Lake Poets was mostly a prose writer and did not particularly subscribe to the Wordsworthian vision of the Lakes. Southey, like Wordsworth, started out on the republican left, but, by the time the threat from Napoleon had dwindled, he had become the embodiment of a Tory extolling the virtues of nation and patriotism, and using the Lakes as a touchstone, and as "the symbol of the nation's covenant with God." Letitia Elizabeth Landon's sketch, "Grasmere Lake, A Sketch by a Cockney", in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1834, is a spoof on the Lake Poets, whom she admired (especially Wordsworth) but regarded
Early life of William Wordsworth life before Samuel Taylor Coleridge was sedentary and dull and his poetry amounted to little. When Coleridge was near, he was Wordsworth's muse, and Coleridge's praise and encouragement kept Wordsworth motivated. Dorothy described Wordsworth while around Coleridge when she wrote: "His faculties seem to expand every day, he composes with much more facility than he did". It was under Coleridge's support that Wordsworth was encouraged to write poetry intended to rival Milton. When Wordsworth was forced to move from Alfoxden, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Dorothy agreed to travel to Germany in September 1798. Originally, Coleridge and Wordsworth lived together in Hamburg,