SHENSTONE. ILLIAM SHENSTONE, the fon of Thomas Shenftone and Anne Pen, was born in November 1714, at the Leafowes in Hales-Owen, one of those infulated districts which, in the divifion of the kingdom, was appended, for fome reason not now difcoverable, to a diftant county; and which, though furrounded by Warwickshire and Worcestershire, belongs to Shropshire, though perhaps thirty miles diftant from any other part of it. He learned to read of an old dame, whom his poem of the School-mistress has delivered to posterity; and foon received fuch delight from books, that he was always calling for new entertainment, and expected that when any of the family went to market a new book should be brought him, which, when it came, was in fondness carried to bed and laid by him. It is faid, that when his request had been neglected, his mother wrapped up a piece of wood of the fame form, and pacified him for the night, As he grew older, he went for a while to the Grammar-fchool in Hales-Owen, and was placed afterwards with Mr. Crumpton, an eminent school-mafter at Solihul, where he distinguished himself by the quickness of his progrefs, When he was young (June 1724) he was deprived of his father, and foon after (August 1726) of his grandfather; and was, with his brother, who died afterwards unmarried, left to the care of his grandmother, who managed the estate. From school he was fent in 1732 to Pembroke-College in Oxford, a fociety which for half a century has been eminent for English poetry |