[Footnote 49: An _eagre_ is a tide swelling above another tide, which I have myself observed in the river Trent.--DRYDEN. This species of combat between the current and the tide is well known on the Severn; and, so far back as the days of William of Malmesbury, was called the _Higre_. Unhappy is the vessel, says that ancient historian, on whom its force falls laterally. _De Gestis Pontificum_, Lib. IV.--Drayton describes the same river, ----With whose tumultuous waves, Shut up in narrower bounds, the Higre wildly raves, And frights the straggling flocks the neighbouring shores to fly. Afar as from the main it comes with hideous cry; And on the angry front the curled foam doth bring, The billows 'gainst the bank when fiercely it doth fling, Hurls up the scaly ooze, and makes the scaly brood Leap madding to the land affrighted from the flood; O'erturns the toiling barch whose steersman does not launch, And thrust the furrowing beak into her ravening paunch. _Poly-Albion_, Song VII. ] [Footnote 50: To engage upon _liking_, (an image rather too familiar for the occasion,) is to take a temporary trial of a service, or business, with licence to quit it at pleasure.] [Footnote 51: Note IV.] [Footnote 52: Note V.] [Footnote 53: Alluding to the Duke's banishment to Flanders. See note on "Absalom and Achitophel," Vol. IX. p. 384.] [Footnote 54: The testament of king David, by which he bequeathed to his son the charge of executing vengeance on those enemies whom he had spared during his life, has been much canvassed by divines. I indulge myself in a tribute to a most venerable character, when I state, that the most ingenious discourses I ever heard from the pulpit, were upon this and other parts of David's conduct, in a series of lectures by the late Reverend Dr John Erskine, one of the ministers of the Old Greyfriars church in Edinburgh.] [Footnote 55: King Charles' first parliament, from passing the Act of Indemnity, and taking other measures to drown all angry recollection of the civil wars, was called the Healing Parliament.] [Footnote 56: A similar line occurs in the _Annus Mirabilis_, St. 160: Beyond the year, and out of heaven's high-way. The expression is originally Virgil's: _Extra anni, solisque vias_. ] [Footnote 57: See the Astræa Redux. Note VI.] [Footnote 58: Reckoning from the death of his father, Charles had reigned thirty-six years and eight days; and, counting from his restoration, twenty-four years, eight months, and nine days.] [Footnote 59: Ancus Martius, who succeeded the peaceful Numa Pompilius as king of Rome.] [Footnote 60: Note VII.] NOTES ON THRENODIA AUGUSTALIS. Note I. _An unexpected burst of woes._--P. 62.