hat
"all the circumstances of the poem are accurately correct." This
Jackson, after retiring from active work as waggoner, became the tenant
of Greta Hall, where first Coleridge, and afterwards Southey lived. The
Hall was divided into two houses, one of which Jackson occupied, and the
other of which he let to Coleridge, who speaks thus of him in the letter
to Southey, dated Greta Hall, Keswick, April 13, 1801:

"My landlord, who dwells next door, has a very respectable library,
which he has put with mine; histories, encyclopedias, and all the
modern poetry, etc. etc. etc. A more truly disinterested man I never
met with; severely frugal, yet almost carelessly generous; and yet he
got all his money as a common carrier, by hard labour, and by pennies
and pennies. He is one instance among many in this country of the
salutary effect of the love of knowledge--he was from a boy a lover of
learning."

(See 'Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey,' vol. ii. pp. 147,
148.)

Charles Lamb--to whom 'The Waggoner' was dedicated--wrote thus to
Wordsworth on 7th June 1819:

"My dear Wordsworth,--You cannot imagine how proud we are here of the
dedication. We read it twice for once that we do the poem. I mean all
through; yet 'Benjamin' is no common favourite; there is a spirit of
beautiful tolerance in it. It is as good as it was in 1806; and it
will be as good in 1829, if our dim eyes shall be awake to peruse it.
Methinks there is a kind of shadowing affinity between the subject of
the narrative and the subject of the dedication.
...
"I do not know which I like best,--the prologue (the latter part
especially) to 'P. Bell,' or the epilogue to 'Benjamin.' Yes, I tell
stories; I do know I like the last best; and the 'Waggoner' altogether
is a pleasanter remembrance to me than the 'Itinerant.'
...
"C. LAMB."

(See 'The Letters of Charles Lamb,' edited by Alfred Ainger, vol. ii.
pp. 24-26.)

To this may be added what Southey wrote to Mr. Wade Browne on 15th June
1819:

"I think you will be pleased with Wordsworth's 'Waggoner', if it were
only for the line of road which it describes. The master of the waggon
was my poor landlord Jackson, and the cause of his exchanging it for
the one-horse cart was just as is represented in the poem; nobody but
Benjamin could manage it upon these hills, and Benjamin could not
resist the temptations by the wayside."

(See 'The Life and