Now close beside us on our left, a gateway opens to a woodland retreat honoured throughout the world, for this is Brantwood;—Brantwood, where Gerald Massey, the son of a canal boatman, a labourer in a silk mill, and afterwards an errand boy in London, came as a poet and thinker in later years, for quiet and meditation. Poems and Chansons, The Ballad of Babe Christabel, with other Lyric Poems, War Waits, Craigcrook Castle,—these are the works which make us class Gerald Massey amongst the literati of Lakeland. After him came hither a sonnet writer, whose verse has a Miltonic ring about it—W. J. Linton, poet, printer, wood-engraver, chartist and republican. (p. 187)
It was in one of the out-buildings of Brantwood, that the press was set to work, which gave to the world the short-lived yellow-coloured periodical, called The Republic. It was at Brantwood that Linton pursued the art of wood-engraving in which he has rarely if ever been excelled. (pp. 187-188)
No account of the literary associations of our English Lakes could be justified for its completeness, were we to forget that there at Brantwood rested from his labours for England and the world a true poet of the English Lakes, one who had gathered up and given forth with passionate appeal, the best teaching of that school of lake poets and philosophers which we associate with the name of Wordsworth. Preacher, poet, painter, political economist, philosopher, patriot in one, he had drunk deep not only from wells of English undefiled, but from the well-springs of purest aspiration,—the fountain-head of God. He had told us of the blessings that lie about our feet like flowers; he had shown us of joy “in widest commonalty spread”; he had filled us with a desire for “a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness”; he had bade us know assuredly, that “nature never did betray the heart that loved her.” As long as any grateful heart turns lovingly to our Lakeland hills they will remember, that from our mountains and our streams, our flowers and our woody places, our lakes and lawns, our clouds and sunshine, Ruskin’s heart drew courage, drew strength and power to inspire, yea, and to be patient and endure. To his sure retreat above the tranquil lake, in Coniston’s quiet vale, the greatest gladiator of his time, Carlyle hardly excepted, the most self-sacrificing teacher, the purest-minded thinker, the most far-sighted prophet of his day, worn-out and weary, returned for rest. (p. 188)
And here too in the valley by the side of the beck that comes rippling down from Coniston Old Man, beneath the shade of the deodars, and by the side of his three friends, the ‘ladies of the Thwaite,’ he now lies at rest for ever. A quiet failing of power and peaceful expectation of death, a little cold, a day or two in bed, and then a painless going forth of the soul at eventide when the heavens above the Coniston hills were filled with glory. Such was the end of him who had done more than most men to show us how the Heavens are continually telling the glory of God, and how the firmament showeth His handiwork. He passed away on Saturday, January 19th, and was laid to rest with all the tender simplicity of a country-side funeral on Thursday, Jan, 25, 1900. (p. 189)
(Literary Associations of the English Lakes, Vol. II, pp. 187-9)
