In his facile faith in the substance of picturesque and happy shadows, he sometimes tries to believe that the phoenix may have been, in some age and country, a real, living bird, of flesh and blood and genuine feathers, with long, strong wings, capable of performing the strange psychological feats ascribed to it in that most edifying picture emblazoned on the arms of Banking Companies, Insurance Offices, and Quack Doctors.

The Phoenix is the only Saxon poem that gives us the rich scenery of the South, in place of the stern northern landscape.

"The king made a grant of a patent (says Pennant) for acting in what was then called the Cockpit, and the Phoenix, the actors were the king's servants, were on the establishment, and ten of them were called gentlemen of the Great Chamber, and had ten yards of scarlet cloth allowed them, with a suitable quantity of lace.