England in preparing to make war against France in 1793. At this time he was rambling in the Isle of Wight with his friend, William Calvert, of Windybrow, Keswick. How he felt is revealed by the following:

When the proud fleet that bears the red-cross flag

In that unworthy service was prepared

To mingle, I beheld the vessels lie,

A brood of gallant creatures, on the deep;

I saw them in their rest, a sojourner

Through a whole month of calm and glassy days

In that delightful island which protects
Their place of convocation; there I heard,
Each evening, pacing by the still sea-shore,
A monitory sound that never failed,-

The sunset cannon. While the orb went down
In the tranquillity of nature, came

That voice, ill requiem! seldom heard by me
Without a spirit overcast by dark

Imaginations, sense of woes to come,

Sorrow for human kind, and pain of heart.

Soon affairs in France assumed an aspect which was the greatest disappointment of his life. For

As a result of the shock he began that intellectual quest to determine the origin, impulses, motives, and obligations which caused such actions; demanding formal proof, he lost those feelings of the heart which had been his safest guides; and at last yielded up moral questions in despair.

This was the crisis of that strong disease,

This the soul's last and lowest ebb.

Still undecided as to whether he should choose the Church, the Bar, or literary work for his occupation, he wandered with his friend Jones in Wales, with his sister in the lake country, and visited the Speddings and Calverts at Keswick. While waiting at Keswick for a reply to a proposition he had made for literary work on a magazine, Raisley Calvert became ill, and he volunteered to attend him as companion and nurse. Calvert had become interested in Wordsworth's ideals, and saw that what was needed was leisure in which they might mature. He planned to spend the winter of 1794–5 with Wordsworth in Lisbon, but his health failed so rapidly that this became impossible, and he died early in 1795. He had intimated to Wordsworth that he intended to leave him a small legacy, but when the will was opened it was found that the sum of £900 had been bequeathed him. This generous act opened out a course for the young poet, as he has recorded in "The Prelude " and the sonnet to Calvert. He needed no longer to worry about a profession, and, best of all, he could now be restored to the society of Dorothy. By her ministrations he was able to throw off the unnatural burden of analytical research under which he had fallen.

Those days were passed, now speaking in a voice
Of sudden admonition — like a brook
That did but cross a lonely road, and now

Is seen, heard, felt and caught at every turn,
Companion never lost through many a league —
Maintained for me a saving intercourse

With my true self; for, though bedimmed and changed
Much, as it seemed, I was no further changed

Than as a clouded and a waning moon:

She whispered still that brightness would return,
She, in the midst of all, preserved me still

A Poet, made me seek beneath that name,
And that alone, my office upon earth.

The following from one of Dorothy's letters at this time will reveal how lonely the brother must have been in his perplexity. She writes: "The fortunate brother of mine happens to be no favourite with any of his near relations except his brothers, by whom he is adored, I mean John and Christopher." The former was at sea, the latter at Cambridge.

With the proceeds of Calvert's legacy the dreams of the two enthusiasts about beginning life together were realized, and they settled at Racedown Lodge, Dorsetshire, in the summer of 1795. The old farmhouse was delightfully situated in a retired part of the country reached by post only once a week. Here they spent their time in reading, writing, gardening, communing with themselves, with Nature and books. The period of Wordsworth's recovery from the tyranny of intellectual research was here completed, and pessimism forever cast aside, by the creation of that gruesome tragedy, "The Borderers," the only production of these days at Racedown. While this is of little value as poetry, it is most significant as biography. Through the creation of the philosophical villain Oswald, who is moved by "the motive hunting of a motiveless malignity," Wordsworth revealed what was the inevitable outcome of Godwin's revolutionary scheme of Political Justice a scheme that in the interest of reason would free man from all the laws, social and moral, upon which society is founded.

With the completion of "The Borderers" the great formative period of Wordsworth's life is at an end, and the first creative period begins. Coleridge had but recently settled at Nether Stowey, and on hearing that the author of "Descriptive Sketches" was so near, took an early opportunity (in June) of visiting him. Dorothy tells us "the first thing that was read on that occasion was 'The Ruined Cottage' with which Coleridge was so much delighted; and after tea he repeated to us two acts and a half of his tragedy, 'Osorio.' The next morning William read his tragedy, 'The Borderers.'"

That this was a clear case of love at first sight is shown by the letters written to their friends at this time. Dorothy writes: "You had a great loss in not seeing Coleridge. He is a wonderful man. His conversation teems with soul, mind, and spirit. . . . He has more of the poet's eye in fine frenzy rolling' than I ever witnessed. He has fine dark eyebrows and an overhanging forehead." Coleridge in his account of this visit says: "I speak with heartfelt sincerity, and, I think, unblinded judgment, when I tell you that I feel myself a little man by his side." When the Wordsworths returned this visit and went to Nether Stowey, Coleridge gives this beautiful picture of Dorothy: "W. and his exquisite sister are with me. She is a woman indeed! in mind and heart; for her person is

such that if you expected to see a pretty woman, you would think her rather ordinary; if you expected to see an ordinary woman, you would think her pretty! but her manners are simple, ardent, impressive. In every motion her most innocent soul outbeams so brightly, that who saw her would say :

Guilt was a thing impossible to her.'

Her information various. Her eye watchful in minutest observation of nature; and her taste a perfect electrometer." Wordsworth wrote, "Coleridge is the most wonderful man I ever met."

After reading the expressions of delight of these two young men in each other, we are not surprised that a month later the Wordsworths removed to Alfoxden, near Nether Stowey, Somersetshire, where Coleridge resided.

The poets rambled over the Quantock Hills and held high communion. During one of these excursions, feeling the need of money, they planned a joint production for the New Monthly Magazine. They set about the work in earnest, and selected as a subject the "Ancyent Marinere," founded upon a dream of one of Coleridge's friends. Coleridge supplied most of the incidents and almost all the lines. Wordsworth contributed the incident of the killing of the albatross, and a few of the lines. They soon found that their methods did not harmonize, and the "Marinere" was left to Coleridge, while Wordsworth wrote upon the common incidents of everyday life. When the "Marinere " was finished Wordsworth had so many pieces ready that they concluded to publish a joint volume, and this they did under the title Lyrical Ballads. The volume contained twentythree poems, four by Coleridge and the remainder by Wordsworth.

In the manuscript notes which Wordsworth left we find this record :

"In the autumn of 1797, Mr. Coleridge, my sister, and myself started from Alfoxden pretty late in the afternoon with a view to visit Linton and the Valley of Stones near to it; and as our united funds were very small, we agreed to defray the expense of the tour by writing a poem to be sent to the New Monthly Magazine. Accordingly, we set off, and proceeded along the Quantock Hills towards Watchet; and in the course of this walk was planned the poem of the Ancient Mariner' founded on a dream, as Mr. Coleridge said, of his friend Mr. Cruikshank. Much the greatest part of the story was Mr. Coleridge's invention, but certain parts I suggested; for example, some crime was to be committed which should bring upon the Old Navigator, as Coleridge afterwards delighted to call him, the spectral persecution, as a consequence of that crime and his own wanderings. I had been reading in Shelvocke's Voyages, a day or two before, that while doubling Cape Horn, they frequently saw albatrosses in that latitude, the largest sort of sea fowl, some extending their wings twelve or thirteen feet. 'Suppose,' said I, 'you represent him as having killed one of these birds on entering the South Sea, and that the tutelary spirits of these regions take upon them to avenge the crime.' The incident was thought fit for the purpose, and adopted accordingly. I also suggested the navigation of the ship by the dead men, but do not recollect that I had anything more to do with the scheme of the poem. The gloss with which it was subsequently accompanied was not thought of by either of us at the time, at least, not a hint of it was given to me, and I have no doubt it was a gratuitous afterthought. We began the composition together on that, to me, memorable evening. I furnished two or three lines at the beginning of the poem, in particular,

'And listened like a three years' child:

The Mariner had his will.'

These trifling contributions, all but one, which Mr. C. has with unnecessary scrupulosity recorded,

'And thou art long and lank, and brown

As is the ribbed sea-sand,'

slipped out of his mind, as well they might. As we endeavoured to proceed conjointly (I speak of the same evening) our respective manners proved so widely different that it would have been quite presumptuous in me to do anything but separate from an undertaking upon which I could only have been a clog. . . . The Ancient Mariner' grew and till grew it became too important for our first object, which was limited to our expectation of five pounds; and we began to think of a volume which was to consist, as Mr. Coleridge has told the world, of poems chiefly on supernatural subjects."

...

An interesting subject for consideration in connection with the study of literature would be the work poets have done in developing patriotism by showing how much stronger and deeper is the love of country when thus associated with the love of home with its simple and substantial comforts and its endearments of natural associations, — rivers, woods and hills, forests, lakes and vales: and also, how by revealing the beauty of places in a country they have made it more beloved. There is fascinating wandering in Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and England for one who wishes to read such poetry in the scenes of its birth, and such wandering is the very best lesson in political as well as literary history. The region of Dorsetshire and Somersetshire, with a wealth of natural beauty, forest and hills, cultivated farms, open sea prospect, and simple life, was an ideal place for the creation of such poetry as these enthusiasts on man, on Nature, and on human life desired to give to the world. In Dorothy's letters and journal we have the best of guides in these delightful retreats. She writes: "There is everything here, sea, woods, wild as fancy ever painted, brooks, clear and pebbly as in Cumberland; villages romantic... the deer dwell here and sheep, so that we have a living prospect." While the two poets were murmuring near the running brooks a music sweeter than their own, and Dorothy was beginning those inimitable Journals which have become an essential part of the history of these and later days, somewhat of a sensation was caused in the quiet community of Stowey by the advent there of a young republican by the name of Thelwall, with whom Coleridge had some correspondence. When he arrived Coleridge was with the Wordsworths; and he writes to his wife : "So after sleeping at Coleridge's cot, Sara and I went to Alfoxden in time enough to call Samuel and Wordsworth up to breakfast."

Coleridge says of Thelwall (Table-Talk, July, 1820): "We were once sitting in a beautiful recess in the Quantocks, when I said to him, 'Citizen John, this is a fine place to talk treason in !' Nay, Citizen Samuel,' he replied, 'it is rather a place to make a man forget that there is any necessity for treason.'"

Coleridge's lectures and preaching and Wordsworth's secluded life with his sister, had, even before the arrival of Thelwall, aroused the suspicions of the good people. They thought Wordsworth a smuggler, a conjurer, and as he was " so silent and dark," a French Jacobin. Poole was blamed for harboring such suspects (it was through Poole that Wordsworth secured Alfoxden), and now a government spy was sent down to watch their movements. The Anti-Jacobin published the following:

66

And ye five other wandering bards that move

In sweet accord of harmony and love,

C―dge, and S-th-y, L-d and L-b, and Co.,
Tune all your mystic harps to praise

Lepaux."

Coleridge, writing to Cottle of the experience of Wordsworth, says: "Whether we shall be able to procure him a house and furniture near Stowey we know not, and yet we must; for the hills, and the woods, and the streams, and the sea, and the shores, would break forth into reproaches against us, if we did not strain every nerve to keep their poet among them."

The Lyrical Ballads were rapidly taking shape. Wordsworth, Dorothy, and Coleridge had decided to visit Germany to study the language, and the thought of breaking up the Elysian repose among the Quantocks throws the poet into one of his pensive moods, in which the affections gently lead him on. In "The Nightingale," Coleridge returns "to his love and his nest," and finds joy in the thoughts that spring from the simple domestic affections, from the delightful associations with man and Nature in the sylvan retreats of the land he loved.

Wordsworth thus alludes to this period:

That summer, under whose indulgent skies
Upon smooth Quantock's airy ridge we roved
Uncheck'd, or loitered 'mid her sylvan combs,
Thou in bewitching words, with happy heart,
Didst chaunt the vision of that Ancient Man,
The bright-eyed Mariner, and rueful woes
Didst utter of the Lady Christabel ;

And I, associate with such labour, steeped

In soft forgetfulness the livelong hours,

Murmuring of him who, joyous hap, was found,

After the perils of his moonlight ride,

Near the loud waterfall; or her who sate
In misery near the miserable Thorn.

The Lyrical Ballads were published in September by Cottle anonymously. Only four poems were by Coleridge, the remainder by Wordsworth.

Before the reviewers had brought their guns to bear upon the frail craft of the Lyrical Ballads, the two poets and Dorothy, having left Mrs. Coleridge and the children with Poole, departed for Germany, where they soon received the cheerful news from Sara that "the Lyrical Ballads are not liked at all by any." And yet through the quiet revolution in poetic taste which this little volume wrought, the Bastile of the old poetic tyranny was destined to fall to the ground.

"So stupendous was the importance of the verse written on the Quantocks in 1797 and 1798," says Edmund Gosse, "that if Wordsworth and Coleridge had died at the close of the latter year, we should, indeed, have lost a great deal of valuable poetry, especially of Wordsworth's; but the direction taken by literature would scarcely have been modified in the slightest degree. The association of these intensely brilliant and inflammatory minds at what we call the psychological moment, produced full-blown and perfect the exquisite new flower of romantic poetry."

Soon Coleridge left the Wordsworths for Ratzeburg, where he remained during the winter, while they went to the old imperial town of Goslar, where, though cold and homesick, Wordsworth wrote his inimitable poems on English girlhood. Wordsworth sent these poems to Coleridge, who, while thinking of the future and hoping that their