from a nervous fever, as I have since discovered by many concurrent
symptoms, I seem to anticipate a little of that 'vernal delight' which
Milton mentions and thinks

----able to chase
All sadness but despair--

at least I begin to resume my silly clue of hopes and expectations."

In a former letter he had, however, given them up: "I begin to wean
myself from all hopes and expectations whatever. I feed my wild-ducks,
and I water my carnations. Happy enough if I could extinguish my
ambition quite, to indulge the desire of being something more beneficial
in my sphere.--Perhaps some few other circumstances would want also to
be adjusted."

What were these "hopes and expectations," from which sometimes he weans
himself, and which are perpetually revived, and are attributed to "an
ambition he cannot extinguish"? This article has been written in vain,
if the reader has not already perceived, that they had haunted him in
early life; sickening his spirit after the possession of a poetical
celebrity, unattainable by his genius; some expectations too he might
have cherished from the talent he possessed for political studies, in
which Graves confidently says, that "he would have made no
inconsiderable figure, if he had had a sufficient motive for applying
his mind to them." Shenstone has left several proofs of this talent.[61]
But his master-passion for literary fame had produced little more than
anxieties and disappointments; and when he indulged his pastoral fancy
in a beautiful creation on his grounds, it consumed the estate which it
adorned. Johnson forcibly expressed his situation: "His death was
probably hastened by his anxieties. He was a lamp that spent its oil in
blazing. It is said, that if he had lived a little longer, he would have
been assisted by a pension."

FOOTNOTES:

[53] This once-celebrated abode of the poet is situated at Hales-Owen,
Shropshire.

[54] This we learn from Dr. Nash's History of Worcestershire.

[55] While at college he printed, without his name, a small volume
of verses, with this title, "Poems upon various Occasions, written
for the Entertainment of the Author, and printed for the Amusement
of a few Friends, prejudiced in his Favour." Oxford, 1737.
12mo.--Nash's "History of Worcestershire," vol. i. p. 528.

I find this notice of it in W. Lowndes's Catalogue; 4433 Shenstone
(W.) Poems, 3_l._ 13_s._ 6_d._--(Shenstone took uncommon pains to
s