miniature Rousseau, who perseveringly made poetical capital out of his own moods, he exalted simplicity into an ideal : O loved Simplicity! be thine the prize! Assiduous art correct her page in vain! His be the palm who, guiltless of disguise, Contemns the power, the dull resource to feign! 1 Rural retirement was also with him an object to be prayed for : Thro' these soft shades delighted let me stray, While o'er my head forgotten suns descend; Here far from courts, and void of pompous cares, To shine in anguish or to grieve in state.2 But, on occasions, he could find almost as much luxury in fits of the spleen— Bear me, ye winds, indulgent to my pains, Near some sad ruin's ghastly shade to dwell! And from the mouldering refuse build my cell! 3 In point of fact he was not happy unless his solitude was well observed. We smile as we read the reflections of the architect of Strawberry Hill on the recluse of The Leasowes: Poor man! he wanted to have all the world talk of him for the pretty place he had made, and which he seems to have made only that it might be talked of! 4 Gray, too, says of Shenstone in the disdainful manner characteristic of him : His whole philosophy consisted in living against his will in retirement, and in a place which his taste had adorned, but 1 Works in Verse and Prose of William Shenstone, Esq. (1791), Elegy i. p. 30. 2 Ibid. Elegy xxiii. pp. 95-6. 3 Ibid. Elegy xvii. p. 73. + Horace Walpole's Correspondence (Cunningham), vol. v. p. 169. which he only enjoyed when people of note came to see and commend it.1 Shenstone himself confirms the justice of this judg ment : Now I am come home from a visit, every little uneasiness is sufficient to introduce my whole train of melancholy considerations, and to make me utterly dissatisfied with the life I now lead, and the life which I foresee I shall lead. I am angry, and envious, and dejected, and frantic, and disregard all present things, just as becomes a madman to do. I am infinitely pleased (though it is a gloomy joy) with the application of Dr. Swift's complaint, "that he is forced to die in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole." My soul is no more suited to the figure I make than a cable rope to a cambric needle. I cannot bear to see the advantages alienated which I think I could deserve and relish so much more than those that have them. Nothing can give me patience but the soothing sympathy of a friend, and that will only turn my rage into simple melancholy. I believe soon I shall bear to see nobody. I do hate all hereabouts already except one or two. I will have my dinner brought upon my table in my absence, and the plates fetched away in my absence, and nobody shall see me: for I never can bear to appear in the same stupid mediocrity for years together and gain no ground.2 In spite of his affectation, Shenstone was, within his own limits, a genuine artist. It is true that the Damon of The Leasowes only valued his sheep-folds when Lady Luxborough, or the Duchess of Somerset, and others whose names appear profusely in his verse, came to admire him in them. But for all these people simplicity and melancholy were in the air, and Shenstone had the merit of inventing poetical forms fitted to express their feelings. Just as he knew how to give an effective turn to a waterfall, or to place a bench at an agreeable point of view, so he understood the way in which metre is associated with sentiment. He could always take a hint from another man's poetical practice. For example, the Elegy in the four-lined stanza of heroic verse, with alternate rhymes had just been brought into fashion by Antony 1 Gray to Norton Nicholls, June 24, 1769. 2 Shenstone's Works in Verse and Prose (1791), vol. iii. pp. 38-39. Hammond (1710-42), an imitator of Tibullus. Shenstone, discoursing on the characteristics of Elegy, says: Epic and tragedy chiefly recommend the public virtues; elegy is of a species which illustrates and endears the private. There is a truly virtuous pleasure connected with many pensive contemplations, which it is the province and excellency of elegy to enforce. This, by presenting suitable ideas, has discovered sweets in melancholy which we could not find in mirth; and has led us with success to the dusty urn, when we could draw no pleasure from the sparkling bowl; as pastoral conveys an idea of simplicity and innocence, it is in particular the task and merit of elegy to show the innocence and simplicity of rural life to advantage and that in a way distinct from pastoral, as much as the plain but judicious landlord may be imagined to surpass his tenant both in dignity and understanding.1 Hammond had confined his use of the Elegy to the purposes of love: Shenstone employed it to express all sentimental moods, and though none of these include such profound feelings as the Elegy in a Country Churchyard, his elegiac experiments, as having probably suggested Gray's poem, are historically interesting. So, too, in his development of the Pastoral Ballad from the metre of Rowe's Despairing Shepherd there is genuine metrical skill; and the source of Cowper's inspiration in the lament of Alexander Selkirk may be easily traced to the fourth section of the Ballad, of which the following stanzas, full of an artificial simplicity, will serve as an example : Alas! from the day that we met What hope of an end to my woes? The glance that undid my repose. Yet time may diminish the pain: The flower, and the shrub, and the tree, The sweets of a dew-sprinkled rose, The sound of a murmuring stream, Henceforth shall be Corydon's dream. 1 Shenstone's Works in Verse and Prose, vol. i. pp. 18-19. High transports are shown to our sight, As I with my Phyllis had known.1 It was scarcely possible that the capacities of the ballad proper, as a vehicle for sentimentality, should escape the notice of such a votary of self-conscious Naturalism as Shenstone. He wrote a ballad on "Jemmy Dawson" (one of the rebels executed after the Battle of Culloden), in which the following "Early-English” stanzas will give the reader an idea of the absence of humour in the romantic moods of our ancestors in the eighteenth century: How pale was then his true-love's cheek, When Jemmy's sentence reached her ear! So pale, and yet so chill appear. With faltering voice she weeping said, Yet might sweet mercy find a place, My orisons should never close !" 2 His sense of the proprieties of style is more happily illustrated in The Schoolmistress, which, as Johnson says, is a delightful performance, but which also shows how completely the memory of the chivalrous era had died out of English society since the Revolution of 1688. Shenstone's idea of Spenser's genius is expressed in one of his letters : His subject is certainly bad, and his action inexpressibly confused; but there are some particulars in him that charm one. Those which afford the greatest scope for a ludicrous imitation are his simplicity and obsolete phrase; and yet these are what give one a very singular pleasure in the perusal.3 1 Shenstone's Works in Verse and Prose (1791) vol. i. p. 191. What he felt in Spenser's style he reproduced, by way of parody, with excellent humour, as in this description of a birching : Ah luckless he, and born beneath the beam O ruthful scene! when from a nook obscure The other tribe, aghast with sore dismay, See, to their seats they hye with merry glee, All but the wight of bum y-galled, he Abhorreth bench, and stool, and fourm, and chair: His grievous wrong; his Dame's unjust behest ; And scorns her offered love, and shuns to be caressed.1 With Shenstone may be classed, as an elegiac poet, 1 Shenstone's Works in Verse and Prose, vol. i. pp. 326-328. |