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
To William Wordsworth The poem ends with the narrator describing the overall effect that "The Prelude" had upon him: "To William Wordsworth" summarises the themes within "The Prelude" and deals with Wordsworth's understanding of his mind and its relationship with nature. As such, Coleridge favours Wordsworth's own views and contradicts feelings found within his own poetry, especially in "Dejection". The poem also attacks Coleridge in a masochistic manner and places the writer and his own ideas in an inferior position. One such emphasis was on Wordsworth being able to find bliss from solitude and Coleridge being unable to find anything but pain, which