English literature is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. Among his most important works are "Songs of Innocence" (1789) and "Songs of Experience" (1794) "and profound and difficult 'prophecies' ", such as "Jerusalem: the Emanation of the Giant Albion" (1804–c.1820). After Blake, among the earliest Romantics were the Lake Poets, including William Wordsworth (1770–1850), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834), Robert Southey (1774–1843) and journalist Thomas de Quincey (1785–1859). However, at the time Walter Scott (1771–1832) was the most famous poet. The early Romantic Poets brought a new emotionalism and introspection,
Monmouth elsewhere. Poets William Wordsworth, Samuel Coleridge, and Robert Southey, as well as painter J. M. W. Turner, were among those who visited the area. The town was visited in 1802 by Admiral Horatio Nelson, who knew the importance of the area's woodland in providing timber for the British Navy and approved a Naval Temple built in his honour on the nearby Kymin Hill. Wooden ships up to 500 tons were built at a shipyard just south of Monmouth bridge until the new bridge at Chepstow was opened in 1816. Priory Street, the town's first bypass, was built in the 1830s,