Gray the poet. As I took to these studies with much interest, he
was proud of the progress I made. Under his correction I translated the
_Vision of Mirza_, and two or three other papers of the _Spectator_,
into Italian. In the month of August, 1790, I set off for the Continent,
in companionship with Robert Jones, a Welshman, a fellow-collegian. We
went staff in hand, without knapsacks, and carrying each his needments
tied up in a pocket handkerchief, with about twenty pounds apiece in our
pockets. We crossed from Dover and landed at Calais on the eve of the
day when the king was to swear fidelity to the new constitution: an
event which was solemnised with due pomp at Calais. On the afternoon of
that day we started, and slept at Ardres. For what seemed best to me
worth recording in this tour, see the 'Poem of my own Life.'[19]

After taking my degree in January, 1791, I went to London, stayed there
some time, and then visited my friend Jones, who resided in the Yale of
Clwydd, North Wales. Along with him I made a pedestrian tour through
North Wales, for which also see the Poem.[20]

In the autumn of 1791 I went to Paris, where I stayed some little time,
and then went to Orleans, with a view of being out of the way of my own
countrymen, that I might learn to speak the language fluently. At
Orleans, and Blois, and Paris, on my return, I passed fifteen or sixteen
months.[21] It was a stirring time. The king was dethroned when I was at
Blois, and the massacres of September took place when I was at Orleans.
But for these matters see also the Poem. I came home before the
execution of the king, and passed the subsequent time among my friends
in London and elsewhere, till I settled with my only sister at Piacedown
in Dorsetshire, in the year 1796.

[19] Prelude, book vi.

[20] Ibid, book xiv.

[21] This is not quite correct; the time of his absence did not exceed
thirteen months.

Here we were visited by Mr. Coleridge, then residing at Bristol; and for
the sake of being near him when he had removed to Nether-Stowey, in
Somersetshire, we removed to Alfoxden, three miles from that place. This
was a very pleasant and productive time of my life. Coleridge, my
sister, and I, set off on a tour to Linton and other places in
Devonshire; and in order to defray his part of the expense, Coleridge on
the same afternoon commenced his poem of the 'Ancient Mariner;' in which
I was to have borne my part, and a few verses were written by