st which Shenstone composed, is entitled "Ophelia's
Urn," and it was no unreal one! It was erected by Graves in Mickleton
Church, to the memory of an extraordinary young woman, Utrecia Smith,
the literary daughter of a learned but poor clergyman. Utrecia had
formed so fine a taste for literature, and composed with such elegance
in verse and prose, that an excellent judge declared that "he did not
like to form his opinion of any author till he previously knew hers."
Graves had been long attached to her, but from motives of prudence broke
off an intercourse with this interesting woman, who sunk under this
severe disappointment. When her prudent lover, Graves, inscribed the
urn, her friend Shenstone, perhaps more feelingly, commemorated her
virtues and her tastes. Such, indeed, was the friendly intercourse
between Shenstone and Utrecia, that in Elegy XVIII., written long after
her death, she still lingered in his reminiscences. Composing this Elegy
on the calamitous close of Somerville's life, a brother bard, and victim
to narrow circumstances, and which he probably contemplated as an image
of his own, Shenstone tenderly recollects that he used to read
Somerville's poems to Utrecia:--

Oh, lost Ophelia; smoothly flow'd the day
To feel his music with my flames agree;
To taste the beauties of his melting lay,
To taste, and fancy it was dear to thee!

How true is the feeling! how mean the poetical expression!

The Seventh Elegy describes a vision, where the shadow of Wolsey breaks
upon the author:

A graceful form appear'd,
White were his locks, with awful scarlet crown'd.

Even this fanciful subject was not chosen capriciously, but sprung from
an incident. Once, on his way to Cheltenham, Shenstone missed his road,
and wandered till late at night among the Cotswold Hills on this
occasion he appears to have made a moral reflection, which we find in
his "Essays." "How melancholy is it to travel late upon any ambitious
project on a winter's night, and observe the light of cottages, where
all the unambitious people are warm and happy, or at rest in their
beds." While the benighted poet, lost among the lonely hills, was
meditating on "ambitious projects," the character of Wolsey arose before
him; the visionary cardinal crossed his path, and busied his
imagination. "Thou," exclaims the poet,

Like a meteor's fire,
Shot'st blazing forth, disdaining dull degrees.

_Elegy_ vii.