Shakspeare and His Times [Vol. 2 of 2] / Including the Biography of the Poet; criticisms on his genius and writings; a new chronology of his plays; a disquisition on the on the object of his sonnets; and a history of the manners, customs, and amusements, superstitions, poetry, and elegant literature of his age

by Nathan Drake

[321:A] Scenes of Infancy, book ii. pp. 71-73. This poem abounds in passages of exquisite pathos and splendid imagination. The book, whence the lines just quoted are taken, closes with the following apostrophe to Mr. Scott:—

"O Scott! with whom, in youth's serenest prime,

I wove, with careless hand, the fairy rhyme,

Bade chivalry's barbaric pomp return,

And heroes wake from every mouldering urn!

Thy powerful verse, to grace the courtly hall,

Shall many a tale of elder time recall,

The deeds of knights, the loves of dames, proclaim,

And give forgotten bards their former fame.

Enough for me, if Fancy wake the shell,