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,
Samuel Hearne Hearne's death of dropsy in November 1792 at the age of 47. On 1 July 1767 he chiselled his name on smooth, glaciated stone at Sloop's Cove near Fort Prince of Wales where it remains today. One of Wales's pupils, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, made a brief notebook entry where he mentioned Hearne's book. Hearne may have been one of the inspirations for the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Hearne's journals and maps were proven correct by Sir John Franklin when he verified the discovery of the massacre at Bloody Falls during his own Coppermine Expedition of 1819-1822. He