SHENSTONE’S MISCELLANY

Turnbull Library Record, Volume XI, 1 November 1953, Page 13

SHENSTONE’S MISCELLANY

Shenstone’s Miscellany, 1759-1763; edited by lan A. Gordon. Oxford, the Clarendon Press, 1952. This volume has been published from the original and apparently unique MS. in the Alexander Turnbull Library. Some years ago, when he first contemplated editing the Miscellany, Professor Gordon made it the subject of a vivacious and telling speech in appreciation of the resources for research in English literature available in the Library. The story, set out in his introduction, of the rescue of the MS. from the fire that destroyed much of Bishop Percy’s house and library, and its preservation down to the time of its acquisition by Alexander Turnbull, is a curious commentary upon the vicissitudes of books. The more the collection of poems was studied the more it added to the body of minor English poetry of the eighteenth century. The editor was led into many by-paths in identifying and annotating the poems and their writers. It may be gathered from reviews, in the Times Literary Supplement and elsewhere, that the result is both complimentary to the editor and a tribute to the initial enterprise of William Shenstone, whose project has thus been realised after nearly two centuries. It is, moreover, particularly gratifying to the Friends of the Turnbull Library to see another of the Library’s MSS. given to a wider circle through the medium of scholarship and print.