Nov. 13. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



465 



diminished the force of the principal thought." 

 The additions are thus given in Dodsley's edition 

 of Shenstone's Works, vol. i. p. 218., where the 

 whole is inscribed : 



" WRITTEN AT AN INN AT HENLET. 



" To thee, fair Freedom ! I retire 



From flattery, cards, and dice, and din; 

 Nor art thou found in mansions higher 

 Than the low cot, or humble inn. 



" 'Tis here with boundless pow'r I reign ; 

 ;. And every health which I begin 



: Converts dull port to bright champagne ; 

 i Such freedom crowns it, at an inn. 



" I fly from pomp, I fly from plate ! 



I fly from falsehood's specious grin ; 

 Freedom I love, and form I hate. 

 And chuse my lodgings at an inn, 



" Here waiter ! take my sordid ore, 



Which lacqueys else might hope to win ; 

 It buys, what courts have not in store, 

 It buys rae freedom at an inn. 



" Whoe'er has travell'd life's dull round. 

 Where'er his stages may have been. 

 May sigh to think he still has found 

 The warmest welcome at an inn." 



The statement of Mr. Graves, that the lines were 

 written in a summer-house at Edge Hill (Mr. 

 Jago's), is inconsistent with the title prefixed to 

 these stanzas. Perhaps the lines so often quoted 

 were all that were pi-oduced at Edge Hill ; and 

 the other stanzas may have been written after- 

 wards at the inn at Henley. 



Poor Shenstone ! of him it might truly have 

 been said, 



" Some demon whlsper'd, Visto ! have a taste." 



That " purest of human pleasures " which fasci- 

 nated him, was not unmixed with the bitterness of 

 embarrassed circumstances arising out of the pur- 

 suit. He is, however, entitled to the grateful re- 

 membrance of every lover of the picturesque for 

 his devotion to landscape gardening, which his 

 example, and the taste he displayed in it, served 

 to advance. Mr. Graves defends his friend from 

 the supercilious and shallow observations of 

 Johnson, who, from his education and physical 

 defects, was incapable of appreciating the beauties 

 of nature, and the merits of those who devoted 

 themselves to the embellishment of rural scenery : 



" Bred up in Birmingham, in Lichfield born. 

 No wonder rural beauties he should scorn." 



That Shenstone's writings are now little read or 

 remembered, is evident from the Query of your 

 esteemed correspondent, to whom, if I am right in 

 my conjecture, I should think little that is valuable 

 in our literature would be unknown. 



S. W. SiNGEB. 

 JVIickleham. 



The second version forms the fifth stanza of a 

 poem which purports to have been Written at an 

 Inn at Henley. The author is William Shenstone, 

 one of the favourites of my youthful days. The 

 quotation requires only the substitution of TF/^re'er 

 for Whaie'er, and stages for wand'rings. There 

 is a semblance of truth in the lines which helps to 

 stamp them on the memory, but I hope it is no 

 more than the semblance. Bolton Cornet . 



I am surprised that my excellent and accom- 

 plished friend J. H. M. (if I do not misinterpret 

 these initials) should inquire after these lines ; for 

 the author (She7isto7ie), and the two versions of the 

 epigram, are given, under the date of 21st March, 

 1776, in Boswell's Life of Johnson, to Mr. Croker's 

 edition of which J. H. M. (if I am not mistaken) 

 contributed several intelligent notes. C. 



SIR KOBEBT AYTOUN (nOT AYBTOn). 



(Vol. vi,, p. 413.) 



The name of the poet respecting whom Uneda 

 inquires is Sir Robert Aytoun. The verses which 

 he sent to "X. & Q." will be found, with a few- 

 slight variations, in pp. 66. and 67. of The Poems 

 of Sir Robert Aytoun, edited by Charles Roger : 

 Edinburgh, 1844. The volume contains a memoir 

 of the author, and a genealogical tree of the 

 family. He was the second son of Andrew Ay- 

 toun, proprietor of Kinaldie in Fifeshire, and was 

 born in 1570. He was, according to Dempster 

 (who gives an account of him in his Historia Ec- 

 clesiastica Gentis Scotoruni), a writer of Greek and 

 French, as well as of Latin and English verses. 

 He was acquainted with many of his learned and 

 poetical cotemporarles. Ben Jonson made it his 

 boast, that "Sir Robert Aytoun loved him dearly." 

 He was a member of the royal household of King 

 James I., and afterwards became secretary to 

 Henrietta Maria, queen of Charles I., and enjoyed 

 the favour of that monarch till his death, which 

 took place in the palace of Whitehall, in March, 

 1638. His remains were consigned to Westmin- 

 ster Abbey. A monument, with bust, was erected 

 to his memory by his nephew Sir John Aytoun. 

 They are still In good preservation. 



In a note to the poem referred to by Uneda, 

 the editor says : 



" This poem is reprinted from Watson's collection, 

 where it appears anonymous, as well as in many others 

 of our earlier collections of English poetry. From its 

 similarity to Aytoun's other productions, it has been 

 often ascribed to him, and little doubt can be enter- 

 tained as to its authenticity. It is undoubtedly one of 

 Aytoun's best productions ; and it so attracted the 

 notice of the poet Burns that he made an attempt ' to 

 improve the simplicity of the sentiments, by giving 

 them a Scottish dress.' Burns' alteration, however, 

 was a complete failure." 



