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The works, in verse and prose, of William Shenstone, Esq

In two volumes. With Decorations. The fourth edition
Shenstone, William (1714-1763)

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VOL. I.
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ELEGIES, WRITTEN ON Many different Occasions.
 I. 
ELEGY I. He arrives at his retirement in the country, and takes occasion to expatiate in praise of simplicity.
 II. 
ELEGY II. On posthumous reputation.
 III. 
ELEGY III. On the untimely death of a certain learned acquaintance.
 IV. 
ELEGY IV. Ophelia's urn. To Mr. G---.
 V. 
ELEGY V. He compares the turbulence of love with the tranquillity of friendship.
 VI. 
ELEGY VI. To a lady on the language of birds.
 VII. 
ELEGY VII. He describes his vision to an acquaintance.
 VIII. 
ELEGY VIII. He describes his early love of poetry, and its consequences. To Mr. G---. 1745.
 IX. 
ELEGY IX. He describes his disinterestedness to a friend.
 X. 
ELEGY X. To fortune, suggesting his motive for repining at her dispensations.
 XI. 
ELEGY XI. He complains how soon the pleasing novelty of life is over.
 XII. 
ELEGY XII. His recantation.
 XIII. 
ELEGY XIII. To a friend, on some slight occasion estranged from him.
 XIV. 
ELEGY XIV. Declining an invitation to visit foreign countries, he takes occasion to intimate the advantages of his own.
 XV. 
ELEGY XV. In memory of a private family in Worcestershire.
 XVI. 
ELEGY XVI. He suggests the advantages of birth to a person of merit, and the folly of a superciliousness that is built upon that sole foundation.
 XVII. 
ELEGY XVII. He indulges the suggestions of spleen: an elegy to the winds.
 XVIII. 
ELEGY XVIII. He repeats the song of Collin, a discerning shepherd; lamenting the state of the woollen manufactury.
 XIX. 
ELEGY XIX. Written in spring 1743.
 XX. 
ELEGY XX. He compares his humble fortune with the distress of others; and his subjection to Delia, with the miserable servitude of an African slave.
 XXI. 
ELEGY XXI. Taking a view of the country from his retirement, he is led to meditate on the character of the ancient Britons. Written at the time of a rumoured tax upon luxury, 1746.
 XXII. 
ELEGY XXII. Written in the year --- when the rights of sepulture were so frequently violated.
 XXIII. 
ELEGY XXIII. Reflections suggested by his situation.
 XXIV. 
ELEGY XXIV. He takes occasion from the fate of Eleanor of Bretagne , to suggest the imperfect pleasures of a solitary life.
 XXV. 
ELEGY XXV. To Delia, with some flowers; complaining how much his benevolence suffers on account of his humble fortune.
 XXVI. 
ELEGY XXVI. Describing the sorrow of an ingenuous mind, on the melancholy event of a licentious amour.
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ODES, SONGS, BALLADS, &c.
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VOL. II.

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38

ELEGY V. He compares the turbulence of love with the tranquillity of friendship.

To Melissa his Friend.

From love, from angry love's inclement reign
I pass awhile to friendship's equal skies;
Thou, gen'rous maid, reliev'st my partial pain,
And chear'st the victim of another's eyes.
'Tis thou, Melissa, thou deserv'st my care:
How can my will and reason disagree?
How can my passion live beneath despair!
How can my bosom sigh for aught but thee?
Ah dear Melissa! pleas'd with thee to rove,
My soul has yet surviv'd its dreariest time;
Ill can I bear the various clime of love!
Love is a pleasing, but a various clime!
So smiles immortal Maro's fav'rite shore,
Parthenope, with ev'ry verdure crown'd!
When strait Vesuvio's horrid cauldrons roar,
And the dry vapour blasts the regions round.
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Oh blissful regions! oh unrival'd plains!
When Maro to these fragrant haunts retir'd!
Oh fatal realms! and oh accurst domains!
When Pliny, 'mid sulphureous clouds, expir'd!
So smiles the surface of the treacherous main,
As o'er its waves the peaceful halcyons play;
When soon rude winds their wonted rule regain,
And sky and ocean mingle in the fray.
But let or air contend, or ocean rave;
Ev'n hope subside amid the billows tost;
Hope, still emergent, still contemns the wave,
And not a feature's wonted smile is lost.
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