"And the dragon stood before the woman, who was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child, as soon as it was born,"--Revel. xii. 4. Dryden is at pains, by an original marginal note, which, with others, is restored in this edition, to explain, that, by this allusion here, and in other parts of the poem, he meant "the commonwealth's party." The acquittal of the bishops, on the 17th of June, two days before the poem was licensed, must have excited a prudential reverence for the church of England in the moment of her triumph. The poet fixes upon this commonwealth party therefore, exclusively, the common reports which had been circulated during the queen's pregnancy, and which are thus noticed in the (supposititious) letter to Father La Chaise: "As to the queen's being with child, that great concern goes as well as we could wish, notwithstanding all the satirical discourses of the heretics, who content themselves to vent their poison in libels, which, by night, they disperse in the street, or fix upon the walls. There was one lately found upon a pillar of a church, that imported, that such a day thanks should be given to God for the queen's being great with a cushion. If one of these pasquil-makers could be discovered, he would but have an ill time on't, and should be made to take his last farewell at Tyburn." The usual topics of wit, during the queen's pregnancy, were, allusions to a cushion, a tympany, &c. &c.; and Partridge, the Protestant almanack-maker, utters the following predictions:--"That there was some bawdy project on foot, either about buying, selling, or procuring, a child or children, for some pious uses." And, again, "Some child is to be topped upon the lawful heirs, to cheat them out of their right and estate."--"God preserve the kingdom of England from invasion! for about this time I fear it in earnest, and keep the Protestants there from being dragooned." One single circumstance is sufficient to rout all suspicions thus carefully infused into the people. It is well known, and is noticed in one of L'Estrange's papers at the time, that a similar outcry was raised during a former pregnancy of the queen; but the child proving a female, there was no use for pushing the calumny any further upon that occasion. Note III. _Already has he lifted high the sign, Which crowned the conquering arms of Constantine; The moon grows pale at that presaging sight, And half her train of stars have lost their light._--P. 292. The public exercise of the Catholic religion in England is compared to the miraculous display of the cross, with the motto, _In hoc signo vinces_; which is said to have appeared to Constantine on the eve of his great victory.