"Magic casements opening on the foam
Of perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn."

William Julius Mickle, the translator of the "Lusiad," was a more
considerable poet than any of the Spenserian imitators thus far reviewed,
with the exception of Thomson and the possible exception of Shenstone.
He wrote at least two poems that are likely to be remembered. One of
these was the ballad of "Cumnor Hall" which suggested Scott's
"Kenilworth," and came near giving its name to the novel. The other was
the dialect song of "The Mariner's Wife," which Burns admired so greatly:

"Sae true his heart, sae smooth his speech,
His breath like caller air,
His very foot has music in't,
As he comes up the stair,
For there's nae luck about the house,
There is nae luck at a',
There's little pleasure in the house
When our gudeman's awa',"[33]

Mickle, like Thomson, was a Scotchman who came to London to push his
literary fortunes. He received some encouragement from Lyttelton, but
was disappointed in his hopes of any substantial aid from the British
Maecenas. His biographer informs us that "about his thirteenth year, on
Spenser's 'Faërie Queene' falling accidentally in his way, he was
immediately struck with the picturesque descriptions of that much admired
ancient bard and powerfully incited to imitate his style and manner."[34]
In 1767 Mickle published "The Concubine," a Spenserian poem in two
cantos. In the preface to his second edition, 1778, in which the title