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 listen'd like a three years' child; The Mariner had his will.' These trifling contributions, all but one, (which Mr.C.has with unnecessary scrupulosity recorded,) slipt out of his mind, as they well 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.

We returned after a few days from a delightful tour, of which I have many pleasant, and some of them droll enough, recollections.

We returned by Dulverton to Alfoxden.

The 'Ancient Mariner' grew and grew till it became too important for our first object, which was limited to our expectation of five pounds; and we began to talk of a volume which was to consist, as Mr.Coleridge has told the world, of Poems chiefly on natural subjects, taken from common life, but looked at, as much as might be, through an imaginative medium.