Part 21

Coleridge's work, first as a barrister, and then as a judge, prevented his publishing as much as he otherwise would have done, but his addresses and papers would, if collected, fill a substantial volume and do much honour to his memory. One of the best, and one most eminently characteristic of the man, was his inaugural address to the Philosophical Institution at Edinburgh in 1870; another was a paper on Wordsworth (1873). He was an exceptionally good letter-writer. Of travel he had very little experience. He had hardly been to Paris; once, quite near the end of his career, he spent a few days in Holland, and came back a willing slave to the genius of Rembrandt; but his longest absence from England was a visit, which had something of a representative legal character, to the United States. It is strange that a man so steeped in Greek and Roman poetry, so deeply interested in the past, present and future of Christianity, never saw Rome, or Athens, or the Holy Land. A subsidiary cause, no doubt, was the fatal custom of neglecting modern languages at English schools. He felt himself at a disadvantage when he passed beyond English-speaking lands, and cordially disliked the situation. No notice of Coleridge should omit to make mention of his extraordinary store of anecdotes, which were nearly always connected with Eton, Oxford, the bar or the bench. His exquisite voice, considerable power of mimicry, and perfect method of narration added greatly to the charm. He once told, at the table of Dr Jowett, master of Balliol, anecdotes through the whole of dinner on Saturday evening, through the whole of breakfast, lunch and dinner the next day, through the whole journey on Monday morning from Oxford to Paddington, without ever once repeating himself. He was frequently to be seen at the Athenaeum, was a member both of Grillion's and The Club, as well as of the Literary Society, of which he was president, and whose meetings he very rarely missed. Bishop Copleston is said to have divided the human race into three classes,--men, women and Coleridges. If he did so, he meant, no doubt, to imply that the family of whom the poet of _Christabel_ was the chief example regarded themselves as a class to themselves, the objects of a special dispensation. John Duke Coleridge was sarcastic and critical, and at times over-sensitive. But his strongest characteristics were love of liberty and justice. By birth and connexions a Conservative, he was a Liberal by conviction, and loyal to his party and its great leader, Mr Gladstone.

Coleridge had three sons and a daughter by his first wife, Jane Fortescue, daughter of the Rev. George Seymour of Freshwater. She was an artist of real genius, and her portrait of Cardinal Newman was considered much better than the one by Millais. She died in February 1878; a short notice of her by Dean Church of St Paul's was published in the _Guardian_, and was reprinted in her husband's privately printed collection of poems. Coleridge remained for some years a widower, but married in 1885 Amy Augusta Jackson Lawford, who survived him. He was succeeded in the peerage by his eldest son, Bernard John Seymour (b. 1851), who went to the bar and became a K.C. in 1892. In 1907 he was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court. The two other sons were Stephen (b. 1854), a barrister, secretary to the Anti-Vivisection Society, and Gilbert James Duke (b. 1859).

His _Life and Correspondence_, edited by E. H. Coleridge, was published in 1904; see further E. Manson, _Builders of our Law_ (1904); and for the history of the Coleridge family see Lord Coleridge, _The Story of a Devonshire House_ (1907). (M. G. D.)

COLERIDGE, SIR JOHN TAYLOR (1790-1876), English judge, the second son of Captain James Coleridge and nephew of the poet S. T. Coleridge, was born at Tiverton, Devon, and was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he had a brilliant career. He graduated in 1812 and was soon after made a fellow of Exeter; in 1819 he was called to the bar at the Middle Temple and practised for some years on the western circuit. In 1824, on Gifford's retirement, he assumed the editorship of the _Quarterly Review_, resigning it a year afterwards in favour of Lockhart. In 1825 he published his excellent edition of _Blackstone's Commentaries_, and in 1832 he was made a serjeant-at-law and recorder of Exeter. In 1835 he was appointed one of the judges of the king's bench. In 1852 his university created him a D.C.L., and in 1858 he resigned his judgeship, and was made a member of the privy council. In 1869, although in extreme old age, he produced his pleasant _Memoir of the Rev. John Keble_, whose friend he had been since their college days, a third edition of which was issued within a year. He died on the 11th of February 1876 at Ottery St Mary, Devon, leaving two sons and a daughter; the eldest son, John Duke, 1st Baron Coleridge (q.v.), became lord chief justice of England; the second son, Henry James (1822-1893), left the Anglican for the Roman Catholic church in 1852, and became well-known as a Jesuit divine, editor of _The Month_, and author of numerous theological works. Sir John Taylor Coleridge's brothers, James Duke and Henry Nelson (husband of Sara Coleridge), are referred to in other articles; his brother Francis George was the father of Arthur Duke Coleridge (b. 1830), clerk of assizes on the midland circuit and author of _Eton in the Forties_, whose daughter Mary E. Coleridge (1861-1907) became a well-known writer of fiction.

COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR (1772-1834), English poet and philosopher, was born on the 21st of October 1772, at his father's vicarage of Ottery St Mary's, Devonshire. His father, the Rev. John Coleridge (1719-1781), was a man of some mark. He was known for his great scholarship, simplicity of character, and affectionate interest in the pupils of the grammar school, of which he was appointed master a few months before becoming vicar of the parish (1760), reigning in both capacities till his death. He had married twice. The poet was the youngest child of his second wife, Anne Bowdon (d. 1809), a woman of great good sense, and anxiously ambitious for the success of her sons. On the death of his father, a presentation to Christ's Hospital was procured for Coleridge by the judge, Sir Francis Buller, an old pupil of his father's. He had already begun to give evidence of a powerful imagination, and he has described in a letter to his valued friend, Tom Poole, the pernicious effect which the admiration of an uncle and his circle of friends had upon him at this period. For eight years he continued at Christ's Hospital. Of these school-days Charles Lamb has given delightful glimpses in the _Essays of Elia_. The headmaster, Bowyer (as he was called, though his name was Boyer), was a severe disciplinarian, but respected by his pupils. Middleton, afterwards known as a Greek scholar, and bishop of Calcutta, reported Coleridge to Bowyer as a boy who read Virgil for amusement, and from that time Bowyer began to notice him and encouraged his reading. Some compositions in English poetry, written at sixteen, and not without a touch of genius, give evidence of the influence which Bowles, whose poems were then in vogue, had over his mind at this time. Before he left school his constitutional delicacy of frame, increased by swimming the New River in his clothes, began to give him serious discomfort.

In February 1791 he was entered at Jesus College, Cambridge. A school-fellow who followed him to the university has described in glowing terms evenings in his rooms, "when Aeschylus, and Plato, and Thucydides were pushed aside, with a pile of lexicons and the like, to discuss the pamphlets of the day. Ever and anon a pamphlet issued from the pen of Burke. There was no need of having the book before us;--Coleridge had read it in the morning, and in the evening he would repeat whole pages verbatim." William Frend, a fellow of Jesus, accused of sedition and Unitarianism, was at this time tried and expelled from Cambridge. Coleridge had imbibed his sentiments, and joined the ranks of his partisans. He grew discontented with university life, and in 1793, pressed by debt, went to London. Perhaps he was also influenced by his passion for Mary Evans, the sister of one of his school-fellows. A poem in the _Morning Chronicle_ brought him a guinea, and when that was spent he enlisted in the 15th Dragoons under the name of Silas Tomkyn Comberbache. One of the officers of the dragoon regiment, finding a Latin sentence inscribed on a wall, discovered the condition of the very awkward recruit. Shortly afterwards an old school-fellow (G. L. Tuckett) heard of his whereabouts, and by the intervention of his brother, Captain James Coleridge, his discharge was procured. He returned for a short time to Cambridge, but quitted the university without a degree in 1794. In the same year he visited Oxford, and after a short tour in Wales went to Bristol, where he met Southey. The French Revolution had stirred the mind of Southey to its depths. Coleridge received with rapture his new friend's scheme of Pantisocracy. On the banks of the Susquehanna was to be founded a brotherly community, where selfishness was to be extinguished, and the virtues were to reign supreme. No funds were forthcoming, and in 1795, to the chagrin of Coleridge, the scheme was dropped. In 1794 _The Fall of Robespierre_, of which Coleridge wrote the first act and Southey the other two, appeared. At Bristol Coleridge formed the acquaintance of Joseph Cottle, the bookseller, who offered him thirty guineas for a volume of poems. In October of 1795 Coleridge married Sarah Fricker, and took up his residence at Clevedon on the Bristol Channel. A few weeks afterwards Southey married a sister of Mrs Coleridge, and on the same day quitted England for Portugal.

Coleridge began to lecture in Bristol on politics and religion. He embodied the first two lectures in his first prose publication, _Conciones ad Populum_ (1795). The book contained much invective against Pitt, and in after life Coleridge declared that, with this exception, and a few pages involving philosophical tenets which he afterwards rejected, there was little or nothing he desired to retract. The first volume of _Poems_ was published by Cottle early in 1796. Coleridge projected a periodical called _The Watchman_, and in 1796 undertook a journey, well described in the _Biographic Literaria_, to enlist subscribers. _The Watchman_ had a brief life of two months, but at this time Coleridge began to think of becoming a Unitarian preacher, and abandoning literature for ever. Hazlitt has recorded his very favourable impression of a remarkable sermon delivered at Shrewsbury; but there are other accounts of Coleridge's preaching not so enthusiastic. In the summer of 1795 he met for the first time the brother poet with whose name his own will be for ever associated. Wordsworth and his sister had established themselves at Racedown in the Dorsetshire hills, and here Coleridge visited them in 1797. There are few things in literary history more remarkable than this friendship. The gifted Dorothy Wordsworth described Coleridge as "thin and pale, the lower part of the face not good, wide mouth, thick lips, not very good teeth, longish, loose, half-curling, rough, black hair,"--but all was forgotten in the magic charm of his utterance. Wordsworth, who declared, "The only wonderful man I ever knew was Coleridge," seems at once to have desired to see more of his new friend. He and his sister removed in July 1797 to Alfoxden, near Nether Stowey, to be in Coleridge's neighbourhood, and in the most delightful and unrestrained intercourse the friends spent many happy days. It was the delight of each one to communicate to the other the productions of his mind, and the creative faculty of both poets was now at its best. One evening, at Watchett on the British Channel, _The Ancient Mariner_ first took shape. Coleridge was anxious to embody a dream of a friend, and the suggestion of the shooting of the albatross came from Wordsworth, who gained the idea from Shelvocke's _Voyage_ (1726). A joint volume was planned. Wordsworth was to show the real poetry that lies hidden in commonplace subjects, while Coleridge was to treat supernatural subjects to illustrate the common emotions of humanity. From this sprang the _Lyrical Ballads_, to which Coleridge contributed _The Ancient Mariner_, the _Nightingale_ and two scenes from _Osorio_, and after much cogitation the book was published in 1798 at Bristol by Cottle, to whose reminiscences, often indulging too much in detail, we owe the account of this remarkable time. A second edition of the _Lyrical Ballads_ in 1800 included another poem by Coleridge--_Love_, to which subsequently the sub-title was given of _An Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie_. To the Stowey period belong also the tragedy of _Osorio_ (afterwards known as _Remorse_), _Kubla Khan_ and the first part of _Christabel_. In 1798 an annuity, granted him by the brothers Wedgwood, led Coleridge to abandon his reluctantly formed intention of becoming a Unitarian minister. For many years he had desired to see the continent, and in September 1798, in company with Wordsworth and his sister, he left England for Hamburg. _Satyrane's Letters_ (republished in _Biog. Lit._ 1817) give an account of the tour.

A new period in Coleridge's life now began. He soon left the Wordsworths to spend four months at Ratzeburg, whence he removed to Göttingen to attend lectures. A great intellectual movement had begun in Germany. Coleridge was soon in the full whirl of excitement. He learnt much from Blumenbach and Eichhorn, and took interest in all that was going on around him. During his stay of nine months in Germany, he made himself master of the language to such purpose that the translation of _Wallenstein_--his first piece of literary work after his return to England--was actually accomplished in six weeks. It was published in 1800, and, although it failed to make any impression on the general public, it became at once prized by Scott and others as it deserved. It is matter for regret that a request to Coleridge that he should undertake to translate _Faust_ never received serious attention from him. During these years Coleridge wrote many newspaper articles and some poems, among them "Fire, Famine and Slaughter," for the _Morning Post_ (January 8, 1798). He had vehemently opposed Pitt's policy, but a change came over his way of thought, and he found himself separated from Fox on the question of a struggle with Napoleon. He had lost his admiration for the Revolutionists, as his "Ode to France" shows (_Morning Post_, April 16, 1798). Like many other Whigs, he felt that all questions of domestic policy must at a time of European peril be postponed. From this time, however, his value for the ordered liberty of constitutional government increased; and though never exactly to be found among the ranks of old-fashioned Constitutionalists, during the remainder of his life he kept steadily in view the principles which received their full exposition in his well-known work on _Church and State_. In the year 1800 Coleridge left London for the Lakes. Here in that year he wrote the second part of _Christabel_. In 1803 Southey became a joint lodger with Coleridge at Greta Hall, Keswick, of which in 1812 Southey became sole tenant and occupier.

In 1801 begins the period of Coleridge's life during which, in spite of the evidence of work shown in his compositions, he sank more and more under the dominion of opium, in which he may have first indulged at Cambridge. Few things are so sad to read as the letters in which he details the consequences of his transgression. He was occasionally seen in London during the first years of the century, and wherever he appeared he was the delight of admiring circles. He toured in Scotland with the Wordsworths in 1803, visited Malta in 1804, when for ten months he acted as secretary to the governor, and stayed nearly eight months at Naples and Rome in 1805-1806. In Rome he received a hint that his articles in the _Morning Post_ had been brought to Napoleon's notice, and he made the voyage from Leghorn in an American ship. On a visit to Somersetshire in 1807 he met De Quincey for the first time, and the younger man's admiration was shown by a gift of £300, "from an unknown friend." In 1809 he started a magazine called _The Friend_, which continued only for eight months. At the same time Coleridge began to contribute to the _Courier_. In 1808 he lectured at the Royal Institution, but with little success, and two years later he gave his lectures on Shakespeare and other poets. These lectures attracted great attention and were followed by two other series. In 1812 his income from the Wedgwoods was reduced, and he settled the remainder on his wife. His friends were generous in assisting him with money. Eventually Mackintosh obtained a grant of £100 a year for him in 1824 during the lifetime of George IV., as one of the royal associates of the Society of Literature, and at different times he received help principally from Stuart, the publisher, Poole, Sotheby, Sir George Beaumont, Byron and Wordsworth, while his children shared Southey's home at Keswick. But between 1812 and 1817 Coleridge made a good deal by his work, and was able to send money to his wife in addition to the annuity she received. The tragedy of _Remorse_ was produced at Drury Lane in 1813, and met with considerable success. Three years after this, having failed to conquer the opium habit, he determined to enter the family of Mr James Gillman, who lived at Highgate. The letter in which he discloses his misery to this kind and thoughtful man gives a real insight into his character. Under judicious treatment the hour of mastery at last arrived. The shore was reached, but the vessel had been miserably shattered in its passage through the rocks. For the rest of his life he hardly ever left his home at Highgate. During his residence there, _Christabel_, written many years before, and known to a favoured few, was first published in a volume with _Kubla Khan_ and the _Pains of Sleep_ in 1816. He read widely and wisely, in poetry, philosophy and divinity. In 1816 and the following year, he gave his _Lay Sermons_ to the world. _Sibylline Leaves_ appeared in 1817; the _Biographia Literaria_ and a revised edition of _The Friend_ soon followed. Seven years afterwards his most popular prose work--_The Aids to Reflection_--first appeared. His last publication, in 1830, was the work on _Church and State_. It was not till 1840 that his _Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit_, by far his most seminal work, was posthumously published. In 1833 he appeared at the meeting of the British Association at Cambridge, but he died in the following year (25th of July 1834), and was buried in the churchyard close to the house of Mr Gillman, where he had enjoyed every consolation which friendship and love could render. Coleridge died in the communion of the Church of England, of whose polity and teaching he had been for many years a loving admirer. An interesting letter to his god-child, written twelve days before his death, sums up his spiritual experience in a most touching form.

Of the extraordinary influence which he exercised in conversation it is impossible to speak fully here. Many of the most remarkable among the younger men of that period resorted to Highgate as to the shrine of an oracle, and although one or two disparaging judgments, such as that of Carlyle, have been recorded, there can be no doubt that since Samuel Johnson there had been no such power in England. His nephew, Henry Nelson Coleridge, gathered together some specimens of the _Table Talk_ of the few last years. But remarkable as these are for the breadth of sympathy and extent of reading disclosed, they will hardly convey the impressions furnished in a dramatic form, as in Boswell's great work. Four volumes of _Literary Remains_ were published after his death, and these, along with the chapters on the poetry of Wordsworth in the _Biographia Literaria_, may be said to exhibit the full range of Coleridge's power as a critic of poetry. In this region he stands supreme. With regard to the preface, which contains Wordsworth's theory, Coleridge has honestly expressed his dissent:--"With many parts of this preface, in the sense attributed to them, and which the words undoubtedly seem to authorize, I never concurred; but, on the contrary, objected to them as erroneous in principle, and contradictory (in appearance at least) both to other parts of the same preface, and to the author's own practice in the greater number of the poems themselves." This disclaimer of perfect agreement renders the remaining portion of what he says more valuable. Coleridge was in England the creator of that higher criticism which had already in Germany accomplished so much in the hands of Lessing and Goethe. It is enough to refer here to the fragmentary series of his Shakespearian criticisms, containing evidence of the truest insight, and a marvellous appreciation of the judicial "sanity" which raises the greatest name in literature far above even the highest of the poets who approached him.

As a poet Coleridge's own place is safe. His niche in the great gallery of English poets is secure. Of no one can it be more emphatically said that at his highest he was "of imagination all compact." He does not possess the fiery pulse and humaneness of Burns, but the exquisite perfection of his metre and the subtle alliance of his thought and expression must always secure for him the warmest admiration of true lovers of poetic art. In his early poems may be found traces of the fierce struggle of his youth. The most remarkable is the _Monody on the Death of Chatterton_ and the _Religious Musings_. In what may be called his second period, the ode entitled _France_, considered by Shelley the finest in the language, is most memorable. The whole soul of the poet is reflected in the _Ode to Dejection_. The well-known lines--

"O Lady! we receive but what we give, And in our life alone does nature live; Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud,"

with the passage which follows, contain more vividly, perhaps, than anything which Coleridge has written, the expression of the shaping and colouring function which he assigns, in the _Biographia Literaria_, to imagination. _Christabel_ and the _Ancient Mariner_ have so completely taken possession of the highest place, that it is needless to do more than allude to them. The supernatural has never received such treatment as in these two wonderful productions of his genius, and though the first of them remains a torso, it is the loveliest torso in the gallery of English literature. Although Coleridge had, for many years before his death, almost entirely forsaken poetry, the few fragments of work which remain, written in later years, show little trace of weakness, although they are wanting in the unearthly melody which imparts such a charm to _Kubla Khan_, _Love_ and _Youth and Age_. (G. D. B.; H. CH.)