Poetry Codex

Restoration & Augustan

William Shenstone

1714–1763

William Shenstone (1714–1763) was an English poet and landscape gardener, born at Halesowen in Shropshire (now the West Midlands) and educated at Pembroke College, Oxford. He is remembered for The School-Mistress (1742), a gently comic imitation of Spenser, and for his Elegies, Odes, Songs and Ballads, which were widely admired in the middle of the eighteenth century.

From 1745 he lived on his family estate, The Leasowes, near Halesowen, which he laid out as a ferme ornee, a working farm shaped into a landscape of walks, cascades and inscriptions. Visitors came from across Britain to see it, and it helped shape the English taste for the picturesque garden. His Works in Verse and Prose appeared after his death, and the poems here follow the two-volume Poetical Works of 1778.

Poems (94)

  1. Elegy I. He arrives at his retirement in the country, and takes occasion to expatiate in praise of simplicity. To a Friend
  2. Elegy II. On posthumous reputation. To a Friend
  3. Elegy III. On the untimely death of a certain learned acquaintance
  4. Elegy IV. Ophelia's urn. To Mr. G—
  5. Elegy V. He compares the turbulence of love with the tranquillity of friendship. To Melissa his friend
  6. Elegy VI. To a Lady, on the language of birds
  7. Elegy VII. He describes his vision to an acquaintance
  8. Elegy VIII. He describes his early love of poetry, and its consequences. To Mr. G—, 1745
  9. Elegy IX. He describes his disinterestedness to a friend
  10. Elegy X. To Fortune, suggesting his motive for repining at her dispensations
  11. Elegy XI. He complains how soon the pleasing novelty of life is over
  12. Elegy XII. His recantation
  13. Elegy XIII. To a friend, on some slight occasion estranged from him
  14. Elegy XIV. Declining an invitation to visit foreign countries, he takes occasion to intimate the advantages of his own. To Lord Temple
  15. Elegy XV. In memory of a private family in Worcestershire
  16. Elegy XVI. He suggests the advantages of birth to a person of merit, and the folly of a superciliousness that is built upon that sole foundation
  17. Elegy XVII. He indulges the suggestions of spleen: An Elegy to the winds
  18. Elegy XVIII. He repeats the song of Colin, a discerning shepherd, lamenting the state of the woollen manufactory
  19. Elegy XIX. Written in spring 1743
  20. Elegy XX. He compares his humble fortune with the distress of others, and his subjection to Delia with the miserable servitude of an African slave
  21. Elegy XXI. Taking a view of the country from his retirement, he is led to meditate on the character of the ancient Britons. Written at the time of a rumoured tax upon luxury, 1746
  22. Elegy XXII. Written in the year — when the rights of sepulture were so frequently violated
  23. Elegy XXIII. Reflections suggested by his situation
  24. Elegy XXIV. He takes occasion, from the fate of Eleanor of Bretagne, to suggest the imperfect pleasures of a solitary life
  25. Elegy XXV. To Delia, with some flowers; complaining how much his benevolence suffers on account of his humble fortune
  26. Elegy XXVI. Describing the sorrow of an ingenuous mind on the melancholy event of a licentious amour
  27. Flirt and Phil: A Decision for the Ladies
  28. Stanzas To the memory of an agreeable Lady, buried in marriage to a person undeserving her
  29. Colemira. A Culinary Eclogue
  30. On Certain Pastorals
  31. On Mr. C— of Kidderminster's Poetry
  32. To the Virtuosi
  33. The Extent of Cookery
  34. The Progress of Advice. A Common Case
  35. Slender's Ghost. Vide Shakespeare
  36. The Invidious
  37. The Price of an Equipage
  38. Hint from Voiture
  39. Inscription
  40. To a Friend
  41. The Poet and the Dun, 1741
  42. Written at an Inn at Henley
  43. A Simile
  44. The Charms of Precedence. A Tale
  45. Epilogue to the Tragedy of Cleone
  46. A Pastoral Ode, to the Honourable Sir Richard Lyttleton
  47. A Pastoral Ballad, in Four Parts. Written 1733
  48. Ode to Health, 1730
  49. To a Lady of Quality, Fitting Up her Library, 1738
  50. Anacreontic, 1738
  51. Ode. Written 1739
  52. Upon a Visit to a Lady of Quality, In winter 1748
  53. Ode to Memory, 1748
  54. Verses Written towards the close of the year 1748, to William Lyttleton, Esq
  55. An Irregular Ode, After sickness, 1749
  56. Rural Elegance, an Ode to the Late Duchess of Somerset. Written 1750
  57. Ode to Indolence, 1750
  58. Ode to a Young Lady, Somewhat too solicitous about her manner of expression
  59. Written in a Flower Book Of my own colouring, designed for Lady Plymouth, 1753-4
  60. The Dying Kid
  61. Ode
  62. Ode. To be performed by Dr. Brettle, and a chorus of Hales Owen citizens. The instrumental part a Viol d'Amour
  63. The Princess Elizabeth, a Ballad, alluding to a story recorded of her when she was prisoner at Woodstock, 1554
  64. Nancy of the Vale. A Ballad
  65. The Rape of the Trap. A Ballad, 1737
  66. Jemmy Dawson. A Ballad. Written about the time of his execution, in the year 1745
  67. A Ballad
  68. Song
  69. Song. The Landscape
  70. Song
  71. Song. The Skylark
  72. Song
  73. Song. The attribute of Venus
  74. Song, 1742
  75. Song. Valentine's Day, 1743
  76. Song, 1743
  77. Song, 1744
  78. Song, 1744
  79. Song, 1744
  80. Song. Winter, 1746
  81. Song. The Scholar's Relapse
  82. Song. The Rose-bud
  83. Song. Daphne's Visit
  84. Song. Written in a Collection of Bacchanalian Songs
  85. Song. Imitated from the French
  86. Song
  87. Song
  88. The Halcyon
  89. The Judgment of Hercules
  90. The Progress of Taste: Or, the Fate of Delicacy
  91. Economy, a Rhapsody, Addressed to Young Poets
  92. The Ruin'd Abbey: Or, the Effects of Superstition
  93. Love and Honour
  94. The Schoolmistress. In Imitation of Spenser

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