The whole history of this poem, and this edition, may be traced in the printed correspondence of Shenstone.  Our poet had pleased himself by ornamenting “A sixpenny pamphlet,” with certain “seemly” designs of his, and for which he came to town to direct the engraver; he appears also to have intended accompanying it with “The deformed portrait of my old school-dame, Sarah Lloyd.”  The frontispiece to this first edition represents the “Thatched-house” of his old schoolmistress, and before it is the “birch-tree,” with “the sun setting and gilding the scene.”  He writes on this, “I have the first sheet to correct upon the table.  I have laid aside the thoughts of fame a good deal in this unpromising scheme; and fix them upon the landskip which is engraving, the red letter which I propose, and the fruit-piece which you see, being the most seemly ornaments of the first sixpenny pamphlet that was ever so highly honoured.  I shall incur the same reflection with Ogilby, of having nothing good but my decorations.  I expect that in your neighbourhood and in Warwickshire there should be twenty of my poems sold.  I print it myself.  I am pleased with Mynde’s engravings.”

On the publication Shenstone has opened his idea on its poetical characteristic.  “I dare say it must be very incorrect; for I have added eight or ten stanzas within this fortnight.  But inaccuracy is more excusable in ludicrous poetry than in any other.  If it strikes any, it must be merely people of taste; for people of wit without taste, which comprehends the larger part of the critical tribe, will unavoidably despise it.  I have been at some pains to recover myself from A. Phi**** misfortune of mere childishness, ’Little charm of placid mien,’ &c.  I have added a ludicrous index purely to show (fools) that I am in jest; and my motto, ’O, qua sol habitabiles illustrat oras, maxima principum!’ is calculated for the same purpose.  You cannot conceive how large the number is of those that mistake burlesque for the very foolishness it exposes; which observation I made once at the Rehearsal, at Tom Thumb, at Chrononhotonthologos, all which, are pieces of elegant humour.  I have some mind to pursue this caution further, and advertise it ‘The School-Mistress,’ &c. a very childish performance everybody knows (novorum more).  But if a person seriously calls this, or rather burlesque, a childish or low species of poetry, he says wrong.  For the most regular and formal poetry may be called trifling, folly, and weakness, in comparison of what is written with a more manly spirit in ridicule of it.’