396 



COINAGECOLERIDGE. 



provide the community with means for carrying on 

 the smaller transactions of daily traffic, different 

 expedients were successively adopted. At first, 

 Spanish dollars stamped with a diminutive impress 

 dt the king's head were issued by government at 

 the rate of 4s. 6d. each; but these soon disappeared, 

 and the bank of England was authorised to issue 

 " tokens " and put into circulation pieces of the 

 respective nominal values of Is. 6d., of 3s., and of 

 5s. The last of those tokens consisted of Spanish 

 dollars, the original impress upon which was re- 

 moved, and a different one given by means of a 

 powerful press. The smaller tokens those of 3s. 



and Is. 6d were intrinsically so far below their 



nominal value, that they remained in circulation 

 until called in; but the dollars, or five-shilling 

 tokens, were so much nearer in value to their no- 

 minal rate, that, on a further advance in the mar- 

 ket-price of silver bullion, it became necessary to 

 raise their nominal value 10 per cent., causing them 

 to pass for 5s. 6d. each. 



An account of the Value of Gold and Silver Moneyrcoined at 

 the Mint in each Year from 1801 to 1836. 



1815 to 1830 

 1821 

 1822 

 1823 

 1824 

 1825 

 1826 

 1827 

 1828 

 1829 

 1830 

 1831 

 1832 

 1833 

 1834 

 1835 

 1836 



I. d. 



Nil. 



2.BOO 

 4:t,355 4 

 ;i-.>,4HO 

 Nil. 



9,408 



50,400 



111,712 



2.404 



1,568 



2,464 



7,392 



448 



Nil. 



3,!> 



. 2,688 



1,792 



With the exception of an insignificant amount 

 of small coins, struck for the purpose of distribu- 

 tion, as alms by the crown, and known as Maunday 

 money, from the circumstance of its being given 

 away on Maunday Monday, there was not any silver 

 coinage by the state in the present century until 

 1816. 



Copper coin is issued from the Mint at the rate 

 of 224 per ton, or more than 100 per cent, above 

 its market value ; there can hardly be expected, 

 therefore, to arise any temptation for its conversion 

 to any other purpose. The copper coinage which 

 was issued in 1797, in place of the old defaced 

 tower halfpence, was of the intrinsic value of 

 149 6s. 8d. per ton; but as the market value of 

 the metal rose in 1806 to 200 per ton, it has since 

 then beea thought advisable to adopt the rate above 

 mentioned. The value of copper coin issued from 

 1815 to 1836, has been as follows: 



180,107 4 



Previous to the copper coinage above mentiontd, 

 as having been inude in 1797, the country was in- 

 undated from one end to the other by coins put 

 into circulation as halfpence, and which were struck 

 by tradesmen or other private adventurers. The 

 encouragement to this course was found in the ex- 

 isting state of the small coinage. The halfpence 

 put into circulation by private parties were some 

 of them creditable specimens of the art of coining; 

 and all of them, although intrinsically below their 

 nominal value, were yet considerably nearer to it 

 than the halfpence otherwise circulating. When 

 the state undertook, in 1797, to issue new copper 

 coins, the circulation of these private tokens was 

 prohibited.* 



COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR, an eminent 

 poet, and distinguished philosophic talker, was the 

 youngest son of the Rev. John Coleridge, vicar of 

 St Mary Ottery, Devonshire, and Ann his wife, 

 and was born in that parish, where he was bap- 

 tized 30th December, 1772. His father died in the 

 month of October, 1781, leaving his widow with a 

 family of eleven children, of whom one, the Rev. 

 George Coleridge, eventually succeeded him at Ot- 

 tery St Mary. A presentation to Christ's Hospital, 

 London, was procured for the subject of this me- 

 moir from John Way, Esq., one of the governors, 

 and the boy was admitted to that most excellent 

 school on the 18th of July, 1782. His father had 

 formerly been a schoolmaster at South Molton, and 

 is said to have assisted Dr Kennicott in the colla- 

 tion of manuscripts for his Hebrew Bible : he pub- 

 lished dissertations arising from the 17th and 18th 

 chapters of the Book of Judges, and other works. 

 Samuel must have been well prepared for school 

 by his father ; for the age of nine years is rather a 

 late period from which to start for the honours of 

 Grecian and university exhibitionist at Christ's 

 Hospital, honours which he obtained in other 

 nine years. 



On the 7th of September, 1791, Mr Coleridge 

 was sent from Christ's Hospital, with one of the 

 exhibitions belonging to that foundation, to Jesus 

 College, Cambridge. Here both his residence and 

 his studies were desultory and unacademical. He 

 remained at Cambridge till October term, 1794,f 

 when he quitted the university without cause as- 

 signed, and without taking a degree. The master 

 and fellows of the college consequently made an 

 order that his name should be removed from the 

 college boards, unless he returned before the 14th 

 of June, 1795 ; and the committee of Christ's Hos- 

 pital, considering that their exhibitions are voted 



* Porter's " Progress of the Nation." 



