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Shenstone and the Countess of Hertford

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Helen Sard Hughes
Helen Sard Hughes*
Affiliation:
Wellesley College
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Extract

The characteristic virtues of his noble patroness, James Thomson sang in the opening lines of his Spring,

O Hartford, fitted or to shine in courts

With unaffected grace, or walk the plains

With innocence and meditation joined.

Other poets of country life besides the author of the Seasons enjoyed the patronage of the benevolent Countess of Hertford with her taste for rural landscapes, rural solitudes, and rural verses. Stephen Duck, the “Thresher Poet,” doubtless owed much of his court-favor to the good offices of the Countess, a lady-in-waiting to Queen Caroline. Her country residence he describes familiarly in his poem, A Description of a Journey to Marlborough, etc.; and an unpublished poem by him (preserved among the Alnwick manuscripts) specifically recognizes her aid and beseeches its continuance. John Dyer she may also have known; his Grongar Hill in an early version she transcribed in her commonplace-book. He was one of Aaron Hill's circle, which included Thomson and also Richard Savage, who, according to Dr. Johnson, owed his life to her intercession with the Queen. These young poets were the protegés of Lady Hertford's youth;1 another poet of country life, however, claimed her interest some twenty years after Thomson's fruitful visits to Marlborough and St. Leonard's Hill.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 46 , Issue 4 , December 1931 , pp. 1113 - 1127
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1931

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References

1 See two articles by the present writer on “Thomson and the Countess of Hertford,” Mod. Philol. xxv (1928) 439–468; and “Dyer and the Countess of Hertford,” Mod. Philol. xxvii (1930) 311–320.

2 Alnwick MSS.: Percy Family Letters and Papers: No. 116, Lady Hertford's miscellany; No. 631, Rural Elegance. British Museum: Add. MS. 23728, Letters of the Countess of Hertford to Lady Luxborough; Add. MS. 28959, Correspondence of Shenstone and Robert Dodsley; Add. MS. 28958, Letters of Shenstone to Lady Luxborough. John Hodgett (ed.), Letters written by the Late Right Honourable Lady Luxborough, to William Shenstone, London. 1775; Thomas Hull (ed.), Select Letters between the Late Duchess of Somerset, Lady Luxborough, ... William Shenstone, Esq. etc., London, 1778.

3 See DNB, and W. Sichel, Bolingbroke and his Times. The Sequel (New York, 1902), pp. 463–478.

4 Alnwick MS., Percy Family Letters and Papers, vol. 26, pp. 3–4 (second pagination).

5 Alnwick MS., Percy Family Letters and Papers, vol. 77, p. 74.

6 Hodgett, p. 9.

7 Alnwick, MS., Percy Family Letters and Papers, vol. 30, p. 163.

8 The Works, in Verse and Prose, of William Shenstone, Esq. (London, Dodsley, 1777) iii, 135.

9 BM Addit. MS. 23728. f. 28; cf. Hull, i, 69.

10 Hodgett, p. 25.

11 Alnwick MS. Percy Family Letters and Papers, vol. 30, p. 198.

12 Alnwick MS. No. 116, pp. 265–7.

13 BM Addit. MS. 23728, f. 30; cf. Hull, i, 82–83.

14 Alnwick MS., vol. 30, pp. 68–69 second pagination

15 BM Addit. MS. 23728, f. 41.; cf. Hull. i, 110.

16 Hodgett, p. 183.

17 Ibid., p. 187.

18 Ibid., p. 198.

19 Ibid., p. 245.

20 Hodgett, p. 287.

21 BM Addit. MS. 23728, f. 51.; cf. Hull, i, 168–9.

22 Hodgett, p. 325.

23 Works, iii, 212.

24 Works, iii, 210; and BM Addit. MS. 23728, f. 45.

25 Alnwick MS. No. 631.

26 Hull, i, 179–181.

27 Works, iii, 217.

28 Hodgett, p. 357–358.

29 Hull, i, 182.

30 BM Addit. MS. 23728, f. 59; cf. Hull, i, 187–188.

31 Hodgett, pp. 357–358.

32 Alnwick MS. Percy Family Letters and Papers, vol. 31, pp. 251–252.

33 Hodgett, p. 361.

34 Hull, i, 195.

35 Works, iii, 225.

36 Alnwick MS. Percy Family Letters and Papers, vol. 31, pp. 34–35 (second pagination).

37 BM Addit. MS. 23728, f. 61, cf. Hull, i, 295–296.

38 Hodgett, p. 378.

39 Ibid., p. 381.

40 Hodgett, p. 405.

41 BM Addit. MS. 28959, f. 42.

42 Ibid., ff. 44–45.

43 Ibid., ff. 57–58.

44 Ibid., ff. 72–73.

45 Ibid., ff. 87–88.

46 Ibid., f. 94.

47 BM Addit. MS. 289S9, f. 95.

48 Ibid., f. 117 b.