HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE. [253 



REV. STEBBING SHAW. 



This gentleman is well worthy of a brief memorial in the History 

 of Staffordshire, both as the Topographer of a considerable part 

 of his native county, and for his private virtues. He was the son 

 of the Rev. Stebbing Shaw, Rector of Hartshorn, near Ashby-de-ia- 

 Zouch, and was born in the year 1762, at Stone, where his mother in- 

 herited a small estate, which descended to him. He received the ru- 

 diments of a classical education at the grammar-school of Repton, 

 near Hartshorn, and under the tuition of the Rev. William Bag- 

 shaw Stevens, who was an ingenious poet and scholar, he early im- 

 bibed a love of literature. 



In the eighteenth year of his age, he was admitted a student 

 in Queen's College, Cambridge, where, as is usual with youthful 

 and ardent minds, his attention was first directed to English poe- 

 try ; but before he made a proficiency in that elegant study, the 

 science of music prevailed in his estimation over the sister art of 

 verse, and he devoted much of his time to it. In the mean- 

 time he did not neglect his studies, but took the degree of 

 Bachelor of Arts, was elected to a Fellowship, and went into holy 

 orders. 



A most cordial intimacy had long subsisted between Mr. Shaw's 

 father and his neighbour, Sir Robert Burdett, of Foremark, in 

 Derbyshire, in whose hospitable mansion the subject of these me- 

 moirs passed many happy days; and on his return from College, 

 he was engaged as tutor to the present Sir Francis Buidett. 

 Mr. Shaw accompanied his pupil on a tour to the Highlands of 

 Scotland in 1787, of which he kept a diary, which he afterwards 

 published anonymously. " It fell," to use the words of Pope, "still- 

 born from the press;" and a much superior production on the same 

 subject by an anonymous author would doubtless have been neg- 

 lected at a time when Dr. Johnson's Journey to the Hebrides had 

 obtained such general and deserved popularity. 



In 1788, Mr. Shaw made a tour to the West of England, of 

 which he published a more elaborate account, with his name. 

 This work met a better reception from the public than his first essay. 

 This Tour was published in 1789 ; when he went to London, and 

 obtained access to the topographical and genealogical stores de- 

 posited in the British Museum, of which he availed himself by the 



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