'tis accustom'd unto sin,
_The mind white paper_ is, and will admit
of any lesson you will write in it."--P. 26.

Shakspeare, of a child, says--

"--the hand of time
Shall draw this brief into as huge a volume."--_K. John, II_ I.]

[Footnote 4:
This, and every other passage throughout the volume, [included between
brackets,] does not appear in the first edition of 1628.]

[Footnote 5:
Adam did not, to use the words of the old Geneva Bible, "make himself
breeches," till he knew sin: the meaning of the passage in the text is
merely that, as a child advances in age, he commonly proceeds in the
knowledge and commission of vice and immorality.]

[Footnote 6:
St. Mary's church was originally built by king Alfred, and annexed to
the University of Oxford, for the use of the scholars, when St. Giles's
and St. Peter's (which were till then appropriated to them,) had been
ruined by the violence of the Danes. It was totally rebuilt during the
reign of Henry VII., who gave forty oaks towards the materials; and is,
in this day, the place of worship in which the public sermons are
preached before the members of the university.]

[Footnote 7:
_Brachigraphy_, or short-hand-writing, appears to have been much studied
in our author's time, and was probably esteemed a fashionable
accomplishment. It was first introduced into this country by Peter
Bales, who, in 1590, published The _Writing Schoolmaster_, a treatise
consisting of three parts, the first "of Brachygraphie, that is, to
write as fast as a man speaketh treatably, writing but one letter for a
word;" the second, of Orthography; and the third of Calligraphy.
Imprinted at London, by T. Orwin, &c., 1590, 4to. A second edition,
"with sundry new additions," appeared in 1597, 12mo, Imprinted at
London, by George Shawe, &c. Holinshed gives the following description
of one of Bales' performances:--"The tenth of August (1575.) a rare
peece of worke, and almost incredible, was brought to passe by an
Englishman borne in the citie of London, named Peter Bales, who by his
industrie and practise of his pen, contriued and writ within the
compasse of a penie, in Latine, the Lord's praier, the creed, the ten
commandements, a praier to God, a praier for the queene, his posie, his
name, the daie of the moneth, the yeare of our Lord, and the reigne of
the queene. And on the seuenteenthe of August next following, at Hampton
court, he presented the same to the queen's maiestie