Germany and the North of England (1798–9)

Abstract

Before leaving for Germany, Wordsworth and Coleridge made an unpremeditated excursion into Wales, calling on Thelwall at Liswyn Farm¹ near Brecon. With Dorothy and Coleridge’s acolyte John Chester, they then journeyed from Bristol to London ‘per foot, per waggon, per coach, per post-chaise’, and found time to view Blenheim and Oxford on the way. Wordsworth had borrowed money from the Wedgwoods, and asked Cottle to sell his expensive ‘Gilpin’s tours’. Victor Klopstock was very hospitable to the visitors at Hamburg, and introduced them to his aged brother the poet, with whom Wordsworth conversed in French. The notes he made on later interviews with him were included in Satyrane’s Letters, Coleridge’s high-spirited impressions of the Hamburg visit.