well deferves. To confefs the truth, it was chiefly to prevent his remains from falling into the hands of any one ftill lefs qualified to do him justice, that I have unwillingly ventured to undertake the publication of them myself.

A

Mr. SHENSTONE was the eldeft fon of a plain uneducated country gentleman in SHROPSHIRE, who farmed his own eftate. The father, fenfible of his fon's extraordinary capacity, refolved to give him a learned education, and fent him a commoner to PEMBROKE College in OXFORD, defigning him for the church: but tho' he had the moft aweful notions of the wisdom, power, and goodness of God, he never could be perfuaded to enter into orders. In his private opinions he adhered to no particular fect, and hated all religious difputes. But whatever were his own fentiments, he always fhewed great tenderness to thofe, who differed from him. Tenderness, indeed, in every fenfe of the word, was his peculiar characteristic; his friends, his domeftics, his poor neighbours, all daily experienced his benevolent turn of mind. Indeed, this virtue in him was often carried to fuch excefs, that it fometimes bordered upon

weak

weakness: yet if he was convinced that any of those ranked amongst the number of his friends, had treated him ungenerously, he was not easily reconciled. He ufed a maxim, however, on fuch occafions, which is worthy of being obferved and imitated; "I never (faid he) will be a revengeful enemy; but I cannot, it is not in my nature, to be half a friend." He was in his temper quite unsuspicious; but if suspicion was once awakened in him, it was not laid asleep again without difficulty.

He was no œconomist; the generofity of his temper prevented him from paying a proper regard to the use of money: he exceeded therefore the bounds of his paternal fortune, which before he died was confiderably encumbered. But when one recollects the perfect paradise he had raised around him, the hospitality with which he lived, his great indulgence to his fervants, his charities to the indigent, and all done with an eftate not more than three hundred pounds a year, one should rather be led to wonder that he left any thing behind him, than to blame his want of œconomy. He left however more than sufficient to pay all his debts; and by his

will appropriated his whole eftate for that purpofe.

It was perhaps from fome confiderations on the narrownefs of his fortune, that he forbore to marry; for he was no enemy to wedlock, had a high opinion of many among the fair sex, was fond of their society, and no ftranger to the tendereft impreffions. One, which he received in his youth, was with difficulty furmounted. The lady was the fubject of that sweet pastoral, in four parts, which has been fo univerfally admired; and which, one would have thought, muft have fubdued the loftieft heart, and foftened the moft obdurate.

His perfon, as to height, was above the middle ftature, but largely and rather inelegantly formed his face feemed plain till you converfed with him, and then it grew very pleafing. In his drefs he was negligent, even to a fault ; though when young, at the university, he was accounted a BEAU. He wore his own hair, which was quite grey very early, in a particular manner; not from any affectation of fingularity, but from a maxim he had laid down, that

without

without too flavish a regard to fashion, every one should dress in a manner most suitable to his own person and figure. In fhort, his faults were only little blemishes, thrown in by nature, as it were on purpose to prevent him from rifing too much above that level of imperfection allotted to humanity.

His character as a writer will be distinguished by fimplicity with elegance, and genius with correctness. He had a fublimity equal to the highest attempts; yet from the indolence of his temper, he chofe rather to amuse himself in culling flowers at the foot of the mount, than to take the trouble of climbing the more arduous steeps of PARNASSUS. But whenever he was disposed to rife, his steps, tho' natural, were noble, and always well fupported. In the tenderness of elegiac poetry he hath not been excelled; in the fimplicity of paftoral, one may venture to say he had very few equals. Of great fenfibility himself, he never failed to engage the hearts of his readers: and amidst the nicest attention to the harmony of his numbers, he always took care to express with propriety the fentiments of an elegant mind. In all his writings, his

greatness

greatest difficulty was to please himself. I remember a paffage in one of his letters, where, fpeaking of his love fongs, he fays" Some "were written on occafions a good deal ima"ginary, others not fo; and the reason there * are so many is, that I wanted to write ONE " good fong, and could never please myself." It was this diffidence which occafioned him to throw afide many of his pieces before he had bestowed upon them his laft touches. I have fuppreffed feveral on this account; and if among thofe which I have felected, there fhould be difcovered fome little want of his finishing polish, I hope it will be attributed to this cause, and of course be excufed: yet I flatter myself there will always appear fomething well worthy of having been preferved. And though I was afraid of inferting what might injure the character of my friend, yet as the sketches of a great mafter are always valuable, I was unwilling the public should lose any thing material of fo accomplished a writer. In this dilemma it will eafily be conceived that the task I had to perform would become fomewhat difficult. How I have acquitted myself, the public must judge. Nothing, however, except what he had al

ready