happiness once more in "Epistle to Mr. Newton, the Derbyshire Minstrel, on receiving his description in verse of an autumnal scene near Eyam, September 1791". No copy of the poem by William Newton now exists. The author was a labouring-class protégé from nearby, originally discovered by Cunningham and introduced to Miss Seward in 1783. The poet Richard Furness belongs to the early 19th century and was known as 'the Poet of Eyam' after his birthplace, but the bulk of his poetry too was written after he had left the district. Among the several references to the village there are his "Lines written in sight of the rectory", which praises both Anna Seward and her father. William Wood, the author of The History and Antiquities of Eyam, was a village resident. At the head of his first chapter is an excerpt from a poem that links the place with the story of the plague. Simply initialled W. W., the inference to be drawn is that it had earlier appeared in Wood's collection The genius of the Peak and other poems (1837). A later visitor from across the Peak District was Thomas Matthew Freeman, who included a blank verse meditation "On Eyam" and its plague history in his collection Spare minutes of a country parson. At the start of the following century Sarah Longsdon O'Ferrall was living at Eyam Rectory and published The Lamp of St Helen and other poems in 1912. This contained hymns sung on special occasions in Eyam and some verse referring to plague sites. Prose writers also came to live in the area. The village of Milton that figures in some of Robert Murray Gilchrist's fiction is in fact based upon Eyam. His The Peakland Faggot (1897) consists of short stories, each focusing on a particular character in the village. This was followed by two other series, Nicholas and Mary and Other Milton Folk (1899) and Natives of Milton (1902). Eyam was also featured under its own name in Joseph Hatton's novel The Dagger and the Cross (1897). Set in the former Bradshaw Hall in the year before the plague arrives, it includes local characters who had key roles during the spread of the disease, such as George Vicars and William and Catherine Mompesson. Legacy Some have questioned the details of the story of Eyam's response to the plague and the wisdom of the actors in it. The