he
skilful. His house was mean, and he did not improve it; his care was of
his grounds. When he came home from his walks, he might find his floor
flooded by a shower through the broken roof; but could spare no money
for its reparation. In time his expences brought clamours about him,
that overpowered the lamb's bleat and the linnet's song; and his groves
were haunted by beings very different from fawns and fairies. He spent
his estate in adorning it, and 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: such bounty could not have been ever more properly bestowed;
but that it was ever asked is not certain; it is too certain that it
never was enjoyed."

His intimate friend, Robert Dodsley, thus speaks of him: "Tenderness,
indeed, in every sense of the word, was his peculiar characteristic; his
friends, his domestics, his poor neighbours, all daily experienced his
benevolent turn of mind. He was no economist; the generosity of his
temper prevented him from paying a proper regard to the use of money: he
exceeded, therefore, the bounds of his paternal fortune, which before he
died was considerably incumbered. But when one recollects the perfect
paradise he had raised around him, the hospitality with which he lived,
his great indulgence to his servants, his charities to the indigent, and
all done with an estate not more than three hundred pounds a year, one
should rather be led to wonder that he left any thing behind him, than
to blame his want of economy. He left, however, more than sufficient to
pay all his debts; and, by his will, appropriated his whole estate for
that purpose."

His portrait is prefixed to his works, published in 3 vols. 8vo. 1764.
His second volume contains his "Unconnected Thoughts on Landscape
Gardening;" and the description of the celebrated _Leasowes_, in that
volume, was written by ("the modest, sensible, and humane") Robert
Dodsley. His Epistolary Correspondence appeared in 2 vols. 8vo. The
title pages of the above first three volumes are attractive from their
vignette, or rural embellishments. A portrait of Shenstone was taken in
1758, by Ross, which Hall engraved for Dodsley, in 1780; and this
picture by Ross was in the possession of the late most worthy Dr.
Graves, of Claverton, who died a few years ago, at the advanced age of
ninety. Bell's edition of the Poe