most humble,
And most obedient subject and servant,
JOHN DRYDEN.
[1] Mary of Este, wife of James II.
[2] The superstitious and, as it proved, fatal insinuation, that the birth of the Chevalier de St George was owing to the supernatural intercession of St Francis Xavier, was much insisted on by the Protestants as an argument against the reality of his birth. See the Introduction to "Britannia Rediviva," Vol. X. p. 285. In that piece, our author also alludes to this foolery:
Hail, son of prayers, by holy violence
Drawn down from heaven!—
[3] The Reverend Richard Hackluyt, editor of the large collection of voyages to which Purchas' Pilgrim is a continuation.