{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.04199475065616798, 'fraction_numerical': 0.021872265966754154, 'mean_word_length': 5.117647058823529, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
William Shenstone and "Flattery"

In recent years, there have been repeated additions (see Jung, “Thomson” 411–13) to the poetical canon of William Shenstone (1721–69). Not long ago, a note was published that focused on Shenstone’s early poem “Mediocrity,” a work that was written during his university days at Pembroke College in Oxford (Jung, “Some Additions” 22–27). In the same note, it was observed that the poem was accompanied by a production on “Flattery.” This poem on flattery consists of 293 lines and was never published in Shenstone’s lifetime, nor has it attracted any scholarly attention since it was written in 1736–37, during the poet’s time at Oxford when he was preparing the publication of his juvenile Poems Upon Various Occasions. The unpublished autograph manuscript is now held by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.1 Interestingly, apart from the fragment on flattery discussed in this essay, there is another unpublished manuscript poem, “Flattery, or y.e fatal Exotick, a satirical Rhapsody,” now held by the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. The text is reproduced in full below: