At last in December he secured the little cottage at Nether Stowey in the Quantock Hills (south of the Bristol Channel, in Somerset), close to the house of his beloved friend, Thomas Poole, where he lived until his departure for Germany in September, 1798.
II.

AT NETHER STOWEY The Stowey period was the blossoming time of Coleridge's genius.

All the poems in this volume except the last four, and besides these "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison," "Frost at Midnight," and "Fears in Solitude"-- the bulk of his achievement in poetry--were either written or begun in 1797 and 1798.

It will be proper, then, to dwell a little on his circumstances, his friends, and his ideas during these two years.
The means of livelihood for himself and his family when he went to Stowey were a subscription of about L40 that Poole and some friends got together for him, L20 that Cottle paid for the second edition of the "Poems," the promise of L80 from the father of Charles Lloyd, who was to live with him and study under his direction, and such money as he could earn by reviews and magazine articles, which he estimated at L40 a year; not a munificent provision for a household of three adults and a child.
But the theories of the simple life that had made Pantisocracy seem a feasible project still inspired him with confidence.

"Sixteen shillings," he wrote to Poole, "would cover all the weekly expenses of my wife, infant, and myself.