living. Here Wordsworth added to his income by taking as pupil a
young boy, the hero of the trifling poem _Anecdote for Fathers_, a
son of Mr. Basil Montagu; and here he composed many of his smaller
pieces. He has described the origin of the _Ancient Mariner_ and the
_Lyrical Ballads_ in a well-known passage, part of which I must
here repeat:--

"In the autumn of 1797, Mr. Coleridge, my sister, and myself started
from Alfoxden pretty late in the afternoon, with a view to visit
Linton, and the Valley of Stones near to it; and as our united funds
were very small, we agreed to defray the expense of the tour by
writing a poem, to be sent to the _New Monthly Magazine_. In the
course of this walk was planned the poem of the _Ancient Mariner_,
founded on a dream, as Mr. Coleridge said, of his friend Mr.
Cruikshank. Much the greatest part of the story was Mr. Coleridge's
invention; but certain parts I suggested; for example, some crime
was to be committed which was to bring upon the Old Navigator, as
Coleridge afterwards delighted to call him, the spectral persecution,
as a consequence of that crime and his own wanderings. I had been
reading in Shelvocke's _Voyages_, a day or two before, that, while
doubling Cape Horn they frequently saw albatrosses in that latitude,
the largest sort of sea-fowl, some extending their wings twelve or
thirteen feet, 'Suppose,' said I, 'you represent him as having
killed one of these birds on entering the South Sea, and that the
tutelary spirits of these regions take upon them to avenge the crime.
The incident was thought fit for the purpose, and adopted accordingly.
I also suggested the navigation of the ship by the dead man, but do
not recollect that I had anything more to do with the scheme of the
poem. We began the composition together, on that to me memorable
evening, I furnished two or three lines at the beginning of the poem,