Since the discovery of plumbago in the district,
Keswick has been famed for its lead-pencils. A renowned week of
religious services, known as the "Keswick Convention," takes place here.
Crosthwaite, to the north-west of the town, is famous for its
twelfth-century church dedicated to St. Kentigern. It has a long
battlemented roof and massive square tower, and possesses many old
brasses and monuments, besides a font of the time of Edward III. To most
people the monument to Southey will be the chief object of interest. It
is a recumbent figure, with an epitaph in verse by his life-long friend
Wordsworth.
Robert Southey was the son of a Bristol linen-draper, and was educated
at Westminster and Balliol. Southey and Coleridge were much associated
with Lovell, a Bristol Quaker. These three friends made a plan--never
carried out--of going to the wilds of America and returning to the
patriarchal manner of living. They all married three sisters named
Fricker. Unfortunately Southey's wife died insane, and he then married a
very talented lady named Catherine Bowles. In the beginning of the
eighteenth century the Southeys and Coleridges settled in the same house
at Greta, near Keswick, and Mrs. Lovell, widow of Robert Lovell, and her
son joined the household. Here Southey lived till his death in 1843. In
1813 he was made Poet Laureate, and later was given a pension of L300 a
year.
[Illustration: _Photochrom Co., Ltd._
ASHNESS BRIDGE, DERWENTWATER.
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