William Shenstone (1714–63) was a British poet, landscape gardener, and collector. He was an archetypical 18th-century English “man of taste.”
Born near Halesowen, Worcestershire, Shenstone studied at Solihull Grammar School and Oxford’s Pembroke College.
In 1735, Shenstone inherited the Leasowes Estate in Halesowen in the West Midlands and spent most of his income on ‘landskip gardening’ (a term which he was the first to use) to turn it into a “ferme ornée” or a show garden. His concepts, consisting of forming picturesque views using waterfalls, winding waterways, and winding paths, are outlined in Unconnected Thoughts on Gardening (1764.)
As a poet, Shenstone celebrated simplicity and rustic virtue, foreshadowing the sentiments of the early Romantics. His Poems upon Various Occasions (1737) contained the first version of his best-known poem, “The School-Mistress” (1742;) it was written in imitation of Edmund Spenser. Besides, Shenstone published The Judgement of Hercules (1741,) other odes, elegies, songs, and light verse.
Shenstone’s Pastoral Ballad (1755) helped revive the ballad as a literary form. He also assisted Bishop Percy with Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by William Shenstone
Orators and stage-coachmen, when the one wants argument and the other a coat of arms, adorn their cause and their coaches with rhetoric and flower-pots.
—William Shenstone
I think I never knew an instance of great quickness of parts being joined with great solidity. The most rapid rivers are seldom or never deep.
—William Shenstone
Deference before company is the genteelest kind of flattery. The flattery of epistles affects one less, as they cannot be shown without an appearance of vanity. Flattery of the verbal kind is gross. In short, applause is of too coarse a nature to be swallowed in the gross, though the extract of tincture be ever so agreeable.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Flattery
When the spirits sink too low, the best cordial is to read over all the letters of one’s friends.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Letters
The best time to frame an answer to the letters of a friend, is the moment you receive them. Then the warmth of friendship, and the intelligence received, most forcibly cooperate.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Letters
When misfortunes happen to such as dissent from us in matters of religion, we call them judgments; when to those of our own sect, we call them trials; when to persons neither way distinguished, we are content to attribute them to the settled course of things.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Misfortune
What leads to unhappiness, is making pleasure the chief aim.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Pleasure
The lines of poetry, the periods of prose, and even the texts of Scripture most frequently recollected and quoted, are those which are felt to be pre eminently musical.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Music
Bashfulness is more frequently connected with good sense than with over assurance; and impudence, on the other hand, is often the effect of downright stupidity.
—William Shenstone
Pastime is a word that should never be used but in a bad sense; it is vile to say a thing is agreeable, because it helps to pass the time away.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Time
May I always have a heart superior, with economy suitable, to my fortune.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Fortune
The world may be divided into people that read, people that write, people that think, and fox-hunters.
—William Shenstone
Topics: People
The regard one shows economy, is like that we show an old aunt, who is to leave us something at last.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Economy
A miser grows rich by seeming poor; an extravagant man grows poor by seeming rich.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Money, Wealth
Extreme volatile and sprightly tempers seem inconsistent with any great enjoyment. There is too much time wasted in the mere transition from one object to another. No room for those deep impressions which are made only by the duration of an idea, and are quite requisite to any strong sensation, either of pleasure or of pain. The bee to collect honey, or the spider to gather poison, must abide some time upon the weed or flower. They whose fluids are mere sal volatile seem rather cheerful than happy men.
—William Shenstone
A rich dress adds but little to the beauty of a person; it may possibly create a deference, but that is rather an enemy to love.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Dress
A man has generally the good or ill qualities which he attributes to mankind.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Criticism, Judgment, Critics
Men are sometimes accused of pride merely because their accusers would be proud themselves if they were in their places.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Pride
There would not be any absolute necessity for reserve if the world were honest; yet even then it would prove expedient. For, in order to attain any degree of deference, it seems necessary that people should imagine you have more accomplishments than you discover.
—William Shenstone
High spirit in man is like a sword, which, though worn to annoy his enemies, yet is often troublesome to his friends: he can hardly wear it so inoffensively but it is apt to incommode one or other of the company: it is more properly a loaded pistol, which accident alone may fire and kill one.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Spirit
Long sentences in a short composition are like large rooms in a little house.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Style
A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Lies, Deception/Lying, Lying
I consider your very testy and quarrelsome people as I do a loaded gun, which may, by accident, at any time, go off and kill people.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Quarrels
Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed. They are sensitive plants, that will not bear too familiar approaches.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Modesty
It happens a little unluckily that the persons who have the most infinite contempt of money are the same that have the strongest appetite for the pleasures it procures.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Money
There is nothing more universally commended than a fine day; the reason is, that people can commend it without envy.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Day
It has been a maxim with me to admit of easy reconciliation with a person whose offence proceeded from no depravity of heart; but where I was convinced it did so, to forego, for my own sake, all opportunities of revenge. I have derived no small share of happiness from this principle.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Forgiveness
Modesty makes large amends for the pain it gives those who labor under it, by the prejudice it affords every worthy person in their favor.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Modesty
Fools are often united in the strictest intimacies, as the lighter kinds of woods are the most closely glued together.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Fools
Poetry and consumption are the most flattering of diseases.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Poetry
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