I must do the author of this literary forgery, however, the justice to say, that in taste and genius he is immeasurably beyond his youthful predecessor, and that some of the verses ascribed to Anna Hatheway, as he terms her, possess no inconsiderable beauties. It is most extraordinary, however, that any individual should venture to bring forward the following lines, which are exquisitely modern in their structure, as the production of a cottage girl of the sixteenth century.
TO THE BELOVYD OF THE MUSES AND MEE.
Sweete swanne of Avon, thou whoose art
Can mould at will the human hart,
Can drawe from all who reade or heare,
The unresisted smile and teare:
By thee a vyllege maiden found,
No care had I for measured sounde;
To dresse the fleese that Willie wrought
Was all I knewe, was all I sought.