Bedford inquirer. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1857-1884, 1866-04-06
rHE LAKE COUNTRY IN EseLAND.

The Lake Country is permantly associa-
ted with the names Of Wordsworth. S. I.
Coleridge, Southey, Wilson, De0uincy,
Hartly Coleridge and Arnold. The travel
Ter who is acquainted with their history
peoples these scenes with their presence,
and with the mind s eye secs them as they
once climbed these mountains, explored
these raVines, and walked through these
valleys First and foremost he thinks Of
Wordsworth, the great meditative poet of
man and nature, who came hither in lT99,
and here remained till his death in 1850.
He fixed his dwelling here that he might
commune with nature in her wounderous
and changing aspect of mountain and vale,
of cloud and sunshine, Of the storm bowling
over these sleeps, and of solemn midnight
brooding over these solitudes, and that he
might study man in his simple and homely
guise, because in his affections and loyalty
and trust, in his cares and joys and griefs,
he was nearer to truth and nearer to God.
Wordsworth is seen every where in these
valleys There is scarcely place, hoWey-
er trivial, which is not mentioned in some of
his verses. We seem to see him everywhere.
We behold him in his walks and by his
fireside, stiff, solemn, awkward, and opinion
ated, and yet humble, afectionate, consci-
entious, giving himselfto his work with a
constant sense of its noble influences and its
high responsibilities. We miss him at the
church and by the way, upon the mountain
at the waterfall and in the humble cottage;
for all these he made part ofhlmsef, and
has wrought all these into his works.
We think next of Coleridge, sympathizing
with Wordsworth in his aims, and far more
highly gifted than he in learning, in quick
ness of intellect, in soaring imagination, and
in his command over words that paint to
the eye and entrance the soul; but immeas-
urably inferior in steadiness, perseverance,
and self-command Now he discourses like
Plato, aspires ike a seraph, and then he
almost drivels with imbecility or disappoints
from utter selfforgetfulness His eonnec-
ton with these scenes was like himsef-ln-
constant, capricious, inconsequent.
Southey came later, and was slow to be
persuaded to make his home among the
lakes. But when Greta Hall received him,
it was for his life With taste for reading
that was strangely contrasted with the very
select and limited curiosity of Wordsworth,
with a patience of work that shamed Coler-
idge's Inconsistency, he had at heart the
same manly aims, the same admiration tor
the better writers of an earlier era, the same
contempt for Fictitious arts Of success, and
the same hatred for the profane and i'm
pious decentralization which had nearly de-
based the English mind. Though man OF
books and of reading eminently, he low
cd the simple ways of the dalesmen OF the
| lakes. Though, as he expressed it, he was
always drawing his living out of his inkstand
he yet ever delighted at the right Of Skid
daw as it oyerhung his window, and many
lnv, l,.a i0ffxT
nit.
Wilson was also here, and lived a
most jubilant life Gifted originally with
poetic aspirations and poetic taste,
and with an excess of imaginative
sensibility, and of animal spirits, with
an herculean frame and indomitable strength
he was attracted hither from his love of ma
ture, his admiration Of Wordsworth, and
his fondness for boating. What magnificent
regattas did he conduct upon Windermerel
| At what uproarious feasts of wit and wine
did he preside in Ellerayl With what adj
| vantage to the literature of our time was his
residence among the lakes, the reader of the
| Noctes and his manifold and rich discours-
ings on books and men in Blackwood can
| testify How noble his estimates Of man,
how strong and hearty his sympathies for
/ the good in lowiy life, how inspiring his
| love Of nature, how contemptuous his expos
ure of Fictitious and pretentious shamsl
What shall we say of DeQUincy2 Smitten
with admiration for Coleridge and Words
worth, he came to the lakes, and here, with
| splendid gifts and marvellous power for study
| he fell a victim to a sensuous appetite, the
joys and sorrows, the heaven and hell OF
which he contrived to infest with faseina-
ting interest by his rare powers Of descrlp-
tion. It's actual horrors to himself and It's
mortifying inconvenience to his friends, as
well as its hinderance to the prosecution OF
a noble life have never been truly recited.
! 1t we're better that they should not even be
! imagined, there was so much in the man and
is so much in his writings that is truly ele-
waiting and instructive.
Poor Hartly Coleridgel Thou too vast a
child OF the lakes, for here only couldst thou
/ be satisfied with nature, and here only was
man thy friend Nature here lifted thee
above theyself when thou didst fall, and the
friends of thy father watched over thee and
forbore with thee, as they have done with
thee as they have done with him. Thou in
turn gayest to them thy warmest admiration
and feryent gratitude, and gavest to Itera'
ture gems Of biography, criticism, and poe
try worthy of the school in which thou wer!
reared. Thy life was checkered and debaseo
but there is nothing in they writings that
does not elevate and inspire, nothing that Is
not conceived in the truly noble style, thai
does not liftto virtue and to God.
We have room but for single word fol
Arnold This pure minded ana most ener-
getic of men was led to the lakes not alone
oy that love for nature which made him al
a boy in her presence, but from his interes
in the school of poets and thinkers whom WI
have named. .-EcchaRge.