Digital Grainger

An Online Edition of The Sugar-Cane (1764)

[51]

ADVERTISEMENT to BOOK II.

THE following Book having been originally addressed to WILLIAM SHENSTONE, Esq;1 and by him approved of; the Author should deem it a kind of poetical sacrilege, now, to address it to any other. To his memory, therefore, be it sacred; as a small but sincere testimony of the high opinion the Author entertained of that Gentleman’s genius and manners; and as the only return now, alas! in his power to make, for the friendship wherewith Mr. SHENSTONE had condescended to honour him.

  1. William Shenstone (1714-1763), English poet and famed innovator of landscape gardening, which he practiced on his estate, The Leasowes. Grainger enclosed a draft of The Sugar-Cane in a 5 June 1762 letter to his friend Bishop Thomas Percy, asking him and Shenstone to read and comment on it. He added that “The second book you will see is addressed to our friend at the Leasowes; and I must tell you it is my favourite of the whole” (Nichols 279). ↩︎