ob burning rumps as described above.

[50] The "History of the Tories and Rapparees" was a popular Irish
chapbook a few years ago, and devoted to the daring acts of these
marauders.

[51] These curious particulars I found in a manuscript.

[52] Lord Shelburne was named "Malagrida," and Lord Sandwich was
"Jemmy Twitcher;" a name derived from the chief of Macheath's gang
in the _Beggar's Opera_.

THE DOMESTIC LIFE OF A POET.--SHENSTONE VINDICATED.

The dogmatism of Johnson, and the fastidiousness of Gray, the critic who
passed his days amidst "the busy hum of men," and the poet who mused in
cloistered solitude, have fatally injured a fine natural genius in
Shenstone. Mr. Campbell, with a brother's feeling, has (since the
present article was composed) sympathised with the endowments and the
pursuits of this poet; but the facts I had collected seemed to me to
open a more important view. I am aware how lightly the poetical
character of Shenstone is held by some great contemporaries--although
this very poet has left us at least one poem of unrivalled originality.
Mr. Campbell has regretted that Shenstone not only "affected that
arcadianism" which "gives a certain air of masquerade in his pastoral
character," adopted by our earlier poets, but also has "rather
incongruously blended together the rural swain with the disciple of
virtu." All this requires some explanation. It is not only as a poet,
possessing the characteristics of poetry, but as a creator in another
way, for which I claim the attention of the reader. I have formed a
picture of the domestic life of a poet, and the pursuits of a votary of
taste, both equally contracted in their endeavours, from the habits, the
emotions, and the events which occurred to Shenstone.

Four material circumstances influenced his character, and were
productive of all his unhappiness. The neglect he incurred in those
poetical studies to which he had devoted his hopes; his secret sorrows
in not having formed a domestic union, from prudential motives, with one
whom he loved; the ruinous state of his domestic affairs, arising from a
seducing passion for creating a new taste in landscape gardening and an
ornamented farm; and finally, his disappointment of that promised
patronage, which might have induced him to have become a political
writer; for which his inclinations, and, it is said, his talents in
early life, were alike adapted: with these points in view