204 



Soon after the successful acting of his drama, " Remorse," at Drury 

 Lane, which, by the bye, met with this success through the good offices 

 of Lord Byron, Coleridge went to live at Calne, and here collected the 

 poems called "Sibylline Leaves," (newspaper poems, reprinted under this 

 name,) wrote the "Lay Sermons," and most of the Biographia Literaria. 

 And then we come to his distinctly last period, and the home which for 

 his last sixteen years may be said to have been the anchorage of his 

 storm-tossed and wandering life. 



Everyone has heard of Coleridge as an opium-eater. It is uncertain 

 when he first began the habit ; but when a boy at school, imprudent 

 exposure to wet and cold, brought on tlie illness from which he suffered 

 much in after life— rheumatism. And it is said that he began the terribly 

 fascinating practice of taking opium, from seeing a medical notice of 

 Kendal's Black Drop, as a cure for rheumatism and diseased action of 

 the heart. " The medicinal virtue of the drug appeared at first almost 

 magical." There is no reason to suppose that he weakly yielded to it, 

 as a mere sensual gratification. With the exception of a few months, on 

 his leaving college, Coleridge's life had been a singularly blameless one, 

 and free from vice. He was not a man who would rush headlong into a 

 course such as this ; but the fascination of opium, begun from motives 

 entirely innocent, as is well known, binds its victim with cords, that 

 many a stronger man than Coleridge has been unable to break. In 1814 

 he confesses "a sad retrogress of twelve years;" but he may have begun 

 the practice before this century, and have overcome it partly. Mr. Gill- 

 man, one of his biographers, dates it from the attacks of rheumatism in 

 his school days ; from swimming over the New river in his clothes, and 

 remaining in tliem. " From these indiscretions and their consequences, 

 may be dated," he says, "all his bodily sufferings in future life." If we 

 add, that he gained a slow victory over the baneful and self-detested 

 habit after he went to live with Mr. Gillman in 18 16, we shall not be 

 harsh in our estimate of this unfortunate practice. Anyhow, in 18 16, 

 the fatal habit had gained such an ascendancy over him, that his friend 

 Dr. Adams, persuaded him to place himself in the house, and under the 

 care and supervision, of a medical man. This was the origin of his 



