On the last Page of the Magnalia, the following are the last three Lines: "Errata. Reader, Carthagenia was of the Mind, that unto those three Things which the Ancients held impossible, there should be added this fourth, to find a Book printed without Erratas. It seems the Hands of Briareus, and the Eyes of Argus will not prevent them." And the additional Errata of which we have been speaking, the Author thus prefaces: "The Holy Bible it self, in some of its Editions, hath been affronted with scandalous Errors of the Press-work; and in one of them, they so printed those Words, Psalms cxix, 161, 'Printers have persecuted me,'" &c.
When the Magnalia was published, Dr. Mather's old Schoolmaster, among others, wrote commendatory Poetry upon it, which was, according to the Fashion of the Day, inserted in its introductory Pages. The following brief Specimen by Tompson may not be thought inappropriate to be extracted here:
"Is the bless'd Mather Necromancer turn'd,
To raise his Country's Father's Ashes urn'd?
Elisha's Dust, Life to the Dead imparts;
This Prophet by his more familiar Arts,
Unseals our Hero's Tombs, and gives them Air;
They rise, they walk, they talk, look wondrous fair;
Each of them in an Orb of Light doth shine,
In Liveries of Glory most divine.