Notes
To the Tixall Poetry.
The Expostulation of St Mary Magdalen.
The few, but affecting incidents, related of Mary Magdalen, in the Gospel, are well adapted to excite the sensibility, and to warm the fancy of a poet. But sacred poetry has seldom been successful. "It is easy," says Mr Headley, "to mistake the enthusiasm of devotion for the inspiration of fancy. To mix the waters of Jordan and Helicon in the same cup was reserved for the hand of Milton; and for him, and him only, to find the bays of Mount Olivet equally verdant with those of Parnassus."
It seems pretty clear, that the writer of these stanzas was Edward Thimelby. At the conclusion of an epistle, p. 40, he has placed his name; and in the next epistle, evidently also by him, he says:
You know temtation once brought me too in,
To faigne a teare or two of Magdalen.
