William Shenstone (18 November 171411 February 1763) was an English poet and one of the earliest practitioners of
landscape gardening
Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for constructio ...
through the development of his estate, ''
The Leasowes
The Leasowes is a 57-hectare (around 141 acre) estate in Halesowen, historically in the county of Shropshire, England, comprising house and gardens. The parkland is now listed Grade I on English Heritage's Register of Parks and Gardens and the h ...
''.
Biography
Son of Thomas Shenstone and Anne Penn, daughter of William Penn of Harborough Hall, then in
Hagley
Hagley is a large village and civil parish in Worcestershire, England. It is on the boundary of the West Midlands and Worcestershire counties between the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley and Kidderminster. Its estimated population was 7,162 in 20 ...
(now
Blakedown
Blakedown is a village in the Wyre Forest District lying along the A456 in the north of the county of Worcestershire, England. Following enclosures and the arrival of the railway, it developed both agriculturally and industrially during the 19th c ...
), Shenstone was born at the Leasowes,
Halesowen
Halesowen ( ) is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, in the county of West Midlands, England.
Historically an exclave of Shropshire and, from 1844, in Worcestershire, the town is around from Birmingham city centre, and from ...
on 18 November 1714.
At that time this was an
exclave
An enclave is a territory (or a small territory apart of a larger one) that is entirely surrounded by the territory of one other state or entity. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters. ''Enclave'' is sometimes used improperly to deno ...
of
Shropshire
Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to th ...
within the county of
Worcestershire
Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see His ...
and now in the
West Midlands
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...
. Shenstone received part of his formal education at Halesowen Grammar School (now The
Earls High School). In 1741, Shenstone became bailiff to the feoffees of Halesowen Grammar School.
While attending
Solihull School
Solihull School is a coeducational Independent school (UK), independent day school in Solihull, West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. Founded in 1560, it is the oldest school in the town and is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmi ...
, he began a lifelong friendship with
Richard Jago
Richard Jago (1 October 1715 – 8 May 1781) was an English clergyman poet and minor landscape gardener from Warwickshire. Although his writing was not highly regarded by contemporaries, some of it was sufficiently novel to have several imitators ...
. He went up to
Pembroke College, Oxford
Pembroke College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford, is located at Pembroke Square, Oxford. The college was founded in 1624 by King James I of England, using in part the endowment of merchant Thomas Tesdale, and was named after ...
in 1732 and made another firm friend there in
Richard Graves
Richard Graves (4 May 1715 – 23 November 1804) was an English cleric, poet, and novelist. He is remembered especially for his picaresque novel ''The Spiritual Quixote'' (1773).
Early life
Graves was born at Mickleton Manor, Mickleton, Glouce ...
, the author of ''The Spiritual Quixote''.
Shenstone took no degree, but, while still at Oxford, he published ''Poems on various occasions, written for the entertainment of the author'' (1737). This edition was intended for private circulation only but, containing the first draft of ''The Schoolmistress'', it attracted some wider attention. Shenstone tried hard to suppress it but in 1742 he published anonymously a revised draft of ''The Schoolmistress, a Poem in imitation of Spenser''. The inspiration of the poem was Sarah Lloyd, teacher of the village school where Shenstone received his first education.
Isaac D'Israeli
Isaac D'Israeli (11 May 1766 – 19 January 1848) was a British writer, scholar and the father of British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. He is best known for his essays and his associations with other men of letters.
Life and career
Isaac wa ...
contended that
Robert Dodsley
Robert Dodsley (13 February 1703 – 23 September 1764) was an English bookseller, publisher, poet, playwright, and miscellaneous writer.
Life
Dodsley was born near Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, where his father was master of the free school.
He ...
had been misled in publishing it as one of a sequence of ''Moral Poems'', its intention having been
satirical
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...
, as evidenced by the ''ludicrous index'' appended to its original publication.
In 1741 he published ''The Judgment of Hercules''. He inherited the Leasowes estate, and retired there in 1745 to undertake what proved the chief work of his life, the beautifying of his property. He embarked on elaborate schemes of landscape gardening which gave The Leasowes a wide celebrity (see ''
ferme ornée
The term ''ferme ornée'' as used in English garden history derives from Stephen Switzer's term for 'ornamental farm'. It describes a country estate laid out partly according to aesthetic principles and partly for farming. During the eighteenth ce ...
''), but sadly impoverished the owner. Shenstone was not a contented recluse. He desired constant admiration of his gardens, and he never ceased to lament his lack of fame as a poet.
In 1759, Shenstone made the acquaintance of
James Woodhouse
James Woodhouse (17 November 1770, Philadelphia – 4 June 1809, Philadelphia) was an American surgeon and chemist.
Biography
He was the son of English emigrants to the United States. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1787, and ...
, a shoe-maker from nearby Rowley Regis who had started writing poetry. Shenstone encouraged Woodhouse's literary efforts, allowing him access to the library at the Leasowes and including one of Woodhouse's works in a collection of poems published in 1762.
Shenstone died unmarried on 11 February 1763.
Critical appraisal
Shenstone's poems of nature were written in praise of its most artificial aspects, but the emotions they express were obviously genuine. His ''Schoolmistress'' was admired by
Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith (10 November 1728 – 4 April 1774) was an Anglo-Irish novelist, playwright, dramatist and poet, who is best known for his novel ''The Vicar of Wakefield'' (1766), his pastoral poem ''The Deserted Village'' (1770), and his pl ...
, with whom Shenstone had much in common, and his ''Elegies'' written at various times and to some extent biographical in character won the praise of
Robert Burns
Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who hav ...
who, in the preface to ''Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect'' (1786), called him ''... that celebrated poet whose divine elegies do honour to our language, our nation and our species''. The best example of purely technical skill in his works is perhaps his success in the management of the
anapaest
An anapaest (; also spelled anapæst or anapest, also called antidactylus) is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. In classical quantitative meters it consists of two short syllables followed by a long one; in accentual stress meters it consist ...
ic
trimeter
In poetry, a trimeter (Greek for "three measure") is a metre of three metrical feet per line. Examples:
: When here // the spring // we see,
: Fresh green // upon // the tree.
See also
* Anapaest
* Dactyl
* Tristich
* Triadic-line poetry Triad ...
in his ''Pastoral Ballad in Four Parts'' (written in 1743), but first printed in ''Dodsley's Collection of Poems'' (vol. iv., 1755).
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer ( , ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work ''The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the prod ...
mentioned Shenstone in his discussion of equivocation. "
ncepts", Schopenhauer asserted, "which in and by themselves contain nothing improper, yet the actual case brought under them leads to an improper conception" are called equivocations. He continued:
Bibliography
Shenstone's works were first published by his friend Robert Dodsley (3 vols., 1764–1769). The second volume contains Dodsley's description of the Leasowes. The last, consisting of correspondence with Graves, Jago and others, appeared after Dodsley's death. Other letters of Shenstone's are included in Select Letters (ed. Thomas Hill 1778). The letters of Lady Luxborough (née
Henrietta St John
Henrietta Knight, Baroness Luxborough (;born 15 July 1699, died 26 March 1756), was an English poet and letter writer, now mainly remembered as a gardener. She married the rising politician Robert Knight in 1727, but he banished her to his es ...
) to Shenstone were printed by T. Dodsley in 1775; much additional correspondence is preserved in the British Museum letters to Lady Luxborough (Add. MS. 28958), Dodsley's letters to Shenstone (Add. MS. 28959), and correspondence between Shenstone and Bishop Percy from 1757 to 1763 the last being of especial interest; To Shenstone was due the original suggestion of Percy's Reliques, a service which would alone entitle him to a place among the precursors of the romantic movement in English literature.
In a letter written in 1741 Shenstone became the first person to record the use of "
floccinaucinihilipilification". In the first edition of the
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...
this was recognised as the longest word in the English language. The word
shrubbery
A shrubbery, shrub border or shrub garden is a part of a garden where shrubs, mostly flowering species, are thickly planted. The original shrubberies were mostly sections of large gardens, with one or more paths winding through it, a less-rememb ...
is first recorded by the OED in a letter of Lady Luxborough in 1748 to Shenstone: "Nature has been so remarkably kind this last Autumn to adorn my Shrubbery with the flowers that usually blow at
Whitsuntide
Whitsun (also Whitsunday or Whit Sunday) is the name used in Britain, and other countries among Anglicans and Methodists, for the Christian High Holy Day of Pentecost. It is the seventh Sunday after Easter, which commemorates the descent of the H ...
".
OED
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a co ...
, "Shrubbery"
Memorials
*One of the five
houses
A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air condi ...
of
Solihull School
Solihull School is a coeducational Independent school (UK), independent day school in Solihull, West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. Founded in 1560, it is the oldest school in the town and is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmi ...
is named after him.
*One of the four
houses
A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air condi ...
of The
Earls High School (formerly Halesowen Grammar School) is named after him.
*
Solihull School
Solihull School is a coeducational Independent school (UK), independent day school in Solihull, West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. Founded in 1560, it is the oldest school in the town and is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmi ...
's annual publication is named after him – ''The Shenstonian''.
*
Louis-René Girardin built a memorial in the French town of
Ermenonville
Ermenonville () is a commune in the Oise department, northern France. Ermenonville is notable for its park named for Jean-Jacques Rousseau by René Louis de Girardin. Rousseau's tomb was designed by the painter Hubert Robert, and sits on the Isl ...
.
* A prominent public house (pub) in Halesowen (Queensway) is named "The William Shenstone". The walls are adorned with engravings of The Leasowes in Shenstone's time.
*Two roads in the area near to his home in the Leasowes Park are named in his honour: Shenstone Valley Road and Shenstone Avenue. Landscape architect
Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the USA. Olmsted was famous for co- ...
named Shenstone Road in
Riverside, Illinois
Riverside is a suburban village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. A significant portion of the village is in the Riverside Historic District (Riverside, Illinois), Riverside Landscape Architecture District, designated a National Historic La ...
after him.
See also
*
List of abolitionist forerunners
Thomas Clarkson (1760–1846), the pioneering English abolitionist, prepared a "map" of the "streams" of "forerunners and coadjutors" of the abolitionist movement, which he published in his work, ''The History of the Rise, Progress, and Accompl ...
Notes
References
Sources
*
*
Attribution:
*. Endnotes see also:
** Richard Graves, Recollections of some particulars in the Life of the Late William Shenstone (1788);
** H. Sydney Grazebrook, The Family of Shenstone the Poet (1890); Lennox Morison,
** " Shenstone," in the Gentleman't Magazine (vol. 289, 1900, pp. 196–205);
**
Alexander Chalmers
Alexander Chalmers (29 March 1759 – 29 December 1834) was a Scottish writer.
He was born in Aberdeen.
Trained as a doctor, he gave up medicine for journalism, and was for some time editor of the ''Morning Herald''. Besides editions of the wo ...
, ''English Poets'' (1810, vol. xiii.), with " Life " by Samuel Johnson;
** "The Poetical Works of William Shenstone" (in
Library Edition of the British Poets, 1854), with " Life " by
George Gilfillan
__NOTOC__
Rev George Gilfillan (30 January 1813 – 13 August 1878) was a Scottish author and poet. One of the spasmodic poets, Gilfillan was also an editor and commentator, with memoirs, critical dissertations in many editions of earlier Britis ...
;
** T. D'Israeli, " The Domestic Life of a Poet: Shenstone vindicated," in Curiosities of Literature;
** " Burns and Shenstone," in Furth in Field (1894), by " Hugh Haliburton " (J. L. Robertson).
External links
William Shenstoneat th
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (ECPA)Shenstone and the Leasowes at the ''Revolutionary Players'' website*
ttp://www.soton.ac.uk/~sdb2/unconnected.htm Complete text, with annotations, of Shenstone's ''Unconnected Thoughts on Gardening'' (1764)Selected Works*
*
*
*
*
William Shenstone Papers. James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shenstone, William
1714 births
1763 deaths
Alumni of Pembroke College, Oxford
18th-century English poets
English gardeners
People from Halesowen
People educated at Solihull School
English male poets
18th-century English male writers