Note 259 — PART III FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE PRESENT TIMES
Reading edition
With those lines of Wordsworth compare the following: a Sonnet addressed "to the King of Scots," in Henry Constable's Diana, published in 1594—
The pen wherewith thou dost so heavenly singe, Made of a quill pluck't from an Angell's winge.
A sonnet by Dorothy Berry, prefixed to Diana Primrose's Chain of Pearl, a memorial of the peerless graces, etc., of Queen Elizabeth, London, 1639—
Whose noble praise Deserves a quill pluck't from an angel's wing.
Also John Evelyn, in his Life of Mrs. Godolphin, "It would become the pen of an angel's wing to describe the life of a saint," etc.—Ed.