Originally posted on HistoryLondon.
Was it something in the water? Wandering around the City of London’s Square Mile I have been surprised to learn that five of England’s greatest poets were born here, within a few hundred yards of each other, in a concentration of poetic genius I would hazard is not surpassed anywhere else in the world.
The lives of the five: John Milton, Alexander Pope, Thomas Gray, John Keats and Thomas Hood, occupied a key period of about 250 years of London’s history from 1600 to 1850. Their poetic styles were very different, and none of them, except perhaps Hood, is remembered particularly as a London writer, but I thought it would be interesting to find out what they had to say about their home city.
In 1608, John Milton was born an unquestioned Cockney, in Bread Street just three houses south of Cheapside and the…
via Five Cockney…
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First Night History 
I love Hood’s lament about the weather. It reads like one of my ‘moaning posts’ about the grey days in Norfolk.
Best wishes, Pete.
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