It was but a short walk from Wordsworth's Dove Cottage to the "Swan," and who better than a poet after a strenuous day of high thinking and plain living can appreciate glass of wine or ale?
The "Swan," set in beautiful Westmorland, has been tactfully modernized and is doubtless more stylish and important now than in Wordsworth's day: but the charming link with the poets is preserved.
Wordsworth writes of the *"Swan's" irresistible "casement panes, and that bright gleam which thence will fall." Nowadays, the "bright gleam" happens to be electric light, but it is as positive as ever it was. And, once we get the Grasmere habit, we heartily share the sentiments of Wordsworth's countryman in his poem, the "Wagoner," who, in regard to the "Swan"
Could tell with self-dissatisfaction Quaint stories of the bird's attraction authentic Pickwick ones—the "Leather Bottle" at Cobham in Kent, the "Bull" at Rochester, and the "White Horse" at Ipswich, always full of seasonable fare and good company.
Suppose we our glasses to the raise Leather Bottle" and hope, following the example of the Pickwick party, to spend an evening there "devoted to festivity and conversation."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.