COLERIDGE. 137 COLERIDGE. mains (London, lS3(i;!!l) ; Coiifr/isioiis of an In- quirin-g tijiirit (il). 1S4U. with notes by Sara Cole- ridge, 1S4!)) ; and published TiihU Talk (1835), notes whieh he had collected during several suc- cessive years, and gathered into a volume. His sou, Herbert C'oLERiuiiE ( 1830-01 ) , born at Hauip- stead, was a philologist. He was appointed sec- retary of a special committee of the Philological Society for the purpose of collecting material for a new English dictionary. This was the origin of the dictionary published by the Clarendon Press, under the editorshij) of Dr. .J. A. H. Murray. COLERIDGE, Jonx Dike, Baron (1820-04). An English jurist, nephew of Samuel Taylor Cole- ridge. He was born in Loudon ; graduated at Oxford in 1842 ; was called to the bar in 1846, and soon became prominent in his profession. He was a member of the House of Connnons from 18(j.> to 1873; was knighted in ISliS. became Attorney-Cieneral in 1871, was appointed Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas in 1873, and in the same year was raised to the peerage as Baron Coleridge of Ottery Saint Mary. On the death of Sir Alexander Cockburn in 1880, he succeeded him as Lord Chief -Justice of England. In 1883 he visited the United States and was cordially received, especially by the bench and bar. COLERIDGE, Sir .ToHX Taylor (1790-1870). An Englisli judge and author, a nephew of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He was born at Tiverton; graduated at Oxford in 1812, was called to the bar in 1819. and was made a judge of the King's Bench in 1835 and a Privy Coun- cilor in 1858. On the retirement of Gifford in 1834, he became for a short period editor of the Qunr- terUi Reviexr. He published an annotated edition of Blackstone's Commentaries (1825). and a Life of Kehle (1809). He was a friend of the latter, as well as of Wordsworth, Pusey, and Newman. COLERIDGE, SamitsL Tatxor (1772-1834). An Englisli poet, philosopher, and critic. He was born at Ottery Saint !Mary, Devonshire, and educated at Christ's Hospital, where Charles Lamb was a school-fellow. He was an omnivorous reader, even as a boy, and gaining access to a li- brary through a chance acquaintance, he read "right through the catalogue." He soon gained a remarkable knowledge of Greek, and before he was fifteen plunged boldly into the sea of metaphysics. The sonnets of W. L. Bowles, which fell into his hands at this time, gave him his first impulse toward poetry. In 1791 he entered .Jesus College, Cambridge. At the university his whole mind was given to classics, and he obtained a prize for a Greek ode. During his second year there, in a fit of despondency, he went up to London and en- listed in the Fifteenth Dragoons, under the name of Silas Tomkyn Coniberback, or Cumberbatch — remaining faithful to the initials S. T. C, which were afterwards to be so familiar among the readers of his period. His identity was dis- covered through an accident, and his friends intervened to procure his discbarge. He re- turned to Cambridge in 1794. but never took a degree. During a visit to Oxford he became acquainted with Southey. and in the same year, after a trip through Wales, visited him at Bris- tol. The two young men and some of their friends now formed a scheme for emigrating to the United States, where, on the banks of the Susquehanna (the melody of the name seems to have been one of tlu? inducements), they were to found a colony where the laws of equality and fraternity were to prevail, and the (Jolden Age was to be ushered in. They, with Words- worth and other generiuis youths of tin' time, were deeply impressed wiUi the |)roclamation of liberal principles in the French Kevolulion, though they afterwards drew back, alarmed by its excesses, some into extreme Toryism. The establishment of their ideal 'Pantisoeracy' was delayed by the lack of capital; and a year or two later the dream faded away. At Bristol, Coleridge became acquainted with his future wife, Sara Frieker, to w'hose sister Southey was engaged. Joseph Cottle, a bookseller in Bristol, had ottered Coleridge thirty guineas for a volume of his poems, and jiromiscd him a guinea and a half for every hundred lines he should write after finishing it. On this prospect he married in October, 1795, and settled in a cottage at CTevedon. After many delays, his volume of Juvenile Poems appeared in April, 1796. His earlier work is all in the stereotyped style of the eighteenth century, and shows little trace of the powers which were to make him famous. In the early part of 1790 he began the publication of a weekly review, the Watchman, devoted to literature and politics, but met with little success and abandoned the undertaking after the tenth issue. In the winter of 1790 he settled at Xether Stowey, near Bridgewater. whither Wordsworth removed in the following year. He was freed from the material cares of life by the generosity of Charles Lloyd, the son of a IMrmingham banker, who had become a de- voted disciple of Coleridge, and Thomas Poole, who conferred on him a small annuity. At Xether Stowey, inspired perhaps partly by the beautiful scenery, and still more by the strength- ening companionship of his friend, he composed his finest poems, including the "Ancient Jlariner," and the first part of "Christabel," and "Kubla Khan," though the two latter were not published until eighteen years afterwards. The two authors had many discussions on the principles of their art. which resulted in the pul)lication. in 1798. of their epoch-making Lyrieal Ballads. This little book, published anonymously, though a total failure at the time, was decisive in its influence on the future of nineteenth-century poetry, free- ing it finally from the conventional trammels which had long bound it. The work of the two poets is singularly complementary, Coleridge treating supernatural subjects in such a way as to give a strong impression of their reality, while Wordsworth so handled the simplest themes as to disclose unsuspected elements of mytery and awe. Coleridge's contribution to the Ba/inrfs com- prised the Ancient Mariner, the yifihtingale. anil two scenes from his play Osorio. In the edition of ISOO there was added Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie. Coleridge, who had become a Unitarian at Cambridge, preached frequently during this period in the chapels of that body, and had thoughts of becoming a regular minister. To deliver him from this necessity, two brothers named Wedgvood settled on him an annuity of £150. and this enabled him to carry out the long-cherished plan of going to Germany to study. In September. 1798. he sailed for Ham- burg with Wordsworth, and after acquiring the language went to Gottingen, remaining, in all,
