History of Cumbria opera", 1798) and others decried the felling of trees. A 'new Picturesque' sensibility emerged. 'Attempts were made to 'blend in' the villas being built with the natural landscape. The "Lake Poet School" (or 'Bards of the Lake', or the 'Lake School') was initially a derogatory term ("the School of whining and hypochondriacal poets that haunt the Lakes", according to Francis Jeffrey) that was also a misnomer, as it was neither particularly born out of the Lake District, nor was it a cohesive school of poetry. The principal members of the 'group' were William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge Malta under the Civil Commissioner, Alexander Ball, a task he performed quite successfully. He lived in San Anton Palace in the village of Attard. However, he gave this up and returned to England in 1806. Dorothy Wordsworth was shocked at his condition upon his return. From 1807 to 1808, Coleridge returned to Malta and then travelled in Sicily and Italy, in the hope that leaving Britain's damp climate would improve his health and thus enable him to reduce his consumption of opium. Thomas De Quincey alleges in his "Recollections of the Lakes and the Lake Poets" that it was during