“Alas! from the day that we met,
What hope of an end to my woes,
When I cannot endure to forget
The glance that undid my repose?
Yet Time may diminish the pain:
The flower, and the shrub, and the tree,
Which I reared for her pleasure in vain,
In time may have comfort for me.”
His “Levities” are by their title exempted from the severities of
criticism, yet it may be remarked in a few words that his humour is
sometimes gross, and seldom sprightly.
Of the Moral Poems, the first is the “Choice of Hercules,” from Xenophon.
The numbers are smooth, the diction elegant, and the thoughts just; but
something of vigour is still to be wished, which it might have had by
brevity and compression. His “Fate of Delicacy” has an air of gaiety,
but not a very pointed and general moral. His blank verses, those that
can read them, may probably find to be like the blank verses of his
neighbours. “Love and Honour” is derived from the old ballad, “Did you
not hear of a Spanish Lady?”—I wish it well enough to wish it were in
rhyme.
The “Schoolmistress,” of which I know not what claim it has to stand
among the Moral Works, is surely the most pleasing of Shenstone’s
performances. The adoption of a particular style, in light and short
compositions, contributes much to the increase of pleasure: we are
entertained at once with two imitations of nature in the sentiments, of
the original author in the style, and between them the mind is kept in
perpetual employment.
The general recommendation of Shenstone is easiness and simplicity; his
general defect is want of comprehension and variety. Had his mind been
better stored with knowledge, whether he could have been great, I know
not; he could certainly have been agreeable.