191 



COLERIDGE. 



A Lecture delivered at Keswick before the Literary and 

 Scientific Society, February e^th, 1877. 



By the Rev. J. D. Harington, M.A. 



In the early years of this century, for eighteen years — from 1816 till 

 his death in 1834 — there lived in a surgeon's house on Highgate Hill, the 

 remarkable man, of whom I have ventured to speak to you this evening. 

 I say ventured ; for, in truth, to unravel the mysteries and perplexities, in 

 which Coleridge's life and work were wrapped up, is not quite the simple 

 thing it seemed at first to be. Of disciples he had no lack — sometimes 

 he would receive only one at a time : he would walk with him in the 

 garden, or he would invite him to sit in his own room, conversing volubly 

 all the while, glad to get a patient listener, whether converted to his way 

 of thinking or not. At other times, chiefly, as we read, on Thursday 

 evenings, he would be the centre of a group, to whom he talked, im- 

 patient of interruption, liking to have all the conversation on his own 

 side, so that his hearers came to call it "monologue." I cannot refrain 

 from quoting some short extracts, from descriptions of these scenes, 

 which are on record : some not altogether laudatory — rather the opposite 

 — and yet always acknowledging the peculiar power of the man ; not, as 

 it seems to me, ill-natured, even in depreciation. " I may say of him," 

 says Hazlitt, "that he is the only person I ever knew, who answered to 

 the idea of a ' man of genius.' He talked on for ever, and you wished 

 him to talk on for ever. His thoughts did not seem to come with labour 

 or effort, but as if borne on the gusts of genius, and as if the wings of 

 his imagination lifted him from off his feet. His voice rolled on the 



