NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. The HARLEIAN MS. 6917-18, as before, gives an admirable reading, corrective of all the editions in st. 3, line 3. Hitherto it has run, 'And teach her faire steps to our Earth:' the MS. as given by us 'tread' for 'to:' ib. st. 5, line 1, reads 'Meete her my wishes;' perhaps preferable: st. 6, I accept 'its' for 'his' from 1670 edition: st. 7, 'than'=then, and is spelled 'then' here and elsewhere in 1646 and 1670: st. 8, line 3, HARLEIAN MS. reads 'Or a bowe, blush, or a set smile;' inferior: st. 9, ib. reads 'commend' for 'command;' adopted: st. 11, ib. 'their' for 'the;' adopted: st. 14, ib. spells 'tyers,' and line 3 reads as we print for 'And cloath their simplest nakednesse,' which is clumsy and poor: st. 15: Here, as in the poem, 'On the bleeding wounds of our crucified Lord' (st. 6), where we read 'The thorns that Thy blest brows encloses,' and elsewhere, we have an example of the Elizabethan use of 'that' as a singular (referring to and thus made a collective plural) taken as the governing nominative to the verb. So in this poem of 'Wishes' we have 'Eyes that bestow,' 'Joys that confess,' 'Tresses that wear.' But it must be stated that the HARLEIAN MS., as before, reads not as in 1646 and 1648 'displaces,' 'out-faces' and 'graces,' but as printed by us on its authority; certainly the rhythm is improved thereby: st. 18, line 2, ib. 'dares' for 'dare;' adopted: st. 24, looking to 'tears quickly fled' of next stanza, I think 'flight' is correct, and not a misprint for 'slight.' Accordingly I have punctuated with a comma after fond, flight being = the shrinking-away of the bride, like the Horatian fair lady, a fugitive yet wishful of her lover's kiss: st. 31, HARLEIAN MS. as before, 'Open sunn:' st. 42, line 3, 'be you my fictions, she my story.' G. TO THE QUEEN: AN APOLOGIE FOR THE LENGTH OF THE FOLLOWING PANEGYRICK.[85] When you are mistresse of the song, 1 Mighty queen, to thinke it long, Were treason 'gainst that majesty Your Vertue wears. Your modesty Yet thinks it so. But ev'n that too 5 --Infinite, since part of you-- New matter for our Muse supplies, And so allowes what it denies. Say then dread queen, how may we doe To mediate 'twixt your self and you? 10 That so our sweetly temper'd song Nor be too sort, nor seeme to[o] long. Needs must your noble prayses' strength That made it long excuse the length. TO THE QUEEN, VPON HER NUMEROUS PROGENIE: A PANEGYRICK.[86]