"Mary Barker, young, excitable, attached herself first to Southey in 1796, then to Wordsworth in 1814. Leaping to defend the Lake Poets from Byron's derisive phrase, 'Pond Poets' she composed her indignant reproof. But the 'small fry' claiming authorship conceals a larger fish. Lines Addressed to a Noble Lord is written in collaboration with Wordsworth, who, though uneasy at attacking Byron, contributes a lyrical sequence of sixty-odd lines celebrating the joys of rural life in the manner of Milton's L'Allegro. Letters, and a surviving manuscript, suggest in detail what Wordsworth has and has not composed, does and does not approve. In public he never acknowledged his lines."--Jacket.