Introduction. [The introduction has yet to be written.]

Sonnets 18,19,20,21,and 23 were numbered XV., XVI., XVII., XVIII., and XIX., respectively in Poems (1673). I have printed them here as they are found in 1673 except for the numbers.

Avenge O Lord. See Luke 18:7 and Revelation 6:10.

slaughter'd Saints. This poem protests the violent termination of freedom of worship for a Protestant sect known as the Waldensians on April 24, 1655.

worship't Stocks and Stones. See the condemnation of idolatrous leaders in Jeremiah 2:27.

thy book. The book of God's judgments is mentioned in Exodus 32:32-3 and Revelations 5: 1.

grow/ A hunder'd-fold. The myth of Cadmus in Ovid's Metamorphoses 3.150-190 imagines that soldiers grew from the sowing of serpent's teeth. See also the parable of the sower in Matthew 13:3-8.

Mother with Infant. Cromwell's agents reported that a mother and child were thrown over a rocky cliff during the massacre of the Waldensians (Carey and Fowler 412).

sow. The word appears as "so" in 1673 and has been corrected from the Errata.

triple Tyrant. The pope, whose mitre is composed of a triple crown. Elizabeth Sauer also suggests this may refer to the triple threat against European Protestants represented by Irish, French and Italian Catholic armies under the command of the Duke of Savoy in 1655.

Babylonian wo. In Sonnet 108 Petrarch refers to the Papal Court as a Babylon and "fountain of woe" (Hughes 168).