In the summer of 1794, S. T. Coleridge and Hucks came to Oxford, on their way into Wales on a pedestrian tour. Allen introduced them to me, and the scheme of _Pantisocracy_ was introduced _by them_; talked of, by no means determined on. It was subsequently talked into shape by Burnet and myself, at the commencement of the long vacation. We separated from Coleridge and Hucks: they making for Gloucester; Burnet and I proceeding on foot to Bath. After some weeks, Coleridge returning from his tour, came to Bristol on his way, and stopped there. (I being there.) Then it was that we resolved on going to America, and S. T. C., and I walked into Somersetshire to see Burnet, and on that journey it was that we first saw Poole. Coleridge made his engagement with Miss Fricker, on our return from this journey, at my mother's house in Bath;--not a little to my astonishment, for he had talked of being deeply in love with a certain _Mary Evans_. I had been previously engaged to her sister, my poor Edith!--_whom it would make your heart ache to see at this time!_ We remained at Bristol till the close of the vacation; several weeks. During that time we again talked of America. The funds were to be what each could raise. Coleridge, by his _projected work_, 'Specimens of Modern Latin Poems,' for which he had printed proposals, and obtained a respectable list of Cambridge subscribers, before I knew him: I by 'Joan of Arc,' and what else I might publish. I had no rich relations, except one, my uncle, John Southey, of Taunton, who took no notice of his brother's family; nor any other expectation. He hoped to find companions with money. Coleridge returned to Cambridge, and then published 'The Fall of Robespierre;' while Lovell (who had married one of the Miss Frickers) and I, published a thin volume of poems at Bath. My first transaction with you was for 'Joan of Arc,' and this was before Coleridge's arrival at Bristol, and soon after Lovell had introduced me to you. Coleridge did not come back again to Bristol till January 1795, nor would he I believe _have come back at all_, if I had not gone to London to look for him, for having got there from Cambridge at the beginning of winter, there he remained without writing either to Miss Fricker or myself.