WILLIAM SHENSTONE

1714-1763

WILLIAM SHENSTONE was born at the Leasowes, in Shropshire, England, in 1714. His school-days were passed in his native village, amid scenes which he has described in poems of much grace and beauty. For ten years he studied at Pembroke College, Oxford. Here, from time to time, he published small books of lyrics, which were well received. In 1745 he took up his permanent residence on his ancestral estate of the Leasowes, which he embellished with every adjunct of beauty and taste. Dr. Samuel Johnson, referring to the return of Shenstone to the Leasowes, says: "Now was excited his delight in real 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 skillful, a place to be visited by travelers and copied by designers." Unfortunately, Shenstone did not calculate the cost of the work he had undertaken until he found himself hopelessly involved in debt. The estate was sacrificed to pay for its adornment, and the last days of the poet were clouded with care and sorrow, which doubtless hastened his end. He died in 1763.

Characterization

The inimitable "Schoolmistress" of Shenstone is one of the felici ties of genius; but the purpose of this poem has been entirely misconceived. Johnson, acknowledging this charming effusion to be "the most pleasing of Shenstone's productions," observes, "I know not what claim it has to stand among the moral works." The truth is, that it was intended for quite a different purpose by the author, and Dodsley, the editor of his works, must have strangely blundered in designating it "a moral poem." It may be classed with a species of poetry till recently rare in our language, and which we sometimes find among the Italians in their rime piacevoli, or poesie burlesche, which does not always consist of low humor in a facetious style, with jingling rhymes, to which form we attach our idea of a burlesque poem. There

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is a refined species of ludicrous poetry which is comic yet tender, lusory yet elegant, and with such a blending of the serious and the facetious that the result of such a poem may often, among its other pleasures, produce a sort of ambiguity; so that we do not always know whether the writer is laughing at his subject, or whether he is to be laughed at. The admirable Whistlecraft met this fate. "The Schoolmistress" of Shenstone has been admired for its exquisitely ludicrous turn. This discovery I owe to the good fortune of possessing the original edition of "The Schoolmistress," which the author printed under his own directions, and to his own fancy. To this piece of ludicrous poetry, as he calls it, "lest it should be mistaken," he added a ludicrous index, "partly to show fools that I am in jest." But "the fool," his subsequent editor, who, I regret to say, was Robert Dodsley, thought proper to suppress this amusing "Ludicrous Index," and the consequence is, as the poet foresaw, that his aim has been mistaken. ISAAC D'ISRAELI.

But with all the beauties of the Leasowes in our minds, it may still be regretted that, instead of devoting his whole soul to clumping beeches and projecting mottoes for summer-houses, he had not gone more into living nature for subjects, and described her interesting realities with the same fond and natural touches which give so much delightfulness to his portrait of "The Schoolmistress."

THOMAS CAMPBELL.

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The School mistress?

I.

Ah me! full sorely is my heart forlorn,
To think how modest worth neglected lies;
While partial fame doth with her blasts adorn
Such deeds alone as pride and pomp disguise;

Whistlecraft," the nom de plume of J. Hookham Frere (1769-1846), an English diplomatist and poet, author of exquisite humorous compositions, comic and serious by turns.

? The schoolmistress portrayed is Dame Sarah Lloyd, the "school-dame" of the poet in his early years. Shenstone designed to have for an illustration of the poem a comic portrait of this since-famous personage.

The veritable schoolhouse of Dame Sarah, with its thatched roof, formed the frontispiece of the original edition of the poem. The "birch tree" in front was gilded by the rays of the setting sun. Shenstone was disgusted with the picture and with his artist, and declared the setting sun" to be "a falling monster." 6. M.-5

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Deeds of ill sort, and mischievous emprize:
Lend me thy clarion, goddess! let me try
To sound the praise of merit, ere it dies;
Such as I oft have chanced to espy,
Lost in the dreary shades of dull obscurity.

II.

In every village mark'd with little spire,
Embower'd in trees and hardly known to fame,
There dwells, in lowly shed and mean attire,
A matron old, whom we schoolmistress name;
Who boasts unruly brats with birch to tame;
They grieven sore, in piteous durance pent,
Awed by the pow'r of this relentless dame;
And oft-times, on vagaries idly bent,

For unkempt hair, or task unconn'd, are sorely shent

III.

And all in sight doth rise a birchen tree,
Which learning near her little dome did stow;
Whilom a twig of small regard to see,

Tho' now so wide its waving branches flow;
And work the simple vassals mickle woe;
For not a wind might curl the leaves that blew
But their limbs shudder'd, and their pulse beat low;
And as they look'd they found their horror grew,
And shaped it into rods, and tingled at the view.

V.

Near to this dome is found a patch so green,
On which the tribe their gambols do display;
And at the door impris'ning board is seen,
Lest weakly wights of smaller size should stray;
Eager, perdie, to bask in sunny day!

The noises intermix'd, which thence resound,
Do learning's little tenement betray;

Where sits the dame, disguised in look profound,

And eyes her fairy throng, and turns her wheel around.

VI.

Her cap, far whiter than the driven snow,
Emblem right meet of decency does yield:
Her apron dyed in grain, as blue, I trow,
As is the harebell that adorns the field:
And in her hand, for scepter, she does wield
Tway birchen sprays; with anxious fear entwined
With dark distrust, and sad repentance fill'd;
And steadfast hate, and sharp affliction join'd,
And fury uncontroll'd, and chastisement unkind.

VIII.

A russet stole was o'er her shoulders thrown;
A russet kirtle fenced the nipping air;
'Twas simple russet, but it was her own;
'Twas her own country bred the flock so fair,
"Twas her own labor did the fleece prepare:
And, sooth to say, her pupils, ranged around,
Through pious awe, did term it passing rare;
For they in gaping wonderment abound,

And think, no doubt, she been the greatest wight on ground

IX.

Albeit ne flattery did corrupt her truth,
Ne pompous title did debauch her ear;
Goody, good-woman, gossip, n'aunt, forsooth,
Or dame, the sole additions she did hear;

Yet these she challenged, these she held right dear,

Ne would esteem him act as mought behove,
Who should not honor'd eld with these revere:
For never title yet so mean could prove,

But there was eke a mind which did that title love.

X.

One ancient hen she took delight to feed, The plodding pattern of the busy dame: Which, ever and anon, impell'd by need, Into her school, begirt with chickens, came; Such favor did her past deportment claim; And, if neglect had lavish'd on the ground Fragment of bread, she would collect the same; For well she knew, and quaintly could expound, What sin it were to waste the smallest crumb she found

XI.

Herbs, too, she knew, and well of each could speak

That in her garden sipp'd the silv'ry dew;

Where no vain flow'r disclosed a gaudy streak;
But herbs for use, and physic, not a few,
Of grey renown, within those borders grew.
The tufted basil, pun-provoking thyme,
Fresh balm, and marygold of cheerful hue;
The lowly gill that never dares to climb;

And more I fain would sing, disdaining here to rhyme.

XII.

Yet euphrasy, may not be left unsung,

That gives dim eyes to wander leagues around;
And pungent radish biting infant's tongue;
And plantain ribb'd, that heals the reaper's wound;
And marj'ram sweet, in shepherd's posy found;