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cared to penetrate. They believe him to have been great, because other 

 great and dependable men have said so ; they have never accepted the 

 fact, or rather, gathered it, from their own apprehension of his merits. I 

 shall try to put in plain words, some of his thoughts on different subjects, 

 that so you may apprehend his greatness, and see that there is a reason 

 for his being said to be so. Perhaps the best way to this end, will be to 

 divide his life into different sections, according to the subjects which, 

 roughly-speaking, occupied it at different times. I will say something 

 of him as Poet first ; then as Philosopher ; then (though I would not 

 touch this subject, but that a lecture on Coleridge can never ignore it,) 

 of his influence on Theology and Religious Thought. In doing this, I 

 must intersperse my account of what he was as Poet, Philosopher, and 

 Theologian, with a sketch of his life ; though it is by no means always 

 easy to trace where Coleridge lived at particular times, and how he 

 moved from place to place, as his restless disposition prompted. 



Let us first glance at his career till he came to Keswick in 1800. 

 He lived here three or four years. It is this which gives us here a very 

 special interest in Coleridge. In this place, rich in reminiscences of 

 Poets, he was one of the company of Lake Poets ; though he was much 

 besides, both in this and in other places. 



Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born at Ottery St. Mary, in Devon- 

 shire, in the year 1772. He was the youngest son of the vicar of that 

 place. In 1782, when ten years old, he was sent to Christ's Hospital. 

 This famous school, which has its branch at Hertford, and its centre in 

 Newgate Street ; the quaint and antique dress of its scholars, which gives 

 them the name of "Blue Coat Boys," you must all be familiar with. Here 

 the young Coleridge stayed nine years, and then went to Jesus College, 

 Cambridge, in 1 791. At Christ's Hospital, he was a contemporary of 

 Charles Lamb, who in after years contributed to literature the charming 

 " Essays of Elia." "At school," he says, "I enjoyed the inestimable 

 advantage of a very sensible, though at the same time very severe master. 

 His name was Mr. Bowyer. ' In the truly great poets,' this master would 

 say, ' there is a reason assignable, not only for every word, but for the 

 position of every word.' At the same time we were studying the Greek 



