Page images
PDF
EPUB

my fifteenth year, I had bewildered myself in metaphysics, and theological controversy. Nothing else pleased me. History, and particular facts, lost all interest in my mind. Poetry (though for a school-boy of that age, I was above par in English versification, and had already produced two or three compositions, which, I may venture to say, without reference to my age, were somewhat above mediocrity, and which had gained me more credit than the sound, good sense of my old master was at all pleased with), poetry itself, yea novels and romances became insipid to me. In my friendless wanderings on our leave-days (for I was an orphan, and had scarce any connections in London) highly was I delighted if any passenger, especially if he were dressed in black, would enter into conversation with me, for I soon found the means of directing it to my favourite subjects.

Of providence, fore-knowledge, will, and fate,
Fix'd fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end in wandering mazes lost.

"This preposterous pursuit was, beyond doubt, injurious, both to my natural powers and to the progress of my education. It would, perhaps, have been destructive, had it been continued; but from this I was auspiciously withdrawn, partly indeed, by an accidental introduction to an amiable family; chiefly, however, by the genial influence of a style of poetry, so tender, and yet so manly, so natural and real, and yet so dignified and harmonious, as the sonnets, &c. of Mr. Bowles. Well were it for me, perhaps, had I never relapsed into the same mental disease; if I had continued to pluck the flower and reap the harvest from the cultivated surface, instead of delving in the unwholesome quicksand mines of metaphysic depths. But if in after time I have sought a refuge from bodily pain and mismanaged sensibility in abstruse re

searches which exercised the strength and subtlety of the understanding, without awakening the feelings of the heart; still there was a long and blessed interval, during which my natural faculties were allowed to expand, and my original tendencies to develope themselves; my fancy, and the love of nature, and the sense of beauty in forms and sounds."-Biog. Lit., Vol. I. pp. 13-17.

He remained at Christ's Hospital school till he was nineteen, having outstripped all his school-fellows, and become Grecian or captain of the school, which entitled him to an exhibition to the University.

[ocr errors]

On the 7th of September, 1791, he removed from London to Jesus College, Cambridge. His conduct there appears to have been irregular and unacademic. He could not submit to the discipline necessary to obtain the literary honours of the University. Yet not so much so as has been represented, as the following reminiscence by a fellow collegian will show. In his Freshman's year he won the gold medal for the Greek Ode; and in his second year he became a candidate for the Craven Scholarship-a university scholarship, for which undergraduates, of any standing, are entitled to become candidates. This was in the winter of 1792. Out of sixteen or eighteen competitors, a selection of four was made to contend for the prize, and these four were Dr. Butler, now the Head Master of Shrewsbury; Dr. Keate, the late Head Master of Eton; Dr. Bethell, the present Bishop of Bangor; and Coleridge. Dr. Butler was the successful candidate. But pause a moment in Coleridge's history, and think of him at this period. Butler, Keate, Bethell, and Coleridge. How different the career of each in future life. O Coleridge, through what strange paths did the meteor of genius lead thee! Pause a moment, ye distinguished men! and deem it not the least

b

6

bright stop in your happier career, that you and Coleridge were once rivals, and for a moment running abreast in the pursuit of honour. I believe that his disappointment at this crisis damped his ardour. Unfortunately, at that period, there was no classical tripos; so that if a person did not obtain the classical medal he was thrown back among the totally undistinguised; and it was not allowable to become a candidate for the classical medal, unless you had taken a respectable degree in mathematics. Coleridge had not the least taste for these, and here his case was hopeless; so that he despaired of a fellowship, and gave up what in his heart he coveted-college honours, and a college life. When he quitted college, which he did before he had taken a degree, in a moment of mad-cap caprice-it was indeed an inauspicious hourIn an inauspicious hour I left the friendly cloisters and the happy grove of quiet, ever-honoured Jesus College, Cambridge.' Short but deep and heartfelt reminiscence. In a literary life of himself, this short memorial is all that Coleridge gives of his happy days at college. Say not that he did not obtain, and did not wish to obtain classical honours. He did obtain them, and was eagerly ambitious of them; but he did not bend to that discipline which was to qualify him for the whole course. He was very studious, but his reading was desultory and capricious. He took little exercise merely for the sake of exercise; but he was ready at any time to unbend his mind in conversation; and for the sake of this, his room (the ground-floor room, on the right hand of the staircase, facing the great gate) was a constant rendezvous for conversation-loving friends-I will not call them loungers, for they came not to kill time, but to enjoy it. What evenings have I spent in these rooms! What little suppers, or singings, as they were called have enjoyed

when Eschylus, and Plato, and Thucydides were pushed aside, with a pile of lexicons, &c., 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. Frend's Trial was then in progress. Pamphlets swarmed from the press. Coleridge had read them all; and in the evening, with our negus, we had them, viva voce, gloriously. O Coleridge! it was indeed an inauspicious hour when you quitted the friendly cloisters of Jesus. The epithet friendly, implied what you were thinking of, when you thought of college. To you, Coleridge, your contemporaries were indeed friendly, and I believe, that in your Literary Life you have passed over your college life so briefly, because you wished to banish from your view the 'visions of long-departed joy.' To enter into a description of your college days would have called up too sadly to your memory the hopes that once shone bright,' and made your heart sink."

6

He remained at Cambridge till October, 1794, when, in a luckless hour, he quitted it for ever, without cause assigned, and without taking his degree. The cause of his leaving Cambridge, has been variously stated. In the Beauties of the Anti Jacobin, he is said to have been disgraced at college for preaching Deism; this charge Coleridge repels with indignation, saying, so far is this from the truth, that he was thought a bigot by the advocates of French philosophy for his ardour for Christianity. The true causes appear to have been pecuniary difficulties, and a heavy disappointment in love for a young lady, sister of a fellow-collegian. These, combined drove him to despair; to dissipate which he set off * Gentleman's Magazine, Dec. 1834.

for London with a party of collegians, and passed a short time in the gaieties of the metropolis. On his return to Cambridge he remained but a few days, and then left it for ever. He again came to London, and after wandering about the streets in a state of mind approaching to frenzy, enlisted in the 15th Dragoons, under the name of Comberback. Of this singular incident in the life of our poet, the following authentic account, by the poet Bowles, appeared in The Times of August 13th, 1834.

[ocr errors]

Sir,-In your paper of the 5th instant, the following passage occurs, quoted from a literary journal (The Athenæum), respecting a singular incident in the early life of the late Mr. Coleridge.

"We have reason to believe that during the early part of his life he enlisted as a common soldier in the dragoons. Of course he did not remain long in the service. Perhaps his then democratical feelings made his officers willing to get rid of him; perhaps, which is a fact, he could not be taught to ride.'

[ocr errors]

6

Upon this singular fact, or what might be called, in the metaphysician's own language, psychological curiosity,' I trespass for a minute on your time and paper, as I am, perhaps, the only person now living who can explain all the circumstances from Mr. Coleridge's own mouth, with whom I became acquainted after a sonnet addressed to me in his poems; moreover, being intimate from our school days, and at Oxford, with the very officer in his regiment who alone procured his discharge, from whom also I heard the facts after Coleridge became known as a poet.

"The regiment was the 15th, Elliot's Light Dragoons; the officer was Nathaniel Ogle, eldest son of Dr. Newton Ogle, Dean of Winchester, and brother of the late Mrs. Sheridan; he was a scholar; and leaving Merton College,

[ocr errors]
« PreviousContinue »