g residence in revolutionary France, of the spirit
which prevailed in that country. After leaving the Isle of Wight, I
spent two days in wandering on foot over Salisbury Plain, which, though
cultivation was then widely spread through parts of it, had upon the
whole a still more impressive appearance than it now retains.

The monuments and traces of antiquity, scattered in abundance over that
region, led me unavoidably to compare what we know or guess of those
remote times with certain aspects of modern society, and with
calamities, principally those consequent upon war, to which, more than
other classes of men, the poor are subject. In those reflections, joined
with particular facts that had come to my knowledge, the following
stanzas originated.

In conclusion, to obviate some distraction in the minds of those who are
well acquainted with Salisbury Plain, it may be proper to say, that of
the features described as belonging to it, one or two are taken from
other desolate parts of England.

20. *_The Female Vagrant_.

I find the date of this is placed in 1792 in contradiction, by mistake,
to what I have asserted in 'Guilt and Sorrow.' The correct date is
1793-4. The chief incidents of it, more particularly her description of
her feelings on the Atlantic, are taken from life.

21. *_Guilt and Sorrow; or Incidents upon Salisbury Plain_. [VIII.]

Unwilling to be unnecessarily particular, I have assigned this poem to
the dates 1793 and 1794; but, in fact, much of the Female Vagrant's
story was composed at least two years before. All that relates to her
sufferings as a soldier's wife in America, and her condition of mind
during her voyage home, were faithfully taken from the report made to me
of her own case by a friend who had been subjected to the same trials,
and affected in the same way. Mr. Coleridge, when I first became
acquainted with him, was so much impressed with this poem, that it would
have encouraged me to publish the whole as it then stood; but the
Mariner's fate appeared to me so tragical, as to require a treatment
more subdued, and yet more strictly applicable in expression, than I had
at first given to it. This fault was corrected nearly fifty years
afterwards, when I determined to publish the whole. It may be worth
while to remark, that though the incidents of this attempt do only in a
small degree produce each other, and it deviates accordingly from the
general rule by which narrative pieces ought