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Coleridge (SAMUEL TAYLOR an English poet)

SAMUEL TAYLOR, an English poet and philosopher; born in Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire, Oct. 21, 1772. Sent to school at Christ's Church Hospital, he was noted for a dreamy abstracted manner, though he made considerable progress in classical studies. From Christ's Church he went with a scholarship to Jesus College, Cambridge.

His ultra-radical and rationalistic opinions made the idea of academic preferment hopeless, and perhaps to escape the difficulties gathering about his future, Coleridge suddenly quitted Cambridge and enlisted in the 15th Dragoons. Rescued by his friends from this position, he took up his residence at Bristol with Robert Southey, who had just been obliged to quit Oxford for his Unitarian opinions, and Lovell, a young Quaker.

The three conceived the project of emigrating to America, and establishing a pantisocracy, as they termed it, or community in which all should be equal, on the banks of the Susquehanna. This scheme, however, never became anything more than a theory, and was finally disposed of when, in 1795, the three friends married three sisters, the Misses Fricket of Bristol. Coleridge about this COLERIDGE time started a periodical, the "Watchman," which did not live beyond the ninth number.

In 1796 he took a cottage at Nether Stowey, in Somersetshire, where, supported by the companionship of Wordsworth, he wrote much of his best poetry, in particular the "Ancient Mariner" and the first part of "Christabel." While residing at Nether Stowey he used to officiate in a Unitarian chapel at Taunton. An annuity bestowed on him by some friends (the Wedgewoods) furnished him with the means of making a tour to Germany, where he studied at the University of Göttingen. In 1800 he SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE returned to England and took up his residence beside Southey at Keswick, while Wordsworth lived at Grasmere in the same neighborhood. About 1804 Coleridge went to Malta to re-establish his health, seriously impaired by opiumeating. In 1806 he returned to England, and after 10 years of somewhat desultory literary work as lecturer, contributor to periodicals, etc., Coleridge in a way took refuge in the house of his friend Mr. Gillman at Highgate, London. Of the many years he spent here nothing remains but the "Table Talk."

He died July 25, 1834. The dreamy and transcendental character of Coleridge's poetry eminently exhibits the man. As a critic, tic, especially of Shakespeare, his work is of the highest rank. Coleridge's COLERIDGE-TAYLOR of the bowels. Purgatives, therefore, should be given combined with sedatives. (incomplete), tines. Colic almost always ends in re- Khan," covery, preceded by free evacuation poetical works include "The Ancient tions of the muscular coat of the intes- Mariner," "Cristabel" (incomplete), "Remorse," a tragedy; "Kubla Khan," a translation of Schiller's "Wallenstein," A suppository or hypodermic injection Mariner," "Cristabel" "Remorse," a tragedy; "Kubla Khan," a translation of Schiller's "Wallenstein," of the bowels. Purgatives, therefore, etc. His prose works, "Biographia Lit- should be given combined with sedatives. eraria," "The Friend," "The Statesman's also useful.

Constitution of Church and State," etc.

Posthumously were published specimens of his "Table Talk," "Literary Remains," etc.