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 me, and some assistance given in planning the poem; but our styles agreed so little, that I withdrew from the concern, and he finished it himself.
In the course of that spring I composed many poems, most of which were printed at Bristol, in one volume, by my friend Joseph Cottle, along with Coleridge's 'Ancient Mariner,' and two or three other of his pieces.
In the autumn of 1798, Mr.Coleridge, a friend of his Mr.Chester, my sister, and I, crossed from Yarmouth to Hamburgh, where we remained a few days, and saw, several times, Klopstock the poet.