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NOTES.
Stanza II. 3. Royalty bore sway, &c.]
QUEEN MARY resided at Craigmillar Castle in the month of November 1566, during the time that preparations were made for baptizing her son JAMES VI. at Stirling. Knox, Buchan. lib. 18. &c.—It appears from the letters supposed to have been wrote by her to Bothwell, that she intended to have brought her husband Henry Darnly to the bath at this place; but he not chusing it, and proceeding to the Kirk of Field, was there murdered. Goodal, vol. II.
Page 7. St. IV. 3. Whose fate, &c.]
Muoiono le citta▪ muoiono i regni, Copre i fasti e le pompe arena, ed herba. E l' huom d' esser mortal parche si sdegni: O nostra mente cupida e superba! TASSO.
P. S. St. V. 3. Oft hath'd, &c.]
It was a custom of this beautiful Princess to bathe herself in white wine, as a preservative of her charms. In this she was not singular, it being frequent with the Ladies of that age, when the progress of the liberal arts be∣gan to be attended with proportional refinements in luxury. Jaques du Fouilloux, one of the Beaux Esprits of that period, enumerating the arts with which a country girl, of whom he was enamoured, disdained to improve her person, particularly mentions this:
Point ne prenoit vin blanc pour se baigner. L' Adolescence de Jaques du Fouilloux.
P. 9. St. V. 1. See o'er the place, &c.]
Haec sunt quas merito quondam est mirata Vetustas Magnarum rerum magna sepulchra vides. C. LABERIUS de ruinis Athen.
St. penult. l. 4. Snowey Moon-light.]
Quo solet et niveae vuttum confundere lunae. OVID.
Ib. Moon-light sleep'd.]
This bold figure is taken from the Poet of Nature:
How sweet the moon-light sleeps upon this bank! Merchant of Venice, Act V. Sc. 1.