SOURCE: “William Lisle Bowles and the Riparian Muse,” in Essays and Poems Presented to Lord David Cecil, Constable, 1970, pp. 93-108.

In the following essay, Bamborough traces the development of early Romantic river sonnets and credits Bowles with popularizing the form.

Bowles's place in literary history is secure, if a little paradoxical. The publication of his sonnets in 1789 won him virtually immediate recognition, and for the next two decades his influence was widespread. His only serious rival as a sonneteer was Charlotte Smith, with whom his name was frequently coupled;¹ his sonnets are undoubtedly better than hers, but the fact that he is still to some degree recognized as a poet while she is not is probably more the result of the tributes paid to him by the first Romantics. Southey freely acknowledged his debt to Bowles, but better known than his references are Coleridge's account of how he...