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Etched on Devon's Memory

West view of Dawlish, Devon
Creator: Rowe, George
Title: West view of Dawlish, Devon / drawn from nature & on stone by Geo.Rowe
Imprint: Sidmouth : G.Rowe & J.Wallis
Date: [1825?]
Format: Lithograph ; 136x219mm
Ref. no.: SC0559
Notes: Another copy L SC0559

Copies: WSL : M SC0559
TOR: I/S

Coverage: Devon . Dawlish . General views . . From the west . 1825

Last Updated: 01/06/2006

Associated text: 57. To JAMES RICE. Tuesday 24 March 1818.

My dear Rice,
Being in the midst of your favorite [sic] Devon, I should not by rights, pen one word but it should contain a vast portion of Wit, Wisdom, and learning - for I have heard that Milton ere he wrote his Answer to Salmasius came into these parts, and for on[e] whole Month, rolled himself, for three whole hours in a certain meadow hard by us - where the mark of his nose at equidistances is still shown. The exhibitor of said Meadow further saith that after these rollings, not a nettle sprang up in all the seven acres for seven years and that from said time a new sort of plant was made from the white thorn, of a thornless nature […] I went yesterday to dawlish fair -

Over the hill and over the dale,
And over the bourn to Dawlish -
Where Gingerbread Wives have a scanty sale
And gingerbre[a]d nuts are smallish. […]

O who would'nt hie to Dawlish fair
O who would'nt stop in a Meadow
O [who] would not rumple the daisies there
And make the wild fern for a bed do.

Tom's Remembrances and mine to all -
Your sincere friend
John Keats

See The Letters of John Keats. edited by Maurice Buxton Forman, published by Geoffrey Cumberledge, London, 1947. Third revised edition. pp. 122-124.

[Text may be taken from a different source or edition than that listed as the source by Somers Cocks.]




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