Lake Poets Lamb, Charles Lloyd, Hartley Coleridge, John Wilson, and Thomas De Quincey. 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 as reported by Coleridge) 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. Dorothy Wordsworth was an auxiliary member who was unpublished during her lifetime (her
James Losh writes that more likely it was William Mathews, his closest college friend. It was later that Wordsworth and Losh became good friends. In 1795 Losh left London for Bristol. He encountered there William Wordsworth, whom he already knew; and through Wordsworth he met Samuel Taylor Coleridge; and then Robert Southey, at a breakfast given by Coleridge with Thomas Beddoes and Charles Lloyd as other guests, in November 1796. Losh was often mentioned in Southey's correspondence. At this period Losh was in poor health, with tuberculosis and possibly having suffered a breakdown. He was a patient and supporter of Beddoes, and