Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets, Vol. 2 (of 2)Howitt, William
General
Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets, Vol. 2 (of 2)
Howitt, William
Literary landmarks -- Great Britain; Poets, English -- Homes and haunts
It is exactly the same as to the country in which he lived. He seemed
to live there as a stranger and a sojourner. That he loved the lakes
and mountains around, there can be no question; but has he linked his
poetry with them? Has he, like Wordsworth, woven his verse into almost
every crevice of every rock? Cast the spell of his enchantment upon
every stream? Made the hills, the waters, the hamlets, and the people,
part and parcel of his life and his fame? We seek in vain for any such
amalgamation. With the exception of the cataract of Lodore, there is
scarcely a line of his poetry which localizes itself in the fairy
region where he lived forty years. When Wordsworth is gone, he will
leave on the mountains, and in all the vales of Cumberland, an
everlasting people of his creation. The Wanderer, and the Clergyman of
the Excursion, Michael, and Matthew, and the Wagoner, and Peter Bell,
Ruth, and many a picturesque vagrant will linger there forever. The
Shepherd Lord will haunt his ancient hills and castles, and the White
Doe will still cross Rylston fells. A thousand associations will start
up in the mind of many a future generation, as they hear the names of
Helvellyn, Blencathra, or Langdale Pikes. But when you seek for
evidences of the poetic existence of Southey in Cumberland, you are
carried at once to Greta-hall at Keswick, and there you remain. I
suppose the phrenologists would say it was owing to his
idiosyncrasy--that he had much imitativeness, but very little
locality. It is most singular, that look over the contents of his
voluminous poems, and you find them connected with almost every region
of the world, and every quarter of these kingdoms, except with the
neighborhood of his abode. He would seem like a man flying from the
face of the world, and brushing out all traces of his retreat as he
goes. In Spain, France, America, India, Arabia, Africa, the West
Indies, in Ireland, Wales, England, and Scotland, you perceive his
poetical habitations and resting-places; but not in Cumberland. He has
commemorated Pultowa, Jerusalem, Alentejo, Oxford, Blenheim, Dreux,
Moscow, the Rhine. He has epitaphs and inscriptions for numbers of
places in England, Spain, and Portugal. In his Madoc, Wales; in his
Roderick, Spain; in his Joan of Arc, France, find abundance of their
localities celebrated. In his Pilgrimage to Waterloo, Flanders has its
commemorations; but Cumberland--no! You would think it was some
district not glorious with mountain, lake, and legend, but some fenny
flat on which a poetic spirit could not dwell.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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