The Rime of the Ancient Mariner autobiographical portrait of Coleridge himself, comparing the mariner's loneliness with Coleridge's own feelings of loneliness expressed in his letters and journals. In addition to being referred to in several other notable works, due to the popularity of the poem the phrase "albatross around one's neck" has become an English language idiom referring to "a heavy burden of guilt that becomes an obstacle to success". Monty Python's "Albatross Sketch" in which an irascible movie-theatre refreshment vendor tries to sell a single albatross from a tray around his neck, is a parody of Coleridge's description of the Mariner. The phrase "Water, water,
Henry Nelson Coleridge Henry Nelson Coleridge Henry Nelson Coleridge (25 October 1798 – 26 January 1843) was an editor of the works of his uncle Samuel Taylor Coleridge. His father was Colonel James Coleridge, of Ottery St. Mary. He was born on 25 October 1798. He was educated at Eton and at King's College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow. In 1825, he accompanied his uncle, William Hart Coleridge, the bishop of Barbados, to the West Indies, and described his excursion in a bright and lively little book, "Six Months in the West Indies in 1825," published anonymously in the following year.