SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 133 



At seventeen years of age, he was presented with the sonnets 

 of Bowles, twenty in number, and just then published in quarto, 

 by a schoolfellow, who had quitted Christ Church for College ; 

 and who, during the whole time he was in the first form, proved 

 hitiiself the patron and protector of Coleridge. This schoolfellow 

 was Dr. Middleton, the learned and good Bishop of Calcutta. 

 So pleased was Coleridge witli these sonnets, that he made, in 

 less than a year and half, more than forty transcripts of them ; 

 and presented them to all such friends as he considered entitled 

 to particular regard. lie received the other publications of 

 Bowles with almost equal delight. 



The Sonnets, which Coleridge speaks of as * " so tender yet 

 so manly ; so natural and real yet so dignified and harmonious, " 

 had the effect of weaning his attention for a time from the study 

 of Metaphysics, in the labyrinths of which, even at this early 

 period of his life, he had learned to perplex himself. 



When eighteen years of age, Coleridge removed to Jesus Col- 

 lege, Cambridge; where he neither obtained nor did he compete 

 for academic honours. From excess of animal spirits he was 

 ratlier a noisy youth whose general conduct was better tlian that 

 of many of his fellow collegians, and as good as most : his follies 

 were more remarkable as being those of a remarkable personage ; 

 and if he could be accused of a vice, it must be sought for in the 

 little attention he was inclined to pay to the dictates of sobriety .f 



In November, 1793, while labouring under a paroxysm of 

 despair, brought on by the combined effects of pecuniary difficul- 

 ties, and love of a young lady, sister of a school fellow ; he set oft' 

 for London, with a party of collegians, and passed a short time 

 there in joyous conviviality. On his return to Cambridge he 

 remained but a few days, and then abandoned it for ever ; he again 

 directed his steps to the metropolis, and, after indulging freely 

 in the pleasures of the bottle,^ and, wandering about the street in 

 a state approaching frenzy, he enlisted as a private soldier. § The 

 regiment was the 15th, Elliot's Light dragoons : the officer was 

 Nathaniel Ogle, eldest son of Dr. Newton Ogle, Dean of Win- 

 chester, and brother of the late Mrs. Sheridan ; he was a scholar, 

 and leaving Merton College, he entered this regiment as a cornet. 

 Some years afterwards, going into the stables at Reading, he 

 remarked written on the wall, under one of the saddles — 



* Biographia Literaria, p. 16. 



+ -Memoir of Colt'iklge, prefixed to his works, vi. Galignani, Paris, 1829. 



; Ditto. Ditto. 



§ Coniiuunicated to the " Times," Aug. 13th, 1834, by Rev. W. L. Bowles- 



