to which he became more or less a slave for the remainder of his life. From the vinter of 1796 to July 1800 the home of the Coleridges was Nether Stowey, a little remote town at the head of the Quantocks, in Somerset. Here, as has been said, he was close to Wordsworth, whom he had visited at Racedown in June, and who settled with his sister at Alfoxden in July 1797. At Stowey many-indeed, almost all-of Coleridge's best poems were composed. In 1798 he published his Fears in Solitude, and France, and in September of that year there appeared the famous anonymous volume of Lyrical Ballads. A day or two later Coleridge and Wordsworth sailed for Germany, where the former remained, wandering about, until June 1799, when he returned to Stowey. In 1800 he published his version of Wallenstein, and went to live with Wordsworth in the Lakes, at Dove Cottage. From July 24, 1800, to 1804, Greta Hall, at Keswick, was the residence of the Coleridges, although S. T. C., being now in a very depressed and morbid condition of mind and body, was seldom to be found there. In April 1804 he started alone for Malta, where he was appointed to act as private secretary to the Governor, Sir Alexander Ball. He visited Sicily, Naples, and Rome, and did not return to England until August 1806, when remorse for his neglect of his family and of his own interests justified him in describing himself as "ill, penniless, and worse than homeless." Coleridge, however, was received at Greta Hall with great indulgence, but it was soon found necessary to arrange a separation between him and his wife, followed, however, by a partial reconciliation. With one person, however, he had remained so long on good terms, that his quarrel with Wordsworth in 1810 seemed to mark the lowest stage of his degradation. Coleridge now occupied himself with a philosophical journal called The Friend, "an endless preface to an imaginary work." He came up to London, and lived obscurely, keeping up no correspondence with his family and friends in Cumberland. In 1812 he delivered his first series of "Lectures on Shakespeare," which were brilliantly attended; in the autumn he returned to Greta Hall, and became reconciled with Wordsworth. Byron, who had attended the lectures, with great courtesy induced the managers of the new Drury Lane to accept Coleridge's tragedy of Remorse. It was produced early in 1813, and Coleridge received £400, the only occasion during his whole life when he earned a substantial sum of money with his pen. This is perhaps the place at which to remark that Coleridge's life had been made possible only by the generosity of Josiah Wedgwood, who had paid him a pension of 150 a year since 1798. Of this £75 was arbitrarily withdrawn in 1812, and his wife and family would h.ve been sharply pinched but for the opportune S. T. Coleridge From an original Drawing by C. R. Leslie in the possession of E. H. Coleridge, Esq. success of Remorse. Coleridge now sank very low under the dominion of laudanum. In his delirious self-abasement he desired, in 1814, to be placed in a private madhouse. He promised to go back with Southey to Greta Hall, but he failed to do so, and finally abandoned his wife and children to Southey's care. 1814 to 1816 he was living at Calne in Wilts. He went up to London in March of that year, bringing with him several important MSS. It was now that Charles Lamb described him as "an archangel-a little damaged." His friends recommended that he should submit himself to the charge of a physician, Mr. Gillman, in whose house at Highgate he became a boarder in April 1816. Coleridge now published his Christabel, Kubla Khan, The Pains of Sleep, a slender volume of exquisite poetry, written many years before. The resu ts of the retirement at Highgate were at first favourable: Coleridge managed to do a good deal of work. He published the Biographia Literaria, Sibylline Leaves, and Zapolya, all in 1817. But even lectures now ceased to be a resource. "From literature," he wrote in 1818, "I cannot gain even bread," for his publisher became bankrupt, owing him his returns on all his recent books. In 1820 his eldest son, Hartley, forfeited his fellowship at Oriel College, Oxford, mainly on the ground of intemperance; this last very heavy affliction bowed S. T. Coleridge to the ground, and threw him back upon excessive laudanum. The next few years were sad and almost empty, but in 1825 he published Aids to Reflection, and he received until the death of George III. a royal annuity of Lico a year, which prevented his having to scribble for bread Carlyle now described him as "a sage escaped from the inanity of life's battle," and drew the celebrated portrait beginning, "Coleridge sat on the brow of HighHe increased in bodily weakness, but with a mind always powerful and more and more serene. He took a tour up the Rhine, in the charge of the Wordsworths, in 1828. In the winter of 1833 he wrote his beautiful Epitaph for S. T. C., and prepared himself for death. It came painlessly and in sleep on the morning of the 25th of July 1834. Mrs. S. T. Coleridge From a Miniature in the possession of Ernest Hartley Coleridge, Esq. FROM "FRANCE-AN ODE." Ye Clouds that far above me float and pause, Ye Woods! that listen to the night-birds singing, My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound, By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound! O ye loud Waves! and O ye Forests high! And O ye Clouds that far above me soared! Thou rising Sun ! thou blue rejoicing Sky! Yea, everything that is and will be free! Bear witness for me, wheresoe'er ye be, With what deep worship I have still adored The spirit of divinest Liberty. FROM "YOUTH AND AGE.” Flowers are lovely! Love is flower-like; O! the joys, that came down shower-like, Ere I was old? Ah, woful Ere, Which tells me, Youth's no longer here! Dew-drops are the gems of morning, That only serves to make us grieve |