Samuel Taylor Coleridge Malta under the Civil Commissioner, Alexander Ball, a task he performed quite successfully. He lived in San Anton Palace in the village of Attard. However, he gave this up and returned to England in 1806. Dorothy Wordsworth was shocked at his condition upon his return. From 1807 to 1808, Coleridge returned to Malta and then travelled in Sicily and Italy, in the hope that leaving Britain's damp climate would improve his health and thus enable him to reduce his consumption of opium. Thomas De Quincey alleges in his "Recollections of the Lakes and the Lake Poets" that it was during
James Losh writes that more likely it was William Mathews, his closest college friend. It was later that Wordsworth and Losh became good friends. In 1795 Losh left London for Bristol. He encountered there William Wordsworth, whom he already knew; and through Wordsworth he met Samuel Taylor Coleridge; and then Robert Southey, at a breakfast given by Coleridge with Thomas Beddoes and Charles Lloyd as other guests, in November 1796. Losh was often mentioned in Southey's correspondence. At this period Losh was in poor health, with tuberculosis and possibly having suffered a breakdown. He was a patient and supporter of Beddoes, and