in 1797 published Poems. They included his "Religious Musings,"
which contain expression of his fervent revolutionary hopes. Then he
planned a weekly paper, the Watchman, that was to carry the lantern
of philosophic truth, and call the hour for those who cared about the
duties of the day. When only three or four hundred subscribers had
been got together in Bristol, Coleridge resolved to travel from town
to town in search of subscriptions. Wherever he went his eloquence
prevailed; and he came back with a very large subscription list. But
the power of close daily work, by which alone Coleridge could carry
out such a design, was not in him, and the Watchman only reached to
its tenth number.

Then Coleridge settled at Nether Stowey, by the Bristol Channel,
partly for convenience of neighbourhood to Thomas Poole, from whom he
could borrow at need. He had there also a yearly allowance from the
Wedgwoods of Etruria, who had a strong faith in his future. From
Nether Stowey, Coleridge walked over to make friends with Wordsworth
at Racedown, and the friendship there established caused Wordsworth
and his sister to remove to the neighbourhood of Nether Stowey. Out
of the relations with Wordsworth thus established came Coleridge's
best achievements as a poet, the "Ancient Mariner" and "Christabel."
The "Ancient Mariner" was finished, and was the chief part of
Coleridge's contribution to the "Lyrical Ballads," which the two
friends published in 1798. "Christabel," being unfinished, was left
unpublished until 1816.

With help from the Wedgwoods, Coleridge went abroad with Wordsworth
and his sister, left them at Hamburg, and during fourteen months
increased his familiarity with German. He came back in the late
summer of 1799, full of enthusiasm for Schiller's last great work,