By ROBERT GIBSON

Last updated at 14:47, Friday, 20 March 2009

DESPITE being born in London, the Victorian poet Algernon Charles Swinburne always considered himself a Northumbrian, and to this day remains one of the county’s most celebrated writers.

A master of vocabulary, rhyme and metre, he was arguably one of the most talented and forward-thinking artists of his time, his major works still finding a vital role on university reading lists.

He could as easily turn his hand to love poems, like the epic Tristram of Lyonesse, as he could to philosophy and politics, and, though sometimes condemned for his florid style, he was an astute, prolific critic.

In an age of moral censure, Swinburne broke boundaries with his writing, exploring themes like sado masochism, lesbianism and irreligion.

And yet he remained a popular figure with intellectual and layman alike, his reputation growing with each successive volume he published.

Aged 30, his Poems and Ballads, First Series, and Atalanta in Calydon established him as England’s premier poet, the successor to Lord Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning.

Swinburne’s aristocratic family long had its roots in Tynedale, the poet first visiting, and falling in love with, the area, as a youth.

He spent his summer holidays at Capheaton Hall, the home of his grandfather, who had a famous library and was president of Newcastle’s Literary and Philosophical Society.

It was here that he became immersed in the ballads and superstitions of the county, and listened to reminiscences of the stirring deeds of Border strife.

The raids of the Scots, the gatherings at Capheaton to organise defence and counter attack, and the Jacobite rebellions, known respectively, as the “Fifteen” and the “Forty Five” after the years in which they occurred (1715 and 1745), formed part of everyday conversation.

His knowledge of the Stuarts was obtained, not only from books, but also from the lore instilled in him there, enabling him to write A Jacobite’s Exile, which gave an intimate picture of the area’s landscape:

“We’ll see nae mair the sea-banks fair,

And the sweet grey gleaming sky,

And the lordly strand of Northumberland,

And the goodly towers thereby;

And none shall know but the winds that blow

The graves wherein we lie.”

Swinburne’s intellectual circle, which he formed largely at Oxford University, have written of how proud he was of being a Northumbrian.

According to their accounts he delighted in reading his Northumbrian ballads aloud, and could remember strange legends, which often tempted him into verse.

To Swinburne, Northumberland was “the crowning county of England – yes the best!”, a feeling reflected in the intensely patriotic Northumberland, Grace Darling and other works.

It was also the region in which his talents were first given their due praise, notably by Lady Pauline Trevelyan, wife of Sir Walter Trevelyan of Wallington.

Beautiful, kind and tactful, many of the Victorian celebrities flocked around her, including a number of high profile artists and intellectuals.

Swinburne’s letters to her reflect a deep admiration, and it was she who discovered genius in the youth who tended to puzzle less appreciative minds.

A keen horseman, Swinburne liked nothing better than to gallop from Capheaton to Wallington, his mind seething with rhymes and ideas, as he expressed in verse to the painter William Bell Scott:

“Whenever in August holiday times

I rode or swam through a rapture of rhymes,

Over heather or crag, and by scur and by stream,

Clothed with delight by the might of a dream,

With the sweet sharp wind blown hard through my hair,

On eyes enkindled and head made bare;

Or loosened a song to seal for me

A kiss on the clamorous mouth of the sea.”

As reflected in his lively verse, Swinburne was an excitable character and, according to the accounts of his friends, excellent company in his younger days.

As the poet grew older, however, his decadent nature got the better of him, and alcoholism, not to mention sexual deviancy, began to plague his life.

Some questioned whether Swinburne actually reached the depths of depravity he claimed. Oscar Wilde famously referring to him as “a braggart in matters of vice, who had done everything he could to convince his fellow citizens of his homosexuality and bestiality without being in the slightest degree a homosexual or a bestializer.”

Whatever the case, Swinburne’s health suffered as a result of his lifestyle, and in 1879, aged 42, he had a mental and physical breakdown.

His friend, the legal adviser and fellow poet Theodore Watts-Dunston, then took him into his home, where he lived in comfort for the next 30 years.

With Watts-Dunston’s help in keeping him away from alcohol, he lost his youthful rebelliousness, but continued to write works that attacked religion as unnecessary for artistic inspiration.

He died aged 72, on April 10, 1909, after a brief attack of influenza followed by pneumonia, and up to the last was chatting with his friends in his usual engaging style.

His will, naturally, directed that there should be no religious ceremony at his funeral, which took place at St Boniface Church, on Bonchurch, the Isle of Wight.

However, Watts-Dunton, now his executor, allowed the rector to read part of the Church of England burial service, and to offer some pious reflections of his own.

A cry of “Shame!” rose from the mourners, who, like Swinburne himself, were not afraid to express their feelings, even if they weren’t to everyone’s taste.

First published at 09:50, Friday, 13 March 2009
Published by http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk