"On this subject," says Headley, "poets of all ages and nations have been very eloquent; suffice it to say, that Shakespeare, in his Henry the Fourth, Part II. Act III. Sc. 1. has surpassed every thing that has hitherto appeared on the same subject." Daniel has a sonnet to sleep, which concludes thus:
Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain,
And never wake to feel the day's disdain.
P. 295. "The Golden Mean." See a poem at p. 88, entitled "Contented Poverty."
P. 297. This pleasing poem has been ascribed to Sir Henry Wotton, a man of great celebrity in his time. My copy has great variations from all the others which I have seen, and the title is quite different. In the other copies it is entitled, "A Description of the Country's Recreations."
P. 300. I am puzzled to make out who is meant by Mrs E. T. It probably means Eliza Thimelby, the same who is celebrated in the Pastoral, p. 277, and also atp. 230; but then I am still at a loss to make out who she was. Sir John Thimelby had an aunt called Eliza, who was married to one Henry Clifford, but who he was, or what became of them, I have not ascertained. Sir John's wife was Lady Elizabeth Thimelby; his sister Eliza, was married to Richard Conquest, Esq. in 1634, and his daughter Eliza, to Mr Cottington. Here are four Eliza Thimelbys. The one meant in these poems, I suspect was Sir J. Thimelby's sister, afterwards wife of Richard Conquest; and to clear up the matter, I have imagined, that Herbert Aston, on his first acquaintance with the Thimelbyes, became enamoured of Eliza, but afterwards married her sister Catherine. On this supposition, I ascribe to him the lines at p. 230, the Pastoral, and these Stanzas:
In such soft whispers, &c.
So Pope,
Soft as the slumbers of a saint forgiven,
And mild, as opening gleams of promised heaven.
