WILLIAM SHENSTONE, the son of Thomas Shenstone and Anne Pen, was born in
November, 1714, at the Leasowes in Hales-Owen, one of those insulated
districts which, in the division of the kingdom, was appended, for some
reason not now discoverable, to a distant county; and which, though
surrounded by Warwickshire and Worcestershire, belongs to Shropshire,
though perhaps thirty miles distant from any other part of it. He
learned to read of an old dame, whom his poem of the “Schoolmistress” has
delivered to posterity; and soon received such delight from books, that
he was always calling for fresh entertainment, and expected that, when
any of the family went to market, a new book should be brought him,
which, when it came, was in fondness carried to bed and laid by him. It
is said, that, when his request had been neglected, his mother wrapped up
a piece of wood of the same form, and pacified him for the night. As he
grew older, he went for a while to the Grammar-school in Hales-Owen, and
was placed afterwards with Mr. Crumpton, an eminent schoolmaster at
Solihul, where he distinguished himself by the quickness of his progress.
When he was young (June, 1724) he was deprived of his father, and soon
after (August, 1726) of his grandfather; and was, with his brother, who
died afterwards unmarried, left to the care of his grandmother, who
managed the estate.
From school he was sent in 1732 to Pembroke College in Oxford, a society
which for half a century has been eminent for English poetry and elegant
literature. Here it appears that he found delight and advantage; for he
continued his name in the book ten years, though he took no degree.
After the first four years he put on the civilian’s gown, but without
showing any intention to engage in the profession. About the time when
he went to Oxford, the death of his grandmother devolved his affairs to
the care of the Rev. Mr. Dolman, of Brome in Staffordshire, whose
attention he always mentioned with gratitude. At Oxford he employed
himself upon English poetry; and in 1737 published a small Miscellany,
without his name. He then for a time wandered about, to acquaint himself
with life, and was sometimes at London, sometimes at Bath, or any other
place of public resort; but he did not forget his poetry. He published
in 1741 his “Judgment of Hercules,” addressed to Mr. Lyttelton, whose
interest he supported with great warmth at an election: this was next
year followed by the “Schoolmistress.”
Mr. Dolman, to whose care he was indebted for his ease and leisure, died
in 1745, and the care of his own fortune now fell upon him. He tried to
escape it awhile, and lived at his house with his tenants, who were
distantly related; but, finding that imperfect possession inconvenient,
he took the whole estate into his own hands, more to the improvement of
its beauty than the increase of its produce. Now was excited his delight
in rural pleasures and his ambition of rural elegance; he began from this
time to point his prospects, to diversify his surface, to entangle his
walks, and to wind his waters, which he did with such judgment and such
fancy as made his little domain the envy of the great and the admiration
of the skilful; a place to be visited by travellers and copied by
designers. Whether to plant a walk in undulating curves, and to place a
bench at every turn where there is an object to catch the view, to make
the water run where it will be heard, and to stagnate where it will be
seen, to leave intervals where the eye will be pleased, and to thicken
the plantation where there is something to be hidden, demands any great
powers of mind, I will not inquire: perhaps a sullen and surly spectator
may think such performances rather the sport than the business of human
reason. But it must be at least confessed that to embellish the form of
Nature is an innocent amusement, and some praise must be allowed, by the
most supercilious observer, to him who does best what such multitudes are
contending to do well.
This praise was the praise of Shenstone; but, like all other modes of
felicity, it was not enjoyed without its abatements. Lyttelton was his
neighbour and his rival, whose empire, spacious and opulent, looked with
disdain on the _petty state_ that _appeared behind it_. For a while the
inhabitants of Hagley affected to tell their acquaintance of the little
fellow that was trying to make himself admired; but when by degrees the
Leasowes forced themselves into notice, they took care to defeat the
curiosity which they could not suppress by conducting their visitants
perversely to inconvenient points of view, and introducing them at the
wrong end of a walk to detect a deception; injuries of which Shenstone
would heavily complain. Where there is emulation there will be vanity;
and where there is vanity there will be folly.
The pleasure of Shenstone was all in his eye; he valued what he valued
merely for its looks. Nothing raised his indignation more than to ask if
there were any fishes in his water. His house was mean, and he did not
improve it; his care was of his grounds. When he came home from his
walks, he might find his floors flooded by a shower through the broken
roof; but could spare no money for its reparation. In time his expenses
brought clamours about him that overpowered the lamb’s bleat and the
linnet’s song, and his groves were haunted by beings very different from
fauns and fairies. He spent his estate in adorning it, and his death was
probably hastened by his anxieties. He was a lamp that spent its oil in
blazing. It is said that, if he had lived a little longer, he would have
been assisted by a pension: such bounty could not have been ever more
properly bestowed; but that it was ever asked is not certain; it is too
certain that it never was enjoyed. He died at Leasowes, of a putrid
fever, about five on Friday morning, February 11, 1763, and was buried by
the side of his brother in the churchyard of Hales-Owen.
He was never married, though he might have obtained the lady, whoever she
was, to whom his “Pastoral Ballad” was addressed. He is represented by
his friend Dodsley as a man of great tenderness and generosity, kind to
all that were within his influence; but, if once offended, not easily
appeased; inattentive to economy, and careless of his expenses; in his
person he was larger than the middle-size, with something clumsy in his
form; very negligent of his clothes, and remarkable for wearing his grey
hair in a particular manner, for he held that the fashion was no rule of
dress, and that every man was to suit his appearance to his natural form.
His mind was not very comprehensive, nor his curiosity active; he had no
value for those parts of knowledge which he had not himself cultivated.
His life was unstained by any crime. The “Elegy on Jesse,” which has
been supposed to relate an unfortunate and criminal amour of his own, was
known by his friends to have been suggested by the story of Miss Godfrey
in Richardson’s “Pamela.”
What Gray thought of his character, from the perusal of his Letters, was
this:—
“I have read, too, an octavo volume of Shenstone’s Letters. Poor
man! he was always wishing for money, for fame, and other
distinctions; and his whole philosophy consisted in living against
his will in retirement, and in a place which his taste had adorned,
but which he only enjoyed when people of note came to see and commend
it. His correspondence is about nothing else but this place and his
own writings, with two or three neighbouring clergymen, who wrote
verses too.”
His poems consist of elegies, odes, and ballads, humorous sallies, and
moral pieces. His conception of an Elegy he has in his Preface very
judiciously and discriminately explained. It is, according to his
account, the effusion of a contemplative mind, sometimes plaintive, and
always serious, and therefore superior to the glitter of slight
ornaments. His compositions suit not ill to this description. His
topics of praise are the domestic virtues, and his thoughts are pure and
simple, but wanting combination; they want variety. The peace of
solitude, the innocence of inactivity, and the unenvied security of an
humble station, can fill but a few pages. That of which the essence is
uniformity will be soon described. His elegies have, therefore, too much
resemblance of each other. The lines are sometimes, such as Elegy
requires, smooth and easy; but to this praise his claim is not constant;
his diction is often harsh, improper, and affected, his words ill-coined
or ill-chosen, and his phrase unskilfully inverted.
The Lyric Poems are almost all of the light and airy kind, such as trip
lightly and nimbly along, without the load of any weighty meaning. From
these, however, “Rural Elegance” has some right to be excepted. I once
heard it praised by a very learned lady; and, though the lines are
irregular, and the thoughts diffused with too much verbosity, yet it
cannot be denied to contain both philosophical argument and poetical
spirit. Of the rest I cannot think any excellent; the “Skylark” pleases
me best, which has, however, more of the epigram than of the ode.
But the four parts of his “Pastoral Ballad” demand particular notice. I
cannot but regret that it is pastoral: an intelligent reader acquainted
with the scenes of real life sickens at the mention of the _crook_, the
_pipe_, the _sheep_, and the _kids_, which it is not necessary to bring
forward to notice; for the poet’s art is selection, and he ought to show
the beauties without the grossness of the country life. His stanza seems
to have been chosen in imitation of Rowe’s “Despairing Shepherd.” In the
first are two passages, to which if any mind denies its sympathy, it has
no acquaintance with love or nature:—
“I prized every hour that went by,
Beyond all that had pleased me before:
But now they are past, and I sigh,
And I grieve that I prized them no more.
When forced the fair nymph to forego,
What anguish I felt in my heart!
Yet I thought (but it might not be so)
’Twas with pain that she saw me depart.
She gazed, as I slowly withdrew,
My path I could hardly discern;
So sweetly she bade me adieu,
I thought that she bade me return.”
In the second this passage has its prettiness; though it be not equal to
the former:—
“I have found out a gift for my fair:
I have found where the wood pigeons breed:
But let me that plunder forbear,
She will say ’twas a barbarous deed:
For he ne’er could be true, she averred,
Who could rob a poor bird of its young;
And I loved her the more when I heard
Such tenderness fall from her tongue.”
In the third he mentions the common-places of amorous poetry with some
address:—
“’Tis his with mock passion to glow!
’Tis his in smooth tales to unfold,
How her face is as bright as the snow,
And her bosom, be sure, is as cold:
How the nightingales labour the strain,
With the notes of this charmer to vie:
How they vary their accents in vain,
Repine at her triumphs, and die.”