Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets, Vol. 1 (of 2)

Among the poor of the town the remembrance of his benevolence and unassuming kindness had still chroniclers; but from the other classes little could be learned, and that not wha...

It is well known to most readers that this house was built by Burns's father, and that about a week after Robert, his first child, was born, the roof fell in during a tempest at...

"You must excuse me if I say nothing of the front; indeed, I do not know which it is. A stranger would be grievously disappointed who should think to get into this house the rig...

There has long ceased to be any obscurity about the matter. His relations, justly proud of the connection, have set that fully in the light which Swift himself characteristicall...

were his own wretched cogitations. But Milton, unlike Samson, had no weak seductions from the path of his great duty to reproach himself with; and far likelier were it that the...

The old age of Chaucer, like that of too many men of genius, is said to have been stormy, and not unvisited by necessity. We are informed that he went from Woodstock to Donningt...

From that time to the present, the effect has been, to a certain degree, the same, in a certain class; the songs of The Beggar's Opera have begun again to be sung, and a manifes...

"He is the happy man whose life e'en now Shows somewhat of that happier life to come; Who, doomed to an obscure but tranquil state, Is pleased with it; and, were he free to choo...

lies buried in that oblivious silence which can not but be confessed to be a rich piece of poetical justice, though of very unpoetical ingratitude. Soon after Miss Addison's dea...

"And then I clasped my hands, and looked around-- But none was near to mark my streaming eyes, Which poured their warm drops on the sunny ground. So without shame I spoke, 'I wi...

The last abode of Burns in Ayrshire was at Mossgiel. This is some four miles beyond Tarbolton, and close to Mauchline, which is merely a large village. Mossgiel farm lies, as it...

To this wild region they had come to indulge Shelley's passion for boating. News came of Leigh Hunt having arrived at Pisa. Shelley, and his friend Captain Ellerker Williams, se...

About a mile to the north of the new town lies Old Aberdeen. In advancing toward it you become every moment more aware of its far greater antiquity. It looks as if it had a fixe...

During the five years spent by Milton at Horton, between leaving Cambridge and setting out on his travels, he did not entirely bury himself there in his classical books and poet...

He was sometimes a regular inmate with Mr. Hunt at Kentish town, and used to ramble about the sweet walks of Hampstead and Highgate to his heart's content. "When Endymion was pu...

With his life here we are made familiar by his poetry and letters, and the biography of Hayley. His long returns of melancholy; the writing of poetry, which Mrs. Unwin suggested...

Looking round over this stripped and lonely landscape, over the "looming flats," over the dark moorland hills that slumber to the north and east, and then far away to more dista...

Amid all the convivialities, the excitements of wine, wit, and conversation, which so many meetings of celebrated men opened to Pope, he began to find himself growing dissipated...

This was decisive! If these two gentlemen, nephews of the poetess, who are enjoying the two splendid estates of the family, Woodstock and Rosanna, show thus little respect to th...

This spot was, no doubt, the old house and park of the Treshams; that old, zealous Catholic family, of which one member, Sir Francis Tresham, played so conspicuous a part in the...

The front, including a wing, extends, as nearly as could be judged by passing it, sixty-eight feet by a depth of twenty-four; it consisted of two stories, with five windows in e...

From this melancholy review of Milton's domestic history, let us now return to his homes in London after his return from Italy. He came back with great intentions, but to the hu...

A house there is, and that's enough, From whence one fatal morning issues A brace of warriors, not in buff, But rustling in their silks and tissues. The first came _cap-à-pie_ f...

When the two monarchs under whom Shakspeare lived admired and patronized him, we may be sure that Shakspeare's great merits were perceived, and that vividly, though the age had...

On went the coach. At Ballater again thronged was the door with livery-servants; the rain was falling in torrents; there were nine shooting gentlemen in the house, not one of wh...

in the eloquent words of Campbell, and whose genius was to be the dearest memory of his countrymen in regions of the earth whither their adventurous spirit leads them, now, with...

Here the woman related that Goldsmith's landlord having fallen into difficulties, was at length arrested; and Goldsmith, who owed a small sum of money for rent, being applied to...

From the time he had begun to read, a great change had passed over him. "He grew thoughtful and reserved. He was silent and gloomy for long intervals together, speaking to no on...

Of all the lives of Swift which have been written, it would be difficult to say whether Dr. Johnson's or Sir Walter Scott's is the most one-sided. Johnson's is like that of a ma...

His garden and grounds were on the level of the meadows, as level as the meadows of Barn-Elms. These meadows lie along the road, as you go from Weybridge to St. Ann's Hill, and...

"What needs my Shakspeare for his honor'd bones, The labor of an age in piled stones? Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid Under a star-ypointing pyramid? Dear son of mem...

Why did not Chatterton, who, by the splendid provision of this man, received his education and advance into life, resound the praises of Edward Colston as loudly as he did those...

All chance of succeeding as a clergyman, to which office he, moreover, had an aversion, appearing out of the question, and having either no inclination, or not sufficient spirit...

No poet of the same pretensions has been so much known through his residence as Shenstone. Without the Leasowes he would have been nothing. His elegies and pastorals would have...

When one thinks of Burns wandering amid this congenial nature, where the young now wander and sing his songs, one is apt to forget that he bore with him a sad heart and a sinkin...

Thus we have traced the course of Thomas Chatterton to that eventful crisis of his fate, when he found himself rejected, as it were, by the literary senate of his nation, and th...

The incident is a charming one; and we may admit the facts as regards the clergyman to be fully true, and that the pleasure of Swift must have been great in having the opportuni...

It is pleasant to find the author of The Traveler and Deserted Village, amid all his labors, ever and anon escaping to the country, which no man more profoundly enjoyed. It is d...

Here he married Mrs. Herbert, a lady of good family, with whom he lived in comfort, if not in affluence. Of the place where Comus was first acted by the real personages of it, a...

That no man ever lived more completely in a castle of indolence there can be little question, and perhaps as little that it cut his life short. He died at forty-eight, of cold t...

"An indissoluble sign of their existence has stamped itself on the abodes of all distinguished men, a sign which places all kindred spirits in communion with them."--_The Citize...

With Burns, to be a man is the grand distinction. All other distinctions are but the clothes which wrap the figure--the figure itself is the real thing. To be a man, in his eye,...

It is because he embodied himself in all he wrote that his writings command such undecaying interest; for in impressing his own heart on his page, he impressed there nature itse...

There was to be a complete English population established on these lands in this manner: "For any seigniory containing 12,000 acres, the gentleman was to have for his own domain...

Swift was about thirty-two years of age when he attended Lord Berkeley, one of the lords-justices of Ireland, to that country as his chaplain and private secretary. Berkeley had...

It was during his being a student of Cambridge that Newstead Abbey fell into his hands by the expiration of Lord Grey de Ruthyn's lease, and that he went thither, and repaired i...

"Again the sky was black, the thunder rolled; Fast hieing o'er the plain a priest was seen; Not dight full proud, nor buttoned up in gold; His cloak and cape were gray, and eke...