Chapters at the English Lakes. By the Rev. H. D.
Rawnsley. (James MacLehose and Sons. 5s. net.)—In this most agree- able little volume Canon Rawnsley deals with a variety of
subjects. His first chapter is an address delivered over the cenotaph placed in Grasmere churchyard to the memory of Wordsworth's sailor brother John, that " poet in everything but words," as William called him, who went down with his ship, the ill-fated Earl of Abergavenny,' in February, 1805. Canon Rawnsley has collected all available references to John from the poems and correspondence of the Wordsworth circle, and his paper is a fitting memorial to a sweet and lovable personality. Another interesting chapter deals with the visit which Dickens and Wilkie Collins paid to Cumberland in 1857, and which "the Inimitable" subsequently described in "Household Words" under the title of " The Two Idle Apprentices," while a third deals with the eccentric sculptor Angus Fletcher (the "Kindheart" of Dickens's correspon- dence), who designed the headstone for Wordsworth's daughter Dora's tomb at Grasmere. Another chapter traces the history of Keswick from the ice-age until the days when Tennyson visited Mirehouse and Mrs. Lynn Lynton and Frederick Myers were buried at Crosthwaite and St. John's. Canon Rawnsley has laid yet another obligation on all lovers of the English Lakes.
Previous page
