COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOE. 



COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR. 



318 



Brahmegupta and Bhascara,' 4to, Lond., 1817; a tract 'On the Import 

 of Colonial Corn,' 8vo, Loud., 1818; and 'Miscellaneous Essays' (or 

 reprints of previously published papers and prefaces), 2 vols. Svo, 

 Lond., 1837. He also, in conjunction with Professor Wilson, trans 

 lated from the Sanscrit, for the Oriental Translation Fund, ' Sankhya 

 Earika, or Memorial Verses on the Sankhya Philosophy, also the 

 Bhashya,' &c., 4to, Oxford, 1837. Mr. Colebrooke held, along with his 

 two brothers, the patent place of Chirographer in the Court of 

 Common Pleas. He died on the 18th of March 1837. 



COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR, was born at Ottery St. Mary, 

 in Devoushire, of which parish his father was the vicar, on the 21st 

 of October 1772. He was the youngest of a numerous family, and 

 became an orphan at the age of nine. Owing to the straitened circum- 

 stances of his family, he was sent to be educated at Christ's Hospital, 

 where the late Charles Lamb was among his contemporaries. Here 

 he made very great progress in classical knowledge, as may be inferred 

 from the fact that he had, before his fifteenth year, translated the 

 hymns of Synesius into English Anacreontics. His choice of these 

 hymns for translation is explained by his having, even at that early age, 

 plunged deeply into metaphysics. Speaking of himself in the ' Bio- 

 graphia Literaria ' (voL i p. 15), he says : " At a very premature age, 

 even before my fifteenth year, I had bewildered myself in metaphysics 

 and in theological controversy. Nothing else pleased me. History 

 and particular facts lost all interest in my mind. Poetry itself, yea, 

 novels and romances, became insipid to me." From such pursuits 

 he was however weaned for a time, while yet at Christ's Hospital, by 

 the perusal of Mr. Bowles's 'Sonnets,' which had then just been pub- 

 lished. The powerful influence which these sonnets exercised upon 

 his mind is described at length in the first chapter of the 'Biographic 

 Literaria.' 



In 1791 Coleridge entered Jesus College, Cambridge. While at the 

 university he did not turn his attention at all to mathematics, but 

 obtained a prize for a Greek ode, and distinguished himself in a con- 

 test for the Craven scholarship, in which Dr. Butler, afterwards bishop 

 of Lichfield, was the successful candidate. Coleridge did not stay to 

 take a degree. During the second year of his residence at Cambridge, 

 he suddenly left the university in a fit of despondency, occasioned, it 

 ia said, by unrequited love ; and after wandering for a while about the 

 streets of London in extreme pecuniary distress, terminated this 

 adventure by enlisting in the 15th Dragoons, under the assumed 

 name of Comberbatcli. One of the officers, accidentally discover- 

 ing his classical acquirements, was led to conclude that Comber- 

 batch wag something more than he professed. Questioning him 

 in a friendly manner, and eliciting his real history, he communi- 

 cated Coleridge's situation to his friends, who forthwith effected his 

 discharge. 



Coleridge now betook himself to Bristol, where he joined with 

 three other young and clever men, like himself of ardent poetic tem- 

 peraments, and imbued with strong but vague ideas of universal 

 brotherhood Southey and a friend, George Burnet from Oxford, and 

 Lovell, a young quaker. They soon formed a scheme for emigrating 

 to the banks of the Susquehauna in North America, in order there to 

 form a social colony, the main principle of which was to be a commu- 

 nity of goods, and where selfishness was to be proscribed. But the 

 friends found that money would be required to establish this ' pauti.i- 

 ocracy,' aa they termed it, and Coleridge had soon not enough to 

 furnish him with daily subsistence. He had, with the other pantiso- 

 cratists, been introduced to Joseph Cottle, a benevolent bookseller at 

 Bristol, and himself a writer of verses ; and now, in his emergency, 

 Cottle not only rendered him pecuniary assistance, but, on finding 

 that he had written enough poems to make up a small volume, readily 

 offered him 30 guineas for them, just five times the largest sum he had 

 found a London bookseller willing to give. The social colony was 

 soon dropped. Coleridge quarrelled first with Lovell, and then with 

 Southey, nd the whole scheme fell quickly into abeyance. Cottle, 

 after paying in advance the 30 guineas, continued to furnish the young 

 poet with other sums on the strength of promised poems, as his neces- 

 sities became urgent; but it was long before the publisher received 

 any of the poetry. The volume was published however at last (1794), 

 and other literary schemes were projected. One, from which Coleridge 

 anticipated great results, was a periodical entitled the ' Watchman,' 

 which was to advocate liberal opinions ; and he made a tour through 

 the northern manufacturing towns for the purpose of canvassing for 

 subscribers. An account of this tour, amusing on the whole, is con- 

 tained in the 10th chapter of the ' Biographia Literaria,' The periodi- 

 cal, owing partly to a want of punctuality in its appearance, and 

 partly to the fact that its opinions were not those which its supporters 

 had expected, did not live beyond the 9th number. 



In the autumn of 1795 Coleridge married Miss Sarah Flicker of 

 Bristol, a sitter of the wife of his friend Charles Lloyd, Southey on 

 the same day wedding himself to another sister. Coleridge now took 

 a cottage at Nether Stowey, a village at the foot of the Quantock 

 Hills, in Somersetshire, where he was in the immediate neighbourhood 

 of his friend and benefactor Mr. Poole, and of Mr. Wordsworth, who 

 was then living at All-Foxden. He was at this time in the habit of 

 contributing verses to one of the London paper*, as a means of sub- 

 sistence. In 1796 he published a volume of poems, the greater num- 

 ber of which had been written at earlier periods, interspersed with 



some by Charles Lamb ; and in 1797 a second edition appeared, with 

 the addition of some poems by Charles Lloyd. 



During the three years, moreover, in which Coleridge resided at 

 Nether Stowey, the greater part of his principal poems was composed, 

 though most of them were not published until later. In the conver- 

 sations on poetry which constantly took plase between Mr. Words- 

 worth and himself, was first formed the plan of the afterwards famous 

 ' Lyrical Ballads;' and in pursuance of this the 'Ancient Mariner' and 

 the first part of ' Christabel ' were written in 1797. His tragedy, 

 ' Remorse,' was also written at this period. 



Coleridge was at this period of his life a Unitarian. He says of 

 himself, " I was at that time and long after, though a Trinitarian 

 (Le., ad normam Platonia) in philosophy, yet a zealous Unitarian in 

 religion ; more accurately, I was a prilanthropist, one of those who 

 believe our Lord to have been the real son of Joseph, and who lay the 

 main stress on the resurrection rather than the crucifixion." (' Biog. 

 Lit.,' voL i. p. 168.) While at Nether Stowey he preached in a 

 Unitarian chapel at Taunton. 



In 1798 Coleridge was enabled, through the munificence of the lata 

 Mr. Thomas Wedgwood, to visit Germany, for the purpose, as he ex- 

 presses it, of finishing his education. At Gbttingen he attended 

 Blumenbach's lectures on physiology and natural history, and studied, 

 in the notes of a young German student, Eichhorn's lectures on the 

 New Testament. He took lessons from Professor Tyschen in tho 

 Gothic of Ulphilas, being anxious to attain a critical knowledge of the 

 German language ; and went through a complete historical course of 

 German literature. His acquaintance with the writings of the later 

 German metaphysicians was .not formed until some time after his 

 return to England. 



After his return from Germany, Coleridge resided at the Lakes, 

 where Mr. Southey and Mr. Wordsworth had then settled, the one at 

 Keswick, and the other at Grasmere. The appellation of ' Lake-poets,' 

 given to these three individuals after the publication of the ' Lyrical 

 Ballads,' is well known. 



Coleridge now became connected with the 'Morning Post,' and wrote 

 both on politics and literature. From about 1808 to about 1814, he 

 contributed to the 'Courier.' In 1804 he had visited his friend 

 Dr. Stoddart at Malta ; and from May of that year to October of the 

 next, he acted as secretary to Sir Alexander Ball, then governor of tho 

 island. After his return to England in 1808, he delivered a course of 

 lectures on poetry and the fine arts at the Royal Institution: lecturing 

 on poetry and history had long before been an occasional occupation 

 of his, partly in conjunction with Southey, at Bristol. The ' Friend ' 

 appeared in the course of the next year, being then published as a 

 periodical at the Lakes. As a pecuniary speculation it was not much 

 more successful than the ' Watchman,' nor with reference to pecuniary 

 advantage was it more judiciously conducted; but it continued for a 

 longer time. Mr. Wordsworth gave some literary assistance, con- 

 tributing the ' Essay on Epitaphs,' which is now appended to the 

 ' Excursion,' and the ' Introductory Essay ' of the third volume. 



Coleridge left the Lakes in 1810, and did not afterwards return to 

 them ; his wife and children remained in the house of Southey, and 

 wholly dependent on him. On Coleridge's first arrival in London he 

 resided with Mr. Basil Montagu ; and not long afterwards became the 

 guest of Mr. Gillman at Highgate, in whose house he. died. The many 

 friendships which Coleridge attracted to himself through life, the sin- 

 cerity and constancy of which were abundantly shown, place in a 

 striking light the amiability of his character; his neglect of his family 

 and extreme carelessness respecting the obligations, both personal and 

 pecuniary, which devolved upon him, as strikingly illustrate its 

 weakness. 



It was not before the commencement of his residence in London 

 that he formed any very extensive acquaintance with the writings of 

 the later German metaphysicians, by the adoption of whose method 

 and terminology, rather than by any development of a system, in his 

 subsequent publications, he has come to be accounted the representa- 

 tive of German metaphysics among us. He published successively, 

 between the years 1817 and 1825, the two ' Lay Sermons,' the ' Bio- 

 graphia Literaria,' the rifaccimento of the ' Friend,' the ' Constitution 

 of the Church and State according to the Idea of each,' and the ' Aids 

 to Reflection.' 



Coleridge having no profession, slothful and imprudent, was during 

 the greater part of his life in pecuniary distress. After his connection 

 with the newspaper-press had ceased, and his remaining hopes of self- 

 support were derived from his later poetical and prose publications, 

 his publisher became a bankrupt iu 1819. This was a severe blow to 

 Coleridge. The dependent situation iu which it placed him preyed 

 much upon his mind. We see him, in the collection of his letters 

 published since his death, projecting various schemes to relieve 

 himself. One of these was a scheme of systematic contribution to 

 'Blackwood's Magazine,' the publisher of which was his friend. 

 Accordingly, No. 1 of a ' Selection from Mr. Coleridge's Literary 

 Correspondence' appeared in the number of that magazine for October 

 1821, and was to have been followed by a sketch of the history and 

 philosophy of superstition, with other interesting disquisitions ; but 

 the No. 2 never appeared. Continued ill health, combined with, and 

 to a certain extent eaused by, a habit of using opium which Coleridgo 

 had contracted, having originally resorted to it under a mistaken 



