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.
Sir George Beaumont, 7th Baronet and Dutch painting and landscaping the grounds at Coleorton Hall, Beaumont's country house in Leicestershire. Coleorton was later to become Beaumont's main place of residence, and was rebuilt to a design by George Dance the Younger from 1804 to 1808. A friend of the Lake Poets, with whom he considered himself a kindred spirit, Beaumont lent out the farm of the estate to William Wordsworth and his family in the winter of 1806. They were briefly joined there by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, but Beaumont was unable to establish the same rapport with this poet as with Wordsworth, who proved a