in Hales-Owen, and was placed afterwards with Mr. Crumpton, an eminent school-master at Solihul', where he distinguished himself by the quickness of his progress.

When he was young (June, 1724) he was deprived of his 4 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 5 Oxford, a society which for half a century has been eminent for English poetry and elegant literature3. 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 5, but without shewing any intention to engage in the profession.

About the time when he went to Oxford, the death of his 6 grandmother devolved his affairs to the care of the reverend Mr. Dolman of Brome in Staffordshire, whose attention he always mentioned with gratitude.

At Oxford he employed himself upon English poetry'; and 7 in 1737 published a small Miscellany, without his name 8.

• Solihul is seven miles from Birmingham on the Warwick Road. See Boswell's Johnson, vi. Add. p. 44, for Johnson's rejection in his application for the mastership in 1735, and for 'ye late master Mr. Crompton's huffing the Foeofees.' Jago (ante, WEST, 15), who was one of Crompton's pupils, writes in his Edgehill, 1767, p. 101:'With throbbing heart to the stern discipline [turn'd.' Of pedagogue morose I sad re2 Lady Luxborough, in her Letters to Shenstone, p. 146, says of one of the coaches from Birmingham to London :-'It breakfasts at Henley [in Arden], and lies at Chipping Norton; goes early next day to Oxford; stays there all day and night, and gets on the third day to London.'

3 See Appendix T.

4 'A large mulberry-tree in the Fellows' Garden was called Shenstone's tree. The small tables in the Common Room were made from this when it was cut down.' Macleane's Pemb. Coll. p. 278.

5 He wore the gown of a student of civil law.

Of his inscription on an urn to his cousin, Miss Dolman (Eng. Poets, lix. 304), Landor wrote:-'The tender and virtuous Shenstone, in writing the most beautiful of epitaphs, was unaware how near he stood to Petrarca. "Heu quanto minus est cum aliis [reliquis] versari quam tui meminisse!"" LANDOR, Longer Prose Works, ed. Crump, ii. 103.

Shenstone was harassed with a Chancery suit by 'young D- [Dolman], the only near relation I have by the mother's side.' Works, iii. 230, 273, 277.

He amused himself with English poetry, and employed himself in the study of mathematics, &c.' Graves's Recollections, p. 23. For a curious account of the society of Pembroke College see ib. pp. 13-27, quoted by me in Dr. Johnson: His Friends and his Critics, p. 37.

8 Poems upon Various Occasions, written for the Entertainment of the Author, and printed for the Amuse

8 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 publick resort; but he did not forget his poetry. He published in 1740 his Fudgement of Hercules, addressed to Mr. Lyttelton', whose interest he supported with great warmth at an election: this was two years afterwards followed by The School-mistress3.

9 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 a while, 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.

10

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 judgement 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 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 enquire: perhaps a sullen and surly speculator may think such performances rather the sport than the business of

human reason 1. 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 2.

This praise was the praise of Shenstone; but, like all other 11 modes of felicity, it was not enjoyed without its abatements. Lyttelton was his neighbour and his rival, whose empire, spacious and opulent 3, 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 5; injuries of which Shenstone would heavily complain. Where

'Shenstone's defence may be found in his own lines (Rural Elegance, 11. 169–172, Eng. Poets, lix. 87):'And sure there seem of human kind Some born to shun the solemn strife;

Some for amusive tasks design'd,

To soothe the certain ills of life.' 2 In Shenstone's Works, ii. 287, is a plan of the Leasowes with a description. Among Goldsmith's

' unacknowledged Essays' is one on the Leasowes, entitled The History of a Poet's Garden. Works, iii. 340.

Johnson recorded on Sept. 19, 1774: 'We visited the Leasowes. It was rain, yet we visited all the waterfalls. There are in one place fourteen falls in a short line.' Boswell's Johnson, v. 457.

Wesley, who visited it in 1782, wrote: All this is comprised in the compass of three miles! I doubt if it be exceeded by anything in Europe.' Journal, 1827, iv. 226.

3 For Horace Walpole's description of 'the enchanting scenes of the park' at Hagley see his Letters,ii. 352. 'When from behind there starts some petty state.' DRYDEN, Conquest of Grenada, 2nd part, i. 1.

5 Graves, while denying any 'rivalship' between the Lytteltons and Shenstone, allows that the poet 'would sometimes peevishly complain that they and their company often went to the principal points of view, without waiting for any one to conduct them regularly through the whole walks.' Recollections, p. 83.

This passage and the Life of Lyttelton roused the anger of 'a whole tribe of blues, with Mrs. Montagu at their head.' At Mrs. Thrale's table Dr. Johnson cried:-" Mr. Pepys, I understand you are offended by my Life of Lord Lyttelton. What is it you have to say against it?" He made Seward repeat 'fresh instances of Lyttelton's illiberal behaviour to Shenstone.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 45; post, LYTTELTON, I N.

The following passages from Lady Luxborough's Letters to Shenstone, 1775, pp. 58, 158, justify Johnson:'Oct. 16, 1748. If your expostulations with Mr. Lyttelton were brusques, his visit was as much so.' 'Dec. 1749. Mr. Lyttelton and Mr. Miller find so much at the Leasowes to raise their envy, and consequently their spleen, that it is happy for them some one object offers that they can

12

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14

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 water1.

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 3.

In time his expences 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 'He builds such huts as, in foul weather, [neither.' Are fit for sheep nor shepherd Progress of Taste, Eng. Poets,lix. 230.

vent it upon,... so vexed will they be to find themselves under a necessity of commending.'

Horace Walpole wrote of Hagley in 1753-There is a ruined castle built by Miller. ... It has the true rust of the Barons' Wars.' Letters, ii. 352. For Miller, the great gardener' see ante, J. PHILIPS, 15. See also Graves's Recollections, p. 86 ; John. Misc. ii. 3.

''Johnson used to laugh at Shenstone for not caring whether there was anything good to eat in the streams he was so fond of, as if (says he) one could fill one's belly with hearing soft murmurs or looking at rough cascades." MRS. PIOZZI, John. Misc. i. 323.

2

By his own good taste and his mechanical skill he acquired two tolerably elegant rooms from a mere farm-house.' Graves's Recollections, p. 72.

[Bishop Percy in 1805 writes:'Johnson grossly misrepresented both Shenstone's circumstances and his house, which was small but elegant and displayed a great deal of taste in the alteration and accommodation of the apartments, &c. On his sideboard he had a neat marble cistern which by turning a cock was fed with living water.' Nichols's Lit. Illustr. vii. 151.]

Of himself, as Damon, he says :—

4That his groves were haunted by duns I believe to be a groundless surmise.' Graves's Recollections, p.72.

5 Ante, SOMERVILE, 3. On Aug. 21, 1748, he wrote:- My affairs are miserably embroiled by my own negligence and the non-payment of tenants.' Works, iii. 142. In his Progress of Taste (Eng. Poets, lix. 231), after describing his embellishments, he adds:

'Ah me! ('twas Damon's own con-
fession)

Came poverty and took possession.'
In Oeconomy (ib. p. 254) he tells of

'the sad survey of present want And past profusion.'

His estate, says Dodsley, was not more than £300 a year. 'He left more than sufficient to pay all his debts.' Works, i. 9.

'I am afraid that he died of misery,' Johnson recorded, after visiting the Leasowes. Boswell's Johnson, v. 457

For the various owners of the estate and the prices paid for it see N.&Q.3 S. xii. 289. [Bishop Percy says the Leasowes was so improved by Shenstone's taste that when it was sold by auction in 1795, £17,000 was obtained. Nichols's Lit. Illustr. vii. 152.]

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 the Leasowes of a putrid fever about five on Friday 15 morning, February 11, 17632, and was buried by the side of his brother in the church-yard of Hales-Owen3.

He was never married, though he might have obtained the 16 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 œconomy, and careless of his expences; in his person larger than the middle size, with something clumsy in his form;

A a