Wordsworth’s House, Rydal Mountdetails

It is needless to speak of the glory shed over the Lake Country by the pen of Wordsworth, who gave an abiding expression to the influence which the varying moods of nature could exercise over the mind which frnkly lent itself to their charm. But, besides his descriptions of natural scenery, Wordsworth has also caught the historic character of the people, and has left a series of sketches of the homely virtues which were produced by a simple and independent life. Yet his pen tended to sweep away their last remains—he made the Lakes a place of fashionable resort, and thereby drew them from their primitive isolation and made them part and parcel of the world around. As villas arose the old farmers disappeared; their land became valuable for building sites; they sold it, and disappeared from their ancestral homes. When the poet Gray visited Grassmere he found it inhabited by twenty-six dalesmen. It may be doubted if at the present day more than two or three survive.” (p. 135)