1793
ENGLISH POETRY 1579-1830: SPENSER AND THE TRADITION
William Shenstone
Captain John Majoribanks, "Written in a Volume of Shenstone" Pieces in Rhyme (1793) 21-23.
Commentary for
William Shenstone:
1737: William Shenstone
1749: Lady Luxborough
1750 ca.: Rev. Richard Graves
1751: Rev. Richard Jago
1755: Robert Dodsley
1756: John Scott Hylton
1758: Alexander Carlyle
1759: James Woodhouse
1760: Edward Cooper
1760: Rev. Richard Graves
1761: Mrs. John Thomas
1763: Edward Cooper
1763: Rev. Richard Graves
1763: John Cunningham
1763: Edward Cooper
1763: Mary Darwall
1763 ca.: A Lady
1763: Dr. S.
1763: T. H.
1764: Rev. John Langhorne
1765: Cuthbert Shaw
1765: John Oakman
1766: John Scott of Amwell
1769: Thomas Gray
1771: William Roscoe
1771: Rev. Richard Graves
1772: Rev. John Ball
1772: Anonymous
1773: Danos
1773: Thomas Lyttleton
1774: Samuel Jackson Pratt
1774: Anonymous
1774: Charles Graham
1776: Rev. Thomas Maurice
1776: Anonymous
1778: Richard Tickell
1778: Old Robin
1779: J. M.
1779: Herbert
1779: Menassah Dawes
1780: J. W.
1781: Anonymous
1782: Samuel Johnson
1783: Edmond Malone
1784: De Sp—do
1785: H. R.
1787: Robert Burns
1787: Anonymous
1788: John Williams
1789: Junior
1789: A Bard of the Wrekin
1791: Isaac D'Israeli
1791: Corydon
1792: Anna Seward
1792: John Bennet
1793: J. H. C.
1793: Captain John Majoribanks
1795: Dr. Robert Anderson
1797: Mr. Mott
1798: Anna Seward
1802: George Dyer
1802: Anonymous
1805: Thomas Park
1806: Dr. John Aikin
1806: John F. M. Dovaston
1807: Robert Southey
1808: Anne Grant
1812: A. F.
1814: John Hamilton Reynolds
1814: James Jennings
1815: William Wordsworth
1818: William Hazlitt
1818: David Parkes
1823: David Parkes
1823: T. H.
1824: Bryan Waller Procter
1829: Anna Brownell Jameson
1830: Rev. George Barrell Cheever
1836: Hartley Coleridge
1836: L. L.
1842: C. H. Timperley
1855 ca.: Rev. John Mitford
1859: Leigh Hunt
1880: George Saintsbury
1882: Epes Sargent
1910: Ralph Straus
Commentary by
Captain John Majoribanks:
1793: William Shenstone
Hail, happy bard! whose peaceful hours
In sweet retirement pass'd!
Who, shelter'd in thy native bow'rs,
Ne'er felt one angry blast!
No sudden call, no harsh command,
Disturb'd thy life of ease;
To drag thee to some distant land,
O'er wide tempestuous seas.
No woes had'st ever thou to wail
On any foreign shore;
But trode the fair and flow'ry vale,
Thy fathers trode before.
For thee the vernal roses sprung;
The fruits of Autumn grew;
The lark and linnet sweetly sung;
The zephyrs softly blew.
The happy peasants all around
Pursu'd their pleasing toil;
Who dug no foreign master's ground,
But till'd their parent soil.
There slavery's voice was never heard
In anguish to complain—
No lash to goad, — the freeman's spurr'd
By cheerful hopes of gain.
Beside the little lucid stream,
You sung some rural maid,
Nor did one sickly sultry beam
E'er search thy summer shade.
If e'er in absence doom'd to mourn;
How short the parting way!
No furious oceans barr'd return;
No duty claim'd thy stay!
And tho' (so tasteless was the fair!)
Thy DELIA was unkind;
Yet BRITAIN, where no beauty's rare,
Had DELIAS more behind.
How gently slipt thy life away!
Like streams without a wave—
In calm and undisturb'd decay,
You found a humble grave!
Tho' no vain marble rear its head,
To boast a name so fair;
Yet ev'ry fav'rite flow'r shall shed
Its sweetest fragrance there.
The gentle zephyr, as it blows,
Shall spread its odours round.
The limpid water, as it flows,
Shall kiss the sacred ground.
The weeping villagers shall there
Their heart-felt homage pay;
And tell, by ev'ry honest tear,
What pomp could never say.
There shall the faithful Philomel
These vespers nightly tune:
"Alas! that he, who sung so well,
Should cease to sing so soon!"