Essays and Nature Studies; With Lectures - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1899. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... ^H HE region that lies around Richmond is not only celebrated for the surpassing beauty of its scenery, amidst which lovers of Nature find their truest recreation or enjoyment, but it can also boast of undying associations connected with poets, two of whom lived, about the same time, on opposite banks of the neighbouring Thames. Neither of them was born in the district, but they both came to it in the maturity of their powers: here they spent the best years of their lives; here they enjoyed their fame, and gathered round them famous friends and admirers; with the district their names have been inseparably associated; here they died and here they lie buried. One of these was Alexander Pope, the illustrious chief of the classical school of poetry; the other James Thomson, the pioneer or reviver of the romantic school of Nature - poetry which now reigns supreme. The one lies buried in the parish church of Twickenham; the other, whose remains lie in the neighbouring parish church, may be appropriately called the Bard of Richmond. While Pope, the poet of men and manners and town life, was born in the busy scenes of Lombard Street, Thomson, the bard of Nature, was nurtured amid pastoral scenes far removed from the busy haunts of men. As, from Carlisle, we cross the Scottish border and pass up pleasant Liddisdale, we have, on our immediate right, the land of Thomson's youth; while further on, by the same route, we come to Dryburgh Abbey, Melrose, and Abbotsford, all sacred to Sir Walter Scott; and therefrom, by way of Selkirk, we may visit the poetic Yarrow, with its memories of Wordsworth and the Ettrick Shepherd. It was in this way, when desirous of visiting the land of Scott and Thomson, that I first entered Scotland, walking, finally, westward to Moffat, past the h...