COLERIDGE. 



397 



by the general court, under a restriction that if the 

 students absent themselves from college without 

 permission, their allowance is to cease, and having 

 further considered that the general example of a 

 scholar of such distinguished abilities might be 

 detrimental to the youth of the house, resolved, 

 that his exhibitions, which had been paid to April, 

 1795, should be from that time withheld. 



It was in the long vacation of the year 1792 that 

 he became acquainted with Mr Southey, then a stu- 

 dent of Baliol College, Oxford ; and the two young 

 poets, both dazzled with the specious opening of 

 the French revolution, commenced an enthusiastic 

 friendship ; and, in conjunction with others of the 

 same way of thinking (or rather dreaming), struck 

 out a scheme for settling themselves* in the wilds 

 of America, and for there having all things in com- 

 mon, which they called " establishing a genuine 

 system of property." This vision they entitled 

 pantisocracy ; and it was with the eventual view of 

 realizing it, that Mr Southey, in the year 1795, 

 married a young lady of Bristol (his native place) 

 of the name of Fricker, to whom he had been long 

 attached, and that about the same time Mr Cole- 

 ridge and a third poet and Utopian, Mr Robert Lo- 

 vell, were respectively united to her two sisters. 

 This project of emigration and pantisocracy, how- 

 ever, was never carried into execution. Mr Sou- 

 they, on the very day after his secret marriage, 

 obeyed his mother's uncle, by accompanying him to 

 Lisbon for six months, travels of which the fruits 

 were his pleasant letters from Spain and Portugal; 

 and on his return quietly settled himself in Gray's 

 Inn as a law-student. Mr Coleridge remained with 

 his wife at or near Bristol. 



In the previous winter of 1794 5 he had deli- 

 vered there a course of lectures on the French 

 revolution ; having even before that published, in 

 conjunction with Mr Southey, a hasty drama, called 

 " The Fall of Robespierre." In the year 1795, 

 appeared the " Condones ad Populum, or Addresses 

 to the People;" and in the year 1796 ten numbers 

 of a weekly paper called " The Watchman." 



It was at Nether Stowey, at the foot of the 

 Quantock hills, in Somersetshire, in the summer and 

 autumn of the year 1797, that Mr Coleridge wrote, 

 at the desire of Mr Sheridan, the tragedy of " Re- 

 morse," which was, by his neglect, not brought 

 upon the stage of Drury Lane theatre till the year 

 1813, when the property was under the direction 

 of Mr Whitbread. During his residence at Stowey, 

 he was in the habit of preaching every Sunday at 

 the Unitarian chapel at Taunton, and was greatly 

 respected by even the better class of his neigh- 

 bours and hearers. Here, in June, 1797, his 

 friends, Charles Lamb and his sister, visited him, 

 and gave occasion to the sweet verses entitled, 

 " This Lime-tree Bow'r my Prison ;" and it was 

 during his residence here that William Hazlitt be- 

 came acquainted with him. 



Mr Coleridge, in the years 1796 and 1797, pub- 

 lished his first poetical volume, the second edition 

 in conjunction with a few poems by his friends 

 Charles Lamb and Charles Lloyd, just as Mr Sou- 

 they had previously published his earliest poetical 

 effusions bound up with those of his friend Mr Lo- 

 vell. In 1796 was published separately the " Ode 

 on the Departing Year," and in 1798 the "Fears in 

 Solitude," " France, an Ode," and " Frost at Mid- 

 night." In the 1798 also appeared the first edi- 

 tion of the celebrated " Lyrical Ballads " of Mr 

 Wordsworth and Mr Coleridge. 



In the autumn of the year 1798, Coleiidge, to 

 whom his friends, Messrs Josiah and Thomas 

 Wedgewood of Etruria, in Staffordshire, had gen- 

 erously granted an annuity of 100, (Mr Hazlitt 

 says 150,) commenced his travels in Germany, 

 accompanied by Mr Wordsworth. Of these travels 

 the only records are contained in a few letters in 

 "The Friend" (repeated in the "Biographia Li- 

 teraria '') ; but the fruits of his German studies of 

 men and books are apparent in every after-produc- 

 tion of his mind and pen. 



On his return from Germany, in the year 1800, 

 he went to reside at Keswick, where his friend 

 Mr Soutbey had, after filling for some time the 

 situation of secretary to Mr Corry, the Irish chan- 

 cellor of the exchequer, finally settled, Mr Words- 

 worth then living at Grasmere ; and here his reli- 

 gious tenets, to use his own expression, found a 

 final reconversion to the whole truth in Christ. 

 He tells us, indeed, that even before this, while 

 meditating, his heart had long been with the blessed 

 Paul and the beloved John, though his head was 

 with Spinoza. He now became convinced, both 

 head and heart, of the doctrine of the divine trinity 

 in unity. 



In the year 1800 were published Coleridge's 

 translation of Schiller's. " Wallenstein," both the 

 first and the second parts, and then " the harp of 

 Quantock " was nearly silent for ever. In the 

 year 1804 he made a voyage to Malta, on a 

 visit to his friend Dr Stoddart, then king's advo- 

 cate there. Sir Alexander Ball was then gover- 

 nor of that island, and was so greatly pleased with 

 his genius and conversation, that during an occa- 

 sional absence of the secretary to the government, 

 he appointed Mr Coleridge to act in that office. 

 We need not say that his talents lay in any other 

 direction than that of office business ; but he flat- 

 tered himself that his mind could bend to the 

 yoke, and the salary was 800 per annum. Not- 

 withstanding the eulogium that he has written 

 upon Sir Alexander in " The Friend," there was 

 little congeniality of mind between the gover- 

 nor and his secretary. They did not agree, and 

 the employment lasted in name and salary for 

 about nine months only. Coleridge was altogether 

 in Malta from May, 1804, to October, 1805. In 

 his way home he passed through Calabria and 

 Italy ; and it is to be regretted that so few of his 

 feelings on his visit to Rome are to be found re- 

 corded in his writings. In the years 1809-10, he 

 issued from Grasmere a weekly essay, stamped to 

 be sent by the general post, called "the Friend." 

 This paper lasted for twenty-seven numbers, and 

 was then abruptly discontinued ; but the papers 

 have since been collected and enlarged in three small 

 volumes. In the year 1812, Coleridge, being 

 in London, edited, and contributed several very 

 interesting articles to, Mr Southey's " Omniana," 

 in two small volumes. In 1813, the tragedy ot 

 " The Remorse" was acted and printed. In the 

 year 1816, he published " The Statesman's Man- 

 ual ; or, the Bible the best Guide to political 

 Skill and Foresight ; a lay Sermon ;" and in 

 the following year, " A Second Lay Sermon, ad- 

 dressed to the higher and Middle Classes, on the 

 existing Distresses and Discontents." In this year 

 also appeared the Biographical Sketches of his Li- 

 terary Life and Opinions, and his newspaper Poems 

 re-collected under the title of " Sibylline Leaves." 

 In the year 1816 likewise was published by Mr 

 Murray, at the recommendation of Lord Byron, 



