Various lines, and brief extracts, of no common merit, might be detached from the Lover's Complaint; but enough has now been said on the _Miscellaneous Poetry_ of Shakspeare, to prove that it possesses a value far beyond what has been attributed to it in modern times. The depreciation, indeed, to which it has been lately subjected, a fate so directly opposed to that which accompanied its first reception in the world, must be ascribed, in a great measure, to the unaccountable prejudices of Mr. Steevens, who, in an Advertisement prefixed to the edition of our author's Dramas, in 1793, has made the following curious declaration:— "We have not reprinted the Sonnets, &c. of Shakspeare, because _the strongest act of parliament that could be framed would fail to compel readers into their service_; notwithstanding these miscellaneous poems have derived every possible advantage from the literature and judgment of their only intelligent editor, Mr. Malone, whose implements of criticism, like the ivory rake and golden spade in Prudentius, _are on this occasion disgraced by the objects of their culture_—had Shakspeare produced no other works than these, his name would have reached us with as little celebrity as time has conferred on that of Thomas Watson, an older _and much more elegant sonnetteer_."[85:A] That Watson was a _much more elegant sonnetteer than Shakspeare_, is an assertion which wants no other mean for its complete refutation, than a reference to the works of the elder bard. At the period when Mr. Steevens advanced this verdict, such a reference was not within the power of one in a thousand of his readers, but all may now be referred to a very satisfactory article in the _British Bibliographer_, where Sir Egerton Brydges has transcribed seventeen of Watson's sonnets, and declares it to be his conviction, that they "want the moral cast" of Shakspeare's sonnets; "his unsophisticated materials; his pure and natural train of thought."[85:B] It may be added, that a more extended comparison would render the inferiority of Watson still further apparent, and that the Bard of Avon would figure from the juxta-position like "Hyperion to a satyr." When Mr. Steevens compliments his brother-commentator at the expense of the poet; when he tells us, that _his implements of criticism are on this occasion disgraced by the objects of their culture_, who can avoid feeling a mingled emotion of wonder and disgust? who can, in short, forbear a smile of derision and contempt at the folly of such a declaration?