There is a hint of Cleopatra and Sir Thomas Gresham in his lines "To H. W. L."
Let them drink molten pearls nor dream the cost;
and in the lines from "Memoria Positum" there is an understanding of the processes by which the gem grows:
This death hath far choicer ends
Than slowly to impearl in hearts of friends;
and in the poetic fancy in "A Familiar Epistle to a Friend"—
Old sorrows crystallized into pearls.
Nor does he omit the time-honored custom of poets to place the gem among the chief jewels of the great and in the mouth of beauty, for in "The Singing Leaves" he makes the King's eldest daughter ask of her royal father when he journeys:
O, bring me pearls and diamonds great,
and in "A Fable for Critics" he says: