238 



THE POET SHENSTONE. 



The biographies of eminent men are too frequently made up of 

 mere fulsome eulogies on their virtues, or bitter and harsh decla- 

 mations against their vices ; qualities, portions of which will be 

 found inherent and mingled in all characters, but which in these 

 instances are exaggerated and painted with an overloaded pencil, to 

 gratify and tickle the whimsical and capricious palate of a false pub- 

 lic taste. Their real characters, their habits, and train of thought, 

 their real opinions, and the real motives of those actions of which 

 alone the world can have cognizance, can never be ascertained with 

 any certainty from such compositions. Whatever, therefore, has a 

 tendency to afford us data by which to judge of the talents, the 

 taste, the intellectual cultivation and acquirements of men eminent 

 in their generation, cannot fail of proving acceptable to every sin- 

 cere and honest inquirer after truth. 



In the library of the late Mr. David Parkes, of Shrewsbury, were 

 many delightful memorials of the elegant-minded Shenstone, and 

 among these a copy of Prior's Poems, 5th edition, 3 vols., London, 

 1733, with a portrait prefixed, which originally belonged to the 

 poet, and which was peculiarly interesting, as containing memoran- 

 da of his having perused the volumes with critical attention, mark- 

 ing each poem with a certain number of crosses, indicative of the 

 degree of excellence which he conceived each to possess. 



On the fly leaves of the first volume are the following observa- 

 tions, in Shenstone's hand-writing : — 



t: Des livres 



Du Guill. Shenstone 



du Coll. du Pem. 



a Oxon. 1735." 



"November the 26th, 1739. — Read over all Prior's Works a se- 

 cond time, marking the pieces I most admired with a proportionate 

 number of crosses.'' 



u Prior's Cloe was a cheerful, gay, facetious old woman, that 

 used to laugh with a profusion of good humour until she was al- 

 most ready to die, at the conceit of her being a poet's flame. And 

 Prior, we may be sure, was equally delighted with the excellence of 

 her understanding. See the Crilick on Vanessa, in Swift's Works, 

 vol. vi." 



