John Close

It was now his assiduity in including his friends and neighbours in his verse, and more especially the gentry of the district, bore fruit in a petition to remedy his poverty with a Civil List pension on the grounds of his contribution to literature.

This was granted in April 1860 and resulted in questions being asked in Parliament about the bestowal of such recognition on a hitherto unknown Lake Poet and the pension was rescinded.

[4] The case was widely reported, not only in Great Britain but also in the United States and in colonial papers, where he was attacked particularly on the basis of his recently published The Poetical Works of J.

[5] The main accusations were that his poetry was no more than doggerel; that he wrote for venal reasons; and that his claim to be appointed laureate “Under Royal Patronage” by a West African chief made him appear a buffoon (as he was described in Punch)[6] or, as The Caledonian put it, “the privileged idiot of a county”.

[9] One of the most detailed demonstrations that the poet's pen was for hire appeared in the American Harper's New Monthly Magazine, giving as evidence his endorsement of Dr Rooke’s ‘Oriental Pills’ and of the Kendal carpet manufacturer John Whitwell.

A sketch of the author going about his commercial business later reached the Confederate States of America through the medium of a travel report in the magazine The Land We Love.

Those for tourist consumption ranged from the two-page “Impromptu Poem: On the Beauties of Windermere and Carver's Memorial Church” (1880)[14] to the 64 illustrated pages of “Poet Close's Grand Lake Book” (1869).

[21] His prolific publications also included an annual "Christmas Book" which, in addition to his own verses, news and correspondence, reviewed the year's events in the district.