Note 175 — Chapter VI · COMPOUND EPITHETS IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY

“Works,” op. cit., Vol. IV, p. 203. In point of fact, there is little or no evidence in favour of it. Even the Spenserian imitations that flourished exceedingly at this time have little interest in this respect. Shenstone has very few instances of compounds, but the poems of William Thompson furnish a few examples: “honey-trickling streams” (“Sickness,” Bk. I), “Lily-mantled meads” (ibid.), etc. Gilbert West’s Spenserian poems have no instances of any special merit; but a verse of his Pindar shows that he was not without a gift for happy composition: “The billow-beaten side of the foam-besilvered main.”