O call to mind thy promise past,
Restore thou them, cut these away.
Till then, let not the weeds have power
To starve or taint the poorest flower."
The copy now before me has no title-page or prefatory matter of any kind, and it wants the second sheet, p. 17 to 32. Yet I do not think it imperfect, for though the paging goes from p. 16 to p. 33, yet the catch-word on the 16th page is answered by the first word on p. 33, and the sense is consecutive.
It seems to me, therefore, that the author changed in some degree his plan, as the work was proceeding at the press, and that the little volume having thus the appearance of negligence and incompleteness, no title or preface was ever printed, and the book never issued for sale.
On this, or any other point, but especially on the question who was the writer of so much verse, I wish to receive information from some of the readers of your very entertaining and often instructive miscellany.
T. S.
PRAYING TO THE DEVIL.
I always thought that this unfashionable sort of worship was confined to some obscure fanatical sects in the East, and was not prepared to find an apparent record of its having been practised, amidst the frivolities and plotting of the French Court, by no less celebrated a lady than Catharine de Medicis. In the Secret History of France for the Last Century (London, printed for A. Bell, at the Cross Keys in Cornwel, (sic.) &c. 1714), I find such an odious charge advanced. I do not draw attention to it with the slightest shadow of belief in a story so ridiculous and incredible; but to ask, whether there existed any foundation for the following statement regarding the "steel box," and if so, what were its contents?