Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/155

 10 s. VIIL Ami. 17, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

125

49-51. Verses to a friend.

51-2. Written at an inn on a particular occasion. Shenstone's most popular piece. Graves, in his recollections of Shenstone, gives us the history of this poem. About 1750, after a separation of some years, Shenstone paid a visit to Whistler at Whitchurch. Whistler's mother was still alive, and married to a clergyman of fortune ; they lived in the Manor House. " A very small box in the same village " was the home of Whistler. Some differences arose. Shenstone's servant had been sent to a little inn, and Whistler's love of entertainment irritated the sensitive poet. Shenstone " curtailed his visit two or three days, and took a

cool leave the next morning reached Edgehill,

and in a summer-house wrote the four famous lines beginning 'Whoe'er has travelled life's dull round.' " The rest of the poem was composed later.

52-3. The price of an equipage.

53-4. A ballad.

Buckholt, mentioned in the fifth stanza as a place of diversion near London, was in the parish of Leyton, Essex. It was the resi- dence of Sir Michael Hickes and his descend- ants, and was traditionally called a palace of Queen Elizabeth. From 1742-44 it was in the occupation of William Barton, " who opened it as a place of public amusement for breakfasts and afternoon concerts, which were held weekly during the summer ; oratorios were sometimes performed." It was pulled down about 1750 (Lysons, ' Environs of London,' iv. 163-4 ; John Kennedy's ' Parish of Leyton,' pp. 318-20).

54-5. The extent of cookery.

55-6. The progress of advice, a common case.

56-7. Slender's trhost.

57-8. Upon riddles.

All the above pieces are by Shenstone, through whom the subsequent poems to p. 93 were obtained.

58-9. Verses to a writer of riddles. The authorship of this piece is not mentioned.

60-61. To ****** By Anthony Whistler, Esq.

61. Song. By the same.

62. To Lady Fane on her grotto at Basilden, 1746. By Mr. Graves (' D.N.B.').

She was sister of James, Earl Stanhope, and wife of Charles, Viscount Fane. She died 17 Aug., 1762. Shenstone says (' Letters,' p. 85) that the grotto " cost her

5,OOOZ It is a very beautiful disposition

of the finest collection of shells I ever saw."

62-3. The invisible [written at college, 1747]. 63-6. The pepper-box and salt seller [sic], fable. To*****. 67-9. Written near Bath, 1755.

The last three pieces are also by Graves.

70-72. Verses to William Shtenstone, Esq., on receiving _a gilt jpqcket-book, 1751. By Mr. [Rev.

Richard] Jago ('D.N.B.'). 72-5. The swa"

swallows, written September, 1748;. Part II. April, 1749.

77-8. Valentine's day.

78-82. The scavengers, a town eclogue in the manner of Swift.

82-3. Hamlet's soliloquy imitated.

The last four pieces are also by Jago.

83-4. Transcribed from the Rev. Mr. Pixel's parsonage garden near Birmingham, 1757.

84-7. Malvern Spa, 1757 ; inscribed to Dr. [John] Wall (' D.N.B.'). By the Rev. Mr. Perry.

The verses are mentioned by Shenstone in. his letters (8 April, 1757). Dr. Wall, he adds, " promoted a subscription in the county towards building, near this well,, for the accommodation of strangers." Wall's ' Experiments and Observations on the Malvern Waters ' reached a third edition in 1763.

87-9. Some reflections upon hearing the bell toll for the death of a friend. By Mr. J. G. Joseph Giles of Birmingham, a friend of Shenstone, who corrected his poems. A volume of them came out in 1771.

90-91. The robin, an elegy, written at the close of autumn, 1756. By the same. 92-3. Epitaph by the same.

93-5. Ut pictura poesis. By Mr. Nourse, late of All Souls College, 1741.

95-8. Vacuna. By Dr. D, 1739. [Dr. Sneyd Davies (' D.N.B.').]

The four following pieces are also by Sneyd Davies :

98-101. On J. W. [John Whaley] ranging my pamphlets.

Whaley was Fellow of King's College, Cam- bridge, author of 'AColIection of Poems,' 1732,, and 'A Collection of Original Poems,' 1745.- Whaley was the private tutor and friend of Horace Walpole. ' A Journey to Houghton,' a poem by Whaley, is printed at the end of ' ^Edes Walpolianse ' (1767), pp. 117-43.

102-4. Epithalamium, John'Dodd, Esq., and Miss- St. Leger, ms first wife.

104-5. To a gentleman [Mr. Dodd] on the birthday of his first son.

105-6. On two friends, Mr. Horace Walpole and Mr. [John] Dodd, born on the same day. 24 Sept., 1717, says Horace Walpole, adding that the poem was written at King's College,. Cambridge, 1737. In George Hardinge's memoir of Sneyd Davies the poem is dated " Sept., 1736." Both Dodd and Horace Walpole have Latin verses in the Cambridge Univ. set on the marriage of Frederick,. Prince of Wales, 1736 ; Dodd had some English lines in the set on the death of Queen Caroline, 1738. Lady Russell informs me that Dodd's marriage to Joan St. Leger-