been the
concealed cause of the querulous melancholy of the literary character.

Such was the real occasion of SHENSTONE'S unhappiness. In early life he
had been captivated by a young lady adapted to be both the muse and the
wife of the poet, and their mutual sensibility lasted for some years. It
lasted until she died. It was in parting from her that he first sketched
his "Pastoral Ballad." SHENSTONE had the fortitude to refuse marriage.
His spirit could not endure that she should participate in that life of
self-privations to which he was doomed; but his heart was not locked up in
the ice of celibacy, and his plaintive love songs and elegies flowed from
no fictitious source. "It is long since," said he, "I have considered
myself as _undone_. The world will not perhaps consider me in that light
entirely till I have married my maid."[A]

[Footnote A: The melancholy tale of Shenstone's life is narrated in the
third volume "Curiosities of Literature,"--ED.]

THOMSON met a reciprocal passion in his Amanda, while the full tenderness
of his heart was ever wasting itself like waters in a desert. As we have
been made little acquainted with this part of the history of the poet of
the "Seasons," I shall give his own description of those deep feelings
from a manuscript letter written to Mallet. "To turn my eyes a softer way,
to you know who--absence sighs it to me. What is my heart made of? a soft
system of low nerves, too sensible for my quiet--capable of being very
happy or very unhappy, I am afraid the last will prevail. Lay your hand
upon a kindred heart, and despise me not. I know not what it is, but she
dwells upon my thought in a mingled sentiment, which is the sweetest, the
most intimately pleasing the soul can receive, and which I would wish
never to want towards some dear object or another. To have always some
secret darling idea to which one can still have recourse amidst the noise
and nonsense of the world, and which never fails to touch us in the most
exquisite manner, is an art of happiness that fortune cannot deprive us
of. This may be called romantic; but whatever the cause is, the effect is
really felt. Pray, when you write, tell me when you saw her, and with the
pure eye of a friend, when you see her again, whisper that I am her most
humble servant."

Even POPE was enamoured of a "scornful lady;" and, as Johnson observed,
"polluted his will with female resentment." JOHNSON himself, we are told
by one who knew