One evening, at Watchett on the British Channel, The Ancient Mariner first took shape.

Many species attain a large size and by their brilliant coloration are very conspicuous objects to the mariner or traveller.

She was the daughter of Captain Cox, of Yarmouth, master mariner in the herring fishery, who died young; whereupon his widow maintained herself as landlady of the King's Head Inn at Croydon.

From this sprang the Lyrical Ballads, to which Coleridge contributed The Ancient Mariner, the Nightingale and two scenes from Osorio, and after much cogitation the book was published in 1798 at Bristol by Cottle, to whose reminiscences, often indulging too much in detail, we owe the account of this remarkable time.

It was at this very period - the close of the 15th and commencement of the 16th century - that the genius and daring of a Genoese mariner, Christopher Columbus, gave to Spain that new world, which might have become the possession of his native state, had Genoa been able to supply him with the ships and seamen which he so earnestly entreated her to furnish.