William Shenstone

William Shenstone (1714–1763) was an English poet and landscape gardener. Born in Halesowen, Worcestershire, he was educated at Pembroke College, Oxford, but left without taking a degree. Shenstone is best known for “The Schoolmistress” (1742), a mock-heroic poem written in Spenserian stanza, and for elegiac lyrics that helped shape mid‑18th‑century sensibility. He devoted much of his life to transforming his estate, The Leasowes, near Halesowen, into a celebrated “ferme ornée,” combining pastoral farming with carefully planned walks, vistas, and inscriptions. His letters and poems circulated widely, and his posthumous reputation was sustained by friends and editors.