WILLIAM SHENSTONE

WILLIAM SHENSTONE (1714-1763), poet, born, the son of a landed proprietor, at Hales-Owen, Shropshire; was educated at Pembroke College, Oxford, and during the years 1737-42 produced three vols. of poetry, the most noted being "The Schoolmistress"; succeeded to his father's estate in 1745, and entered with much enthusiasm and reckless expenditure into landscape-gardening, which won him in his day a wider reputation than his poetry; his "Essays" have considerable critical merit and originality, while his poetry - ballads odes, songs, &c. - has a music and grace despite its conventional diction.