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
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
Reserve is no more essentially connected with understanding, than a church organ with devotion, or wane with good nature.
—William Shenstone
Let us be careful to distinguish modesty, which is ever amiable, from reserve, which is only prudent. A man is hated sometimes for pride, when it was an excess of humility gave the occasion.
—William Shenstone
Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed. They are sensitive plants, that will not bear too familiar approaches.
—William Shenstone
Critics must excuse me if I compare them to certain animals called asses, who, by gnawing vines, originally taught the great advantage of pruning them.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Critics
Learning, like money, may be of so base a coin as to be utterly void of use; or, if sterling, may require good management to make it serve the purposes of sense or happiness.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Learning
Virtue seems to be nothing more than a motion consonant to the system of things; were a planet to fly from its orbit it would represent a vicious man.
—William Shenstone
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
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
When the spirits sink too low, the best cordial is to read over all the letters of one’s friends.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Letters
There is nothing displays the quickness of genius more than a dispute — as two diamonds, encountering, contribute to each other’s lustre. — But perhaps the odds is against the man of taste in this particular.
—William Shenstone
The proper means of increasing the love we bear to our native country is to reside some time in a foreign one.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Reality, Patriotism, Opportunities, Travel
What leads to unhappiness, is making pleasure the chief aim.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Pleasure
I hate a style that is wholly flat and regular, that slides along like an eel, and never rises to what one can call an inequality.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Style
A person that would secure to himself great deference will, perhaps, gain his point by silence as effectually as by anything he can say.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Silence
The regard one shows economy, is like that we show an old aunt, who is to leave us something at last.
—William Shenstone
There is nothing more universally commended than a fine day; the reason is, that people can commend it without envy.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Day
A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Deception/Lying, Lies
Zealous men are ever displaying to you the strength of their belief, while judicious men are showing you the grounds of it.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Enthusiasm
Lost in the dreary shades of dull obscurity.
—William Shenstone
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
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
A man has generally the good or ill qualities which he attributes to mankind.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Critics, Criticism, Judgment
The world may be divided into people that read, people that write, people that think, and fox-hunters.
—William Shenstone
Topics: People
Deference often shrinks and withers as much upon the approach of intimacy, as the sensitive plant does upon the touch of one’s finger.
—William Shenstone
Persons are often misled in regard to their choice of dress by attending to the beauty of colors, rather than selecting such colors as may increase their own beauty.
—William Shenstone
Softness of manner seems to be in painting what smoothness of syllables is in language, affecting the sense of sight or hearing, previous to any correspondent passion.
—William Shenstone
Topics: Painting
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
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