69 



THE PROPOSED PERMANENT LAKE DISTRICT 

 DEFENCE SOCIETY. 



(Read before the Wordsworth Society in the College Hall, Westminster, 



May, 1883 ; and at the Annual Meeting of the Cumberland 



Association at Ambleside. ) 



Mv only excuse for reading this paper was that anything that 

 pertained to the English Lake District had an interest for members 

 of a Wordsworth Society. My excuse for reading it to-day 

 must be, that, as a Literary and Scientific Society, we dwellers 

 in Lakeland are peculiarly responsible for the preservation of 

 hill and dale for the Literary and Scientific society of all 

 England. The battle that was lately fought and won against 

 the steam-dragon of Honister — the Braithwaite and Buttermere 

 Railway — is a thing of the past", but to Wordsworth is owed 

 all thanks for the winning of it, and here, within a mile of the 

 poet's haunts, his beloved Rydal— we may fitly thank him, in the 

 strength of whose spirit the victory was gained. There will, it is 

 believed, in the near future, be more invasions and desecrations 

 of Lakeland to be withstood. The meeting to-day is fair augury 

 that the same spirit will strengthen our hands to the necessary 

 resistance. 



We have found the double truth of that Sonnet Wordsworth 

 wrote when he heard of the projected railway line to Windermere, 

 We know now that 



There is no nook of English ground secure 

 From rash assault, 



