Coleridge, writing to Cottle, says, "Wordsworth has been caballed against _so long and so loudly_, that he has found it impossible to prevail on the tenant of the Allfoxden estate to let him the house, after their first agreement is expired, so he must quit it at midsummer. Whether we shall be able to procure him a house and furniture near Stowey, we know not, and yet we must; for the hills, and the woods, and the streams, and the sea, and the shores, would break forth into reproaches against us, if we did not strain every nerve to keep their poet among them. Without joking, and in serious sadness, Poole and I can not endure to think of losing him. "At all events, come down, Cottle, as soon as you can, but before midsummer; and we will procure a horse, easy as thy own soul, and we will go on a roam to Linton and Limouth, which, if thou comest in May, will be in all their pride of woods and water-falls, not to speak of its august cliffs, and the green ocean, and the vast valley of stones, all which live disdainful of the seasons, or accept new honors only from the winter's snows." This poetic trip, in company with another strange man, would, of course, be considered by the neighbors to be another smuggling or spy excursion. What else could they be going all that way for, to look at "the green sea," and at great "valleys of stones?" I remember the knowing laughter with which a country innkeeper in Cornwall once broke out, when, on his asking me what was my business in that part of the country, I replied, "to look about me." "To look about! Oh, yes, the gentleman knows very well! To look about! Yes, indeed, make me believe that people go a great way off, into strange neighborhoods, merely to look about them!" The people of Somersetshire were equally sagacious at finding a mare's nest. Wordsworth, always a solemn-looking mortal, even in his youth, was particularly obnoxious to their suspicions, especially as he lived in that large house, in that very solitary place. Hear Cottle's account of the affair.