Cottle was Coleridge's friend and publisher; but also a poet in his own right. I've been reading
his 1795 collection of Poems, off and on, to get a sense of what he was about. And I don't mean only to snark; some of his lines are quite good. But some are not. Today's examples are from his long poem in heroic couplets 'John the Baptist':
'The God of Abraham tun'd his mental ear'. No. I can't visualise a 'mental ear' either.
What's a 'latchet'? No matter. Have you ever wondered how it is birds are able to fly? If you guessed:
invisible hands, holding them up from underneath then congratulations, you win our star prize!
'Plumy tribes' is particularly wincing.
"And then, as if the lass had not been sufficiently saucy, she presumed to enlarge his latchet."
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