Derwentwater

DERWENTWATER, a lake of Cumberland, England, in the Lake District (q.v.) . It is approximately oval in shape, about 3 m. long and from 2 m. to I + m. wide. The greatest depth is 7o feet. The lake is seen at one view, within an amphitheatre of moun tains of varied outline, overlooked by others of greater height. Several elevations near the lake are famous viewpoints, e.g., Castle Head, Walla Crag, Ladder Brow and Cat Bells. The shores are well wooded, and the lake is studded with several islands, of which Lord's Island, Derwent Isle and St. Herbert's are the principal. Lord's Island was the residence of the earls of Derwentwater. St. Herbert's Isle is so called because here lived St. Herbert, mentioned by Bede, in the 7th century. Derwent Isle (6 acres) contains a handsome residence surrounded by lawns, gardens and timber of large growth. The Falls of Lodore, at the upper end of the lake, consist of a series of cascades in the small Watendlath beck, which falls over crags from a height of nearly zoo feet. The "Floating Island" appears at intervals on the upper portion of the lake near the mouth of the beck, and is formed by the accumulation of decayed vegetable matter floating on the water. The river Derwent (q.v.) enters the lake from the south and leaves it on the north, draining it through Bassenthwaite lake, which is separated from Derwentwater by a lacustrine delta, to the Irish Sea. To the north-east of the lake lies the town of Keswick.

GAVRILA ROMANOVICH (17

43 i 816) , Russian poet, was born at Kazan on July 14, 1 743 . He entered the army in 1762, was governor of Olonet (1784), Tam bov (1785), and then secretary for petitions under Catherine II. to whom many of his odes are addressed. Under Alexander I. he was for a short time minister of justice, but in 1803 he retired to his estate at Zvanka, in the Novgorod Government, where he spent a serene and gay old age in the pursuit of letters. He died at Zvanka on July 21, 1816. Derzhavin, says Prince Mirsky "for sheer imaginative power is one of the small number of Russia's greatest poets." His Ode to God (Eng. trans. Sir John Bowring, 1861), was one of his most famous poems and was translated into many European languages.

His works were edited by Grot (7 vols., , who also wrote his biography (2 vols., 188o-83) . His poems were translated into German by Kotzebue (1793) . For translations of several of Derz havin's poems into English see L. Wiener, Anthology of Russian Literature (1902) and Sir John Bowring, Specimens of the Russian Poets (1821) .