GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



plank that crossed it, and the sands of varied tint that lay in its 

 bed." In another place he recalls his daylight vision of the old 

 church tower of St. Mary Ottery " The bells of which haunted him 

 even under the preceptor's stern gaze, when his eyes were fixed in 

 mock study on his swimming books." This being so, we can well 

 believe him when he says that he " never thought as a child, never 

 had the language of a child." 



In his "Table Talk," Coleridge, in later years, describes the iron 

 discipline at Christ's Hospital in those days as being, indeed, " ultra 

 spartan" ; all thoughts of home were to be banished. " Boy," he 

 remembered the head master saying to him once when he was crying, 

 the first day of his return after the holidays, " Boy, the school 

 is your father, Boy, the school is your mother ! Boy, the school 

 is your brother ! the school is your sister, the school is your first 

 cousin and your second cousin, and all the rest of your relations. 

 Let's have no more crying ! '' The head-master's severity, also 

 the excellence of his teaching, is recorded by Coleridge's school- 

 fellow and lifelong friend, Charles Lamb, his junior by some three 

 years, and himself a sizar at Christ's ; he recalls in the " Essays of 

 Elia " how " the walls of the old Grey Friars re-echoed to the 

 accents of the inspired charity boy," who even then read Virgil 

 for amusement. 



On monthly holidays the scholars were turned adrift for a day 

 those who had friends in London seeking them out, while those who 

 had not, wandered about the streets till it was time to return. 

 On one such occasion Coleridge, swimming in the New River in his 

 clothes, caught jaundice and rheumatic fever, to the deleterious 

 effects of which may be traced much of the trouble of later life. 



Another time he made the acquaintance of a shoe-maker and his 

 wife, whose kindness to the friendless lad resulted in his announcing 

 his determination to make shoe-making his trade, instead of 

 entering the Church, for which, in common with most of the scholars 

 of Christ's Hospital, he was being prepared. Asked his reason, he 

 boldly declared that he was an " infidel," whereupon the head 

 master, sensible but severe, birched him. " So, sirrah, you are an 

 infidel, are you ? Then I'll flog your infidelity out of you ! " 



Sent to Cambridge, Samuel left it without the knowledge of the 

 authorities, and escaping to London, spent a night on a doorstep 

 in Chancery Lane, and next day enlisted in a regiment of dragoons, 



238 



