‘And that green wreath which decks the bard when dead,
That laurel garland crown’d his living head.’
But he bore his honours meekly, and performed his half-yearly task regularly. I should not have mentioned him for this distinction alone (the highest which a poet can receive from the state), but for another circumstance; I mean his being the author of some of the finest sonnets in the language—at least so they appear to me; and as this species of composition has the necessary advantage of being short (though it is also sometimes both ‘tedious and brief’), I will here repeat two or three of them, as treating pleasing subjects in a pleasing and philosophical way.
Written in a blank leaf of Dugdale’s Monasticon
‘Deem not, devoid of elegance, the sage,
By Fancy’s genuine feelings unbeguil’d,
Of painful pedantry the poring child;
Who turns of these proud domes the historic page,
Now sunk by Time, and Henry’s fiercer rage.
Think’st thou the warbling Muses never smil’d