We passed over a ferry to Aberconway. We had scarcely left the boat ere
we descried Brookes and Berdmore, with whom we have joined parties, nor
do we mean to separate. Our tour through Anglesea to Caernarvon has been
repaid by scarcely one object worth seeing. To-morrow we visit Snowdon.
Brookes, Berdmore, and myself, at the imminent hazard of our lives,
scaled the very summit of Penmaenmaur. It was a most dreadful
expedition. I will give you the account in some future letter.

I sent for Bowles's Works while at Oxford. How was I shocked! Every
omission and every alteration disgusted taste, and mangled sensibility.
Surely some Oxford toad had been squatting at the poet's ear, and
spitting into it the cold venom of dulness. It is not Bowles; he is
still the same, (the added poems will prove it) descriptive, dignified,
tender, sublime. The sonnets added are exquisite. Abba Thule has marked
beauties, and the little poem at Southampton is a diamond; in whatever
light you place it, it reflects beauty and splendour. The "Shakespeare"
is sadly unequal to the rest. Yet in whose poems, except those of
Bowles, would it not have been excellent? Direct to me, to be left at
the Post Office, Bristol, and tell me everything about yourself, how you
have spent the vacation, &c.

Believe me, with gratitude and fraternal friendship,

Your obliged S. T. COLERIDGE.

[Footnote 1: Long portions of this letter appear in a letter to Southey
of 15 September 1794. See "Letters", p. 74.]

[Footnote 2: Hucks published, in 1795, an account of the holiday
entitled "Tour in North Wales".]