, we may trace
the different states of his mind, show what he did, and what he was
earnestly intent to have done.

Why have the "Elegies" of Shenstone, which forty years ago formed for
many of us the favourite poems of our youth, ceased to delight us in
mature life? It is perhaps that these Elegies, planned with peculiar
felicity, have little in their execution. They form a series of poetical
truths, devoid of poetical expression; truths,--for notwithstanding the
pastoral romance in which the poet has enveloped himself, the subjects
are real, and the feelings could not, therefore, be fictitious.

In a Preface, remarkable for its graceful simplicity, our poet tells us,
that "He entered on his subjects occasionally, as particular _incidents
in life_ suggested, or _dispositions of mind_ recommended them to his
choice." He shows that "He drew his pictures from the spot, and, he felt
very sensibly the affections he communicates." He avers that all those
attendants on rural scenery, and all those allusions to rural life, were
not the counterfeited scenes of a town poet, any more than the
sentiments, which were inspired by Nature. Shenstone's friend Graves,
who knew him in early life, and to his last days, informs us that these
Elegies were written when he had taken the Leasowes into his own
hands;[53] and though his _ferme ornee_ engaged his thoughts, he
occasionally wrote them, "partly," said Shenstone, "to divert my present
impatience, and partly, as it will be a picture of most that passes in
my own mind; a portrait which friends may value." This, then, is the
secret charm which acts so forcibly on the first emotions of our youth,
at a moment when, not too difficult to be pleased, the reflected
delineations of the habits and the affections, the hopes and the
delights, with all the domestic associations of this poet, always true
to Nature, reflect back that picture of ourselves which we instantly
recognise. It is only as we advance in life that we lose the relish of
our early simplicity, and that we discover that Shenstone was not
endowed with high imagination.

These Elegies, with some other poems, may be read with a new interest
when we discover them to form the true Memoirs of Shenstone. Records of
querulous but delightful feelings! whose subjects spontaneously offered
themselves from passing incidents; they still perpetuate emotions which
will interest the young poet and the young lover of taste.

Elegy IV., the fir