SOUTHEY.
DERWENTWATER AND BASSENTHWAITE
Greta Hall, which was the residence of S. T. Coleridge from 1800 to 1804 and for a short time in 1806, as well as of R. Southey from Sept. 1803 to his death in March 1843, commands a view of both these lakes. Coleridge in a letter to Southey from Greta Hall, dated 13th April 1801, describes the situation of the house as follows:—
Behind the house is an orchard, and a small wood on a steep slope, at the foot of which flows the river Greta, which winds round and catches the evening lights in the front of the house. In front we have a giant's camp—an encamped army of tent-like mountains, which, by an inverted arch, gives a view of another vale. On our right the lovely vale and the wedge-shaped lake of Bassenthwaite; and on our left Derwentwater and Lodore in view, and the fantastic mountains of Borrowdale. Behind us the massy Skiddaw, smooth, green, high, with two chasms and a tent-like ridge in the larger. A fairer scene you have not seen in all your wanderings.
Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey,
By the REV. C. SOUTHEY.
