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COLERIDGE, THE REV. DERWENT. 



COLERIDGE, HENRY NELSON. 



manifestations of big peculiar temperament. His qualification for 

 future active exertion was irretrievably destroyed. 



After leaving Oxford, Hartley Coleridge remained in London two 

 years, occasionally writing in the ' London Magazine,' in which some 

 of his sonnets first appeared. Against his will he was established at 

 Ambleside to receive pupils. The scheme failed; and after a vain 

 struggle of four or five years, the attempt to do what he was unfit for 

 was abandoned. From that time to his death, in 1849, he chiefly 

 lived in the Lake district idle, according to ordinary notions, but a 

 diligent reader, a deep thinker, and a writer of exquisite verses, and 

 of prose of even a rarer order of merit. From 1820 to 1831 he con- 

 tributed to ' Blackwood's Magazine.' In 1832 and 1833 he resided 

 with Mr. Bingley, a young printer and publisher at Leeds; for whom 

 he produced a volume of ' Poems,' and those admirable biographies of 

 the 'Worthies of Yorkshire and Lancashire,' which make us more 

 than ever regret that one who wrote with such ease and vivacity, 

 should have accomplished so little. In 1834 his father died, having, 

 in a codicil to his will, expressed great solicitude to ensure for his son 

 that "tranquillity indispensable to any continued and successful exer- 

 tion of his literary talents," by providing for him, through the proper 

 application of a bequest after the death of his mother, "the continued 

 means of a home." Mrs. Coleridge died in 1845, and an annuity was 

 then purchased on Hartley's life. Meanwhile, he lived with a humble 

 family, first at Grasmere, and then at Rydal, watched over by the 

 kind people with whom he was an inmate, and beloved by all the 

 inhabitants of the district. His illustrious friend Wordsworth was 

 his close neighbour ; and the house of the poet was always open to 

 the child-like man of whose wayward career he had been almost pro- 

 phetic. In 1839 Hartley wrote a life of Massinger, prefixed to an 

 edition of his works published by Mr. Moxon ; and during the latter 

 years of his life he wrote many short poems, which appear in the two 

 volume* published by his brother, ' With a Memoir of his Life,' in 

 1851. Hartley Coleridge died in the cottage which he had long 

 occupied on the bank of Rydal Water, on the 6th of January 1849; 

 and was buried in Grasmere churchyard. His grave is by the side of 

 that of Wordsworth. 



* THE REV. DERWENT COLEKIDGE was born at Keswick, September 1 4, 

 1800, and completed his education at St. John's College, Cambridge. 

 His earliest contributions to literature were made in 'Knight's Quarterly 

 Magazine,' under the signature of ' Davenant Cecil.' Mr. Coleridge was 

 ordained in 1826, but he has been chiefly occupied in connection with 

 various important educational institutions belonging to the Established 

 Church. He is now principal of St. Mark's College, Chelsea the well 

 known training establishment for schoolmasters. Mr. Coleridge is 

 author of a work on the ' Scriptural Character of the English Church,' 

 and one or. two other theological and educational publications; but 

 he is best known to the general public by his admirable ' Memoir ' of 

 his brother Hartley, whose 'Poems' and ' Northern Biography' he 

 edited. Since the death of his sister Sara, Mr. Derwent Coleridge ha, 

 ns already mentioned, taken her place as editor of his father's works ; 

 and he has hitherto fulfilled his editorial duties with excellent tate 

 and judgment. The Rev. Derwent Coleridge is a prebendary of St. 

 Paul's Cathedral. 



SARA COLERIDGE, the only daughter of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 

 was born at Keswick in 1803. Until her marriage she resided in the 

 house of Robert Southey, who married her mother's sister. To his 

 influence and paternal kindness the formation of her mental character 

 must be largely ascribed, though she possessed in a remarkable measure 

 the intellectual characteristics of her father. Her opening womanhood 

 was spent at Keswick in the diligent culture and exercise of her 

 remarkable powers. She readily lent her assistance to Southey in 

 lightening as far as she could his literary labours : she often accom 

 panied Wordsworth in his mountain rambles. In 1822 she had 

 completed her first literary work, ' An Account of the Abipones, an 

 Equestrian People of Paraguay, from the Latin of Martin Dobrizhoffer/ 

 a translation suggested by Southey, and the admirable execution ol 

 which he has commemorated in a stanza of his ' Tale of Paraguay. 

 In 1829 she married her cousin, Henry Nelson Coleridge, the sub- 

 ject of a succeeding article. [COLERIDGE, HENRY NELSON.] She now 

 gave herself to her domestic duties, and her next literary produc- 

 tion was prepared as a Latin lesson-book for her children : it is called 

 'Pretty Lessons for Good Children,' and speedily passed through 

 several editions. On the death of her father in 1834, her husband 

 who was the poet's literary executor, set himself to the task of pre 

 paring such of the poet's unpublished works as would serve best to 

 exhibit him as a theologian, philosopher, poet, and critic, and Sara 

 Coleridge most heartily^ devoted herself to assist in this pious duty. 

 During her husband's life much of the collation and a considerable 

 portion of the annotation fell to her share ; after his death she did noi 

 hesitate to take upon herself the whole of the arduous labour. The 

 ' Aids to Reflection,' ' Notes on Shakspeare and the Dramatists,' and 

 ' Easajs on his Own Times' were edited by her alone, and to some ol 

 them were affixed elaborate discourses on the most weighty matters in 

 theology, morals, and philosophy, which were discussed in a clear and 

 rigorous style, with a closeness of reasoning and an amount of em 

 dition quite remarkable in one of her sex. But Sara Coleridge, like 

 her father, had in no stinted measure the imaginative as well as the 

 reasoning faculty. Her fairy talc, ' Phantasmion ' wanted only the 



colouring of verse to have been generally allowed to rank among the 

 more beautiful poems of the age ; but in prose its often exquisite 

 imagery and delicate shades of thought and feeling seemed to lack 

 some clear and palpable intention ; and it was regarded for the most 

 Dart as vague, visionary, and obscure. Probably it will be on her 

 commentaries upon her father's works from which they are not likely 

 ;o be by any future editor dissociated that her fame will ultimately 

 rest ; but her rare acquirements and rarer gifts being thus expended 

 on annotations, are now scarcely likely ever to meet with their due 

 recognition. Sara Coleridge survived her husband ten years : she died 

 May 3rd, 1852. At her death she was engaged in preparing a new 

 edition of her father's poems, which was completed and published by 

 her brother : ' Poems of S. T. Coleridge, edited by Derwent and Sara 

 Coleridge,' 1852. 



COLERIDGE, HENRY NELSON, the sou of Colonel Coleridge, a 

 brother of the poet [COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TATLOR], was born at the 

 beginning of this century. He was educated on the foundation at 

 Eton, and in due course was elected scholar, and subsequently fellow, 

 of King's College, Cambridge. He took his degree of B.A. in 1823. 

 The scholars of King's having the somewhat questionable privilege 

 of obtaining their degrees without examination, Mr. Coleridge's name 

 is -not found amongst the candidates for classical or mathematical 

 honours ; but he was well known in the university as one of great 

 talents and rich acquirements, and he gave public evidence of his taste 

 and scholarship, in 1820 and 1821, in the first of which years he 

 obtained two out of the three of Sir W. Browne's medals, namely, 

 that for the Greek ode and that for the Latin ode, aud in the second 

 year was again the successful 'candidate for the Greek ode. In 1823 he 

 was a contributor, in conjunction with W. S. Walker, W. M. Praecl, 

 T. B. Macaulay, J. Moultrie, and others of his university, to ' Knight's 

 Quarterly Magazine.' His papers, which bear the signature of ' Joseph 

 Haller,' on 'The English Constitution,' 'The Long Parliament,' 

 ' Mirabeau,' &a, are distinguished for a soundness of opinion, ami a 

 liberal and comprehensive view of historical questions, which are 

 evidence of the extent of his acquirements beyond the ordinary 

 range of university reading. Having fallen into ill health, Mr. Cole- 

 ridge, in 1825, accompanied his uncle, the Bishop of Barbadoes, 

 on his outward voyage. Upon his return to England in the same 

 year, he published a most lively and amusing narrative of his tropical 

 experiences, under the title of ' Six Months in the West Indies,' 

 which had the unusual good fortune of quickly passing into a fourth 

 edition. 



His restored health opened to Mr. Coleridge a course of honourable 

 action. He was called to the bar by the Society of the Middle Temple, 

 on the 24th of November 1826, and, during the ensuing fourteen years, 

 gradually advanced to a good practice in the Court of Chancery. 

 During this period he assiduously cultivated his literary tastes, and 

 more especially dedicated all his leisure to the society of his illustrious 

 uncle, whose conversation was a perpetual store of tho most varied 

 knowledge. The accomplished daughter of the poet became the wife 

 of Henry Coleridge soon after he was called to the bar. In 1830 Mr. 

 Henry Coleridge published an ' Introduction to the Study of the Greek 

 Classic Poets.' Until the death of S. T. Coleridge, in 1834, his nephew 

 most assiduously devoted himself to the grateful task of noting down 

 with all reverence the fragments of this extraordinary man's eloquent 

 talk, or more properly declamation. In 1835 some of the results of 

 this labour of love were given to the world in 'Specimens of the 

 Table Talk of the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge,' in two small 

 volumes. It has been objected that these fragments, in which Cole- 

 ridge's opinions are arranged under particular subjects, give no just 

 notion of the character of his talk. His nephew anticipates tho 

 objection: "I know better than any one can tell me, how inadequately 

 these specimens represent the peculiar splendour and individuality of 

 Mr. Coleridge's conversation. How should it be otherwise ? W ho 

 could always follow to the turning-point his long arrow-flights of 

 thought?" Yet the book must always possess a deep interest. Of its 

 literal truth as a record of Coleridge's opinions, however it may fall 

 short of giving an adequate notion of his mode of expressing them, no 

 one can doubt The ' Table Talk' was followed in 1836 by two octavo 

 volumes of ' The Literary Remains of S. T. Coleridge,' also edited by 

 his nephew; and a third volume of the same series was published iu 

 1838. The care and judgment with which this difficult undertaking 

 is executed, have given to these fragmentary materials ' Sibylline 

 leaves, notes of the lecturer, memoranda of the investigator, out- 

 pourings of the solitary and self-communing student,' a permanent 

 value. In 1837 Mr. Henry Coleridge republished 'The Friend' his 

 uncle's little-known periodical work one of the most remarkable 

 books in modern literature. In 1840 he also edited ' Confessions of 

 an Inquiring Spirit,' a series of letters on the inspiration of the 

 Scriptures, left by Mr. Coleridge iu manuscript at his death. In thii) 

 mass of materials, which we owe in great part to the unwearie 1 

 industry of Mr. Henry Coleridge, amidst the short leisure of a laborious 

 profession, will be found the beat evidence of Coleridge's claims to a 

 lasting reputation as a critic and a philosopher. 



We have little to add to this imperfect notice. In 1842 Mr. H. 

 Coleridge had a return of the painful maladies which had received a 

 temporary relief in 1825. For many mouths he w.xs prostrate on a 

 bed of sickness, enduring pain with a most exemplary fortitude aud 



