Page:Cousins's Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature.djvu/101

Rh Author:Hartley Coleridge (1796-1849).—Poet, eldest s. of (q.v.), b. at Clevedon, spent his youth at Keswick among the "Lake poets." His early education was desultory, but he was sent by to Oxf. in 1815. His talents enabled him to win a Fellowship, but the weakness of his character led to his being deprived of it. He then went to London and wrote for magazines. From 1823 to 1828 he tried keeping a school at Ambleside, which failed, and he then led the life of a recluse at Grasmere until his death. Here he wrote Essays, Biographia Borealis (lives of worthies of the northern counties) (1832), and a Life of Massinger (1839). He is remembered chiefly for his Sonnets. He also left unfinished a drama, Prometheus.  Author:Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834).—Poet, philosopher, and critic, s. of the Rev. John C., vicar and schoolmaster of Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire, was b. there in 1772, the youngest of 13 children. He was at Christ's Hospital from 1782 to 1790, and had for a schoolfellow, and the famous scholar and disciplinarian, James Boyer, for his master. Thence he proceeded to Jesus Coll., Camb., in 1791, where he read much, but desultorily, and got into debt. The troubles arising thence and also, apparently, a disappointment in love, led to his going to London and enlisting in the 15th Dragoons under the name of Silas Tomkyn Comberbacke. He could not, however, be taught to ride, and through some Latin lines written by him on a stable door, his real condition was discovered, his friends communicated with, and his release accomplished, his brothers buying him off. After this escapade he returned (1794) to Camb. He had by this time imbibed extreme democratic or, as he termed them, pantisocratic principles, and on leaving Camb. in the same year he visited Oxf., where he made the acquaintance of, and discussed with him a project of founding a "pantisocracy" on the banks of the Susquehanna, a scheme which speedily fell through, owing firstly to want of funds, and secondly to the circumstance of the two projectors falling in love simultaneously with two sisters, Sarah and Edith Fricker, of whom the former became, in 1795, the wife of C., and the latter of Southey. C. had spent one more term at Camb., and there in Sept. 1794 his first work, The Fall of Robespierre, a drama, to which Southey contributed two acts, the second and third, was pub. After his marriage he settled first at Clevedon, and thereafter at Nether Stowey, Somerset, where he had for a neighbour, with whom he formed an intimate association. About 1796 he fell into the fatal habit of taking laudanum, which had such disastrous effects upon his character and powers of will. In the same year Poems on various Subjects appeared, and a little later Ode to the Departing Year. While at Nether Stowey he was practically supported by Thomas Poole, a tanner, with whom he had formed a friendship. Here he wrote The Ancient Mariner, the first part of Christabel and Kubla Khan, and here he joined with Wordsworth in producing the Lyrical Ballads. Some time previously he had become a Unitarian, and was much engaged as a preacher in that body, and for a short time acted as a minister at Shrewsbury. Influenced by Josiah and Thomas Wedgwood, who each in 1798 gave 