Alas, repose was not made for man, nor man for repose! Mr. Coleridge at
this time little thought of the joys and sorrows, the vicissitudes of
life, and revolutions of feeling, with which he was ordained ere long to
contend! Inconveniences connected with his residence at Clevedon, not at
first taken into the calculation, now gradually unfolded themselves. The
place was too far from Bristol. It was difficult of access to friends;
and the neighbours were a little too tattling and inquisitive. And then
again, Mr. Coleridge could not well dispense with his literary
associates, and particularly with his access to that fine institution,
the Bristol City Library; and, in addition, as he was necessitated to
submit to frugal restraints, a walk to Bristol was rather a serious
undertaking; and a return the same day hardly to be accomplished, in the
failure of which, his "Sara," was lonely and uneasy; so that his friends
urged him to return once more to the place he had left; which he did,
forsaking, with reluctance, his rose-bound cottage, and taking up his
abode on Redcliff-hill. There was now some prospect that the printer's
types would be again set in motion, although it was quite proper that
they should remain in abeyance while so many grand events were
transpiring in the region of the domestic hearth. This was late in the
year 1795.

After Mr. Coleridge had been some little time settled in Bristol, he
experienced another removal. To exchange the country, and all the
beauties of nature, for pent-up rooms on Redcliff-hill, demanded from a
poet, sacrifices for which a few advantages would but ill compensate. In
this uneasy state of mind, Mr. C. received an invitation from his friend,
Mr. T. Poole, of Stowey, Somersetshire, to come and visit him in that
retired town, and to which place Mr. and Mrs. Coleridge repaired.