[Footnote 81: Paradise Lost was published in the year 1667;
and the famous lines (l. ii. 708, &c.) which startled the
licenser, may allude to the recent comet of 1664, observed
by Cassini at Rome in the presence of Queen Christina,
(Fontenelle, in his Eloge, tom. v. p. 338.) Had Charles II.
betrayed any symptoms of curiosity or fear?]