Although a minor poet, William Shenstone was a significant presence in poetry during the last half of the eighteenth century. His much-respected burlesque The School-Mistress (1742) helped reawaken an interest in the style of Edmund Spenser. Shenstone's prominent position in the age's major poetic miscellany, Dodsley's Collection of Poems By Several Hands (1748-1758), implicitly acknowledged his status among the arbiters of taste in the metropolis of London. His continuing popularity long after his death is evident in the many editions of his poetry in the nineteenth century and in the commentary of such admirers as Robert Burns, Henry McKenzie, William Hazlitt, and John Ruskin. Supporting this reputation were his accomplishments in landscape gardening at the refurbished family estate, Leasowes, in the West Midlands area, a multiyear project that not only influenced the departure from formal gardens but also brought a seasonal flow of noble and fashionable visitors to his...