The Gentle Shepherd
Preserved but no longer current.
A nickname given by Pitt to George Grenville (1712-70). In the course of a speech on the cider tax (1763) Grenville addressed the House somewhat plaintively: "Tell me where? tell me where?" Pitt hummed a line of a song then very popular, "Gentle shepherd, tell me where?
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “The Gentle Shepherd” mean?
A nickname given by Pitt to George Grenville (1712-70). In the course of a speech on the cider tax (1763) Grenville addressed the House somewhat plaintively: "Tell me where? tell me where?" Pitt hummed a line of a song then very popular, "Gentle shepherd, tell me where?
Is “The Gentle Shepherd” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.