Literary Celebrities of the English Lake-District

by Frederick Sessions

Her father was a banker whose business was in the West of England. He was a wealthy man, and removed, while his daughter was young, from Durham to one of the loveliest estates in Monmouthshire—Piercefield—on the cliffs of the river Wye, close to Chepstow's ruined castle, and within sight of the British Channel.

'There, twice a day, the Severn fills,
The salt sea-water passes by,
And hushes half the babbling Wye,
And makes a silence in the hills.'

Through the length of the park a pathway traverses the winding summits of the gray limestone rocks, which—clothed with wood, or rising in naked spires from the water far into the sky—afforded resting-places for occasional nightingales, and for all the commoner singing birds of the land, as well as for ravens and innumerable daws. Here she could find romantic spots at every turn that called forth all her poetical aspirations and faculties, and filled her imagination with dreams of the heroes of old Wales, and the stormy warfare of the Marches in the middle ages. She had quietude enough, too, in the library of the mansion to pursue her unusual studies successfully, and without interruption from casual visitors. 'Miss Smith's power of memory,' says the 'National Dictionary of Biography,' 'and of divination, must have been alike remarkable, for she rarely consulted a dictionary.'

At the beginning of William Pitt's great European wars, as well as some quarter of a century later, after its close, the commercial world was widely and deeply shaken—as it always is under circumstances that enrich the few at the cost of the many—Smith's Bank was involved in many losses, and failed to meet its own liabilities. The ruin of the firm involved the sale of Piercefield, and the family's departure therefrom, Mr. Smith purchasing a commission in the army. They went first to London, and then followed the regiment to Ireland, where everything was in ferment about the expected French invasion, and insurrection of the Irish. It was at this period that another and more famous literary lady was passing through her experiences, which are recorded in some of the episodes in 'Castle Rackrent' and other famous novels that delighted our parents. The Smiths were at first entertained by Lord Kingston, but had shortly to take up their abode in barracks. Elizabeth's calm cheerfulness and practical support to her mother were edifying, and brought forth the reserve forces of her unassuming character very satisfactorily. Her mother's description of their journey on horseback in those wild regions, as they were in ante-locomotive days, is worth transcribing from one of her letters to a lady friend. After a twenty-mile ride they arrived dripping wet. 'Our baggage was not come, and, owing to the negligence of the quarter-master, there was not even a bed to rest on. The whole furniture of our apartments consisted of a piece of a cart-wheel for a fender, a bit of iron, probably from the same vehicle, for a poker, a dirty deal table, and three wooden-bottomed chairs. It was the first time we had joined the regiment, and I was standing by the fire, and perhaps dwelling too much on the comforts I had lost, when I was roused from my reverie by Elizabeth's exclaiming, "Oh, what a blessing!" "Blessing!" I replied, "there seems none left!" "Indeed there is, my dear mother, for see here is a little cupboard!" I dried my eyes, and endeavoured to learn fortitude from my daughter.'

After long wanderings, varied by residences at Bath and in North Wales, the Smiths stayed for some months at Patterdale. While here the Captain purchased a little farm, and hired a house at Coniston. The house, according to the report of a visitor, was not very comfortable. 'The situation is indeed enchanting, and during the summer months inconveniences within doors are little felt, but it grieves me to be convinced of what they must amount to in December.' Here Elizabeth continued her studies and translations, especially from the German and Hebrew, and probably at this time read Locke's philosophy, discovering and criticising some of his inaccuracies. After a five years' most thorough enjoyment of Coniston—walking, boating, reading—she, staying out too long one evening beneath a favourite tree with a favourite book, felt a sharp pain strike suddenly through her chest. She had very considerably overtaxed her physical powers, and drawn too seriously on her reserve of nervous energy. It was the beginning of the end. Within a little more than twelve months she passed to her everlasting rest. Bath, Matlock, and other places had been tried without avail. At length she said: 'If I cannot recover here I shall not anywhere,' and refused to be removed again. In her last letter she says: 'I have learned to look on life and death with an equal eye, knowing where my hope is fixed.' Her friend's reply was 'as to a Christian on the verge of eternity.' 'Her whole life,' her mother adds, 'had been a preparation for death.' The house called Tent Lodge—where Tennyson afterwards stayed—now stands on the site where she lived in a tent pitched for her in her father's grounds. The name is given to the house because of an exclamation of hers that this would be such a magnificent situation for one. Whenever we see it we remember the delight of the 'Angel-Spirit' (her mother's words for her) at the prospect it commands. In the graveyard at Hawkshead, in which Mr. Beever lies, was buried Elizabeth Smith in August, 1806, and within the church is a small white marble tablet to her memory, telling how 'she possessed great talents, exalted virtues, and humble piety.' The situation of Hawkshead Church and graveyard are thus described by a contemporary writer: 'On the north is a most awful scene of mountains heaped upon mountains, in every variety of horrid shape. Among them sweeps to the north a deep winding chasm, darkened by overhanging rocks, that the eye cannot pierce, nor the imagination fathom.... The church is situated on the front of an eminence that commands the vale, which is floated with Esthwaite Water.'

Miss Smith's poems were written on the models then in vogue, and would hardly meet the taste of a generation that has since her days known a Scott, a Byron, a Wordsworth, a Shelley, a Keats, a Tennyson, and her stanzas are often long. This extract, descriptive of a calm at Patterdale, after a mountain hurricane, may furnish some idea of her style:

'The storm is past; the raging wind no more,
Between the mountains rushing, sweeps the vale,
Dashing the billows of the troubled lake
High into the air; the snowy fleece lies thick;
From every bough, from every jutting rock
The crystals hang; the torrents roar has ceased—
As if that Voice that called creation forth
Had said "Be still." All nature stands aghast,
Suspended by the viewless power of cold.'

Her translations from Hebrew were her favourite Sunday pursuits, and those of Jonah's Prayer, and Habakkuk's 'Song in Parts' are, to my mind, more poetical and more coherent than even our fine authorized version. In this judgment I find myself confirmed by reading that Archbishop Magee considered her rendering of 'Job' the best he knew.

There is no space for lengthy quotations from her prose writings and her letters, but some short sentences will have to serve as samples of her manner and her thoughts: