Hong Kong.
_Passage in Wordsworth_ (Vol. vii., p. 85.).--I can refer your Edinburgh
correspondent, who asks for "an _older_ original for Wordsworth's graceful
conceit," to the following lines by Henry Constable, an Elizabethan poet,
who published, in 1594, a volume of sonnets entitled _Diana_; and whose
"ambrosiac muse" is lauded by Ben Jonson in his _Underwoods_ (Gifford, vol.
viii. p. 390.):
"The pen wherewith thou dost so heavenly singe,
Made of a quill pluckt from an Angell's winge."
These lines, which I find in the notes to Todd's _Milton_ (vol. v. p. 454.,
edit. 1826), being addressed "To the King of Scots whom as yet he had not
seen," must have been written before 1603, and were first printed on a MS.
volume by Todd in his first edition, 1801; where Wordsworth, who was no
reader of scarce old tracts like "Diana Primrose's Chain of Pearl," may
very probably have seen them.