ISl 



Dr. Gibson was possessed of a very kind and genial disposition, 

 and thus succeeded in securing the confidence of the dalesmen in 

 a remarkable degree. This was the means of obtaining from them 

 that rich variety of local legend, story, and anecdote, with which 

 his conversation abounded, and which gives such a charm to his 

 works. He was temperate; and in reference to this he once 

 remarked to me that Miss Martineau had said in one of her 

 writings that the doctors in the Lake Country are so often, in 

 hospitality, asked to take drink, that they all do eventually take to 

 drinking, if they live here long enough. " What would she have 

 said in your case?" I asked. "That I had not lived here long 

 enough," he replied. 



In quest of health he became a great traveller. He had been 

 to Constantinople, done the round of the Mediterranean, and had 

 also visited Norway and other regions that border on the Baltic 

 Sea. 



His writings, whether in prose or poetry, are a very thoughtful 

 reflex of the Cumbrian dialect and the Cumbrian character ; and 

 any one well acquainted with Cumberland will at once recognize 

 that his sketches have been drawn from life. His mode of dealing 

 with writings and writers out of the range of the dialect, though 

 perhaps at times too keen and sarcastic, is in other respects full of 

 interest. For years he certainly occupied the very first place as 

 a writer in the dialect of Cumberland, and his death made a gap 

 in the ranks of its literati which will not be easily filled.* 



The following sketch, chiefly of Dr. Gibson's later years, has 

 been drawn up for me by the gentleman to whose kind and cordial 

 CO operation I have alluded before : — "His Ravings and Ramblings 

 round Coniston, through which he first became known as of literary 

 tastes and capabilities hereabouts, and which has passed through 

 three editions, were in the first place rapidly thrown off" at the 



* The rule that I laid down for myself— to deal as little as possible with 

 works of any living writer, precludes me from writing a notice of Richardson of 

 the Vale of St. John's. Some future chronicler of the poets and prose writers 

 of Cumberland will be able to show that he has as faithfully pourtrayed in prose 

 and verse the dialect and doings of our county in our own times, as have any of 

 our former poets in the era to which they belonged. 



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