ber, 1790,* taking leave of his school-fellows in the following sonnet : Farewell, parental scenes! a sad farewell! Mingled its tears with hers-my widow'd parent lorn. Poetical Works, vol. i. p. 31. * Entered at Jesus' College, Feb. 5th, 1791, at the age of 19. -College Books. 40 CHAPTER II. COLERIDGE'S FIRST ENTRY AT JESUS' COLLEGE. HIS SIMPLICITY AND WANT OF WORLDLY TACT. ANECDOTES AND DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS OF HIM DURING HIS RESIDENCE AT COLLEGE-INTIMACY WITH MIDDLETONWITH SOUTHEY-QUITS COLLEGE FOR BRISTOL. AT Cambridge, whither his reputation had travelled before him, high hopes and fair promises of success were entertained by his young friends and relations. He was considered by the "Blues, as they are familiarly termed, one from whom they were to derive great immediate honour, which for a short period, however, was deferred. Individual genius has a cycle of its own, and moves only in that path, or by the powers influencing it. Genius has been properly defined prospective, talent on the contrary retrospective: genius is creative, and lives much in the future, and in its passage or progress may make use of the labours of talent. 66 66 "I have been in the habit," says Coleridge, "of 'considering the qualities of intellect, the com parative eminence in which characterizes indi"viduals and even countries, under four kinds, "-genius, talent, sense, and cleverness. The "first I use in the sense of most general accep"tance, as the faculty which adds to the existing "stock of power and knowledge by new views, "new combinations, by discoveries not accidental, but anticipated, or resulting from anticipation.” -Friend, vol. iii. p. 85, edit. 1818.* Coleridge left school with great anticipation of success from all who knew him, for his character for scholarship, and extraordinary accounts of his genius had preceded him. He carried with him too the same childlike simplicity which he had from a boy, and which he retained even to his latest hours. His first step was to involve himself in much misery, and which followed him in after life, as the sequel will evidence. On his arrival at College he was accosted by a polite upholsterer, requesting to be per 66 * In his Literary Life, Mr. Coleridge has made the following observation regarding talent and genius:-" For the conceptions "of the mind may be so vivid and adequate, as to preclude that impulse to the realising of them, which is strongest and most rest"less in those who possess more than mere talent (or the faculty "of appropriating and applying the knowledge of others,) yet still "want something of the creative and self-sufficing power of abso“lute Genius. For this reason, therefore, they are men of com"manding genius. While the former rest content between thought "and reality, as it were in an intermundium of which their own "living spirit supplies the substance, and their imagination the ever-varying form; the latter must impress their preconceptions on the world without, in order to present them back to their "own view with the satisfying degree of clearness, distinctness, "and individuality."-Vol. i. p. 31. 66 66 mitted to furnish his rooms. The next question was, "How would you like to have them furnished?" The answer was prompt and innocent enough, "Just as you please, Sir!"-thinking the individual employed by the College. The rooms were therefore furnished according to the taste of the artizan, and the bill presented to the astonished Coleridge. Debt was to him at all times a thing he most dreaded, and he never had the courage to face it. I once, and once only, witnessed a painful scene of this kind, which occurred from mistaking a letter on ordinary business for an application for money.* Thirty years afterwards, I heard that these College debts were about one hundred pounds! Under one hundred pounds I believe to have been the amount of his sinnings; but report exceeded this to something which might have taxed his character beyond imprudence, or mere want of thought. Had he, in addition to his father's simplicity, possessed the worldly circumspection of his mother, he might have avoided these and many other vexations; but he went to the University wholly unprepared for a College life, having hitherto chiefly existed in his own in In consequence of various reports traducing Coleridge's good name, I have thought it an act of justice due to his character, to notice several mistatements here and elsewhere, which I should otherwise have gladly passed over. ward being, and in his poetical imagination, on which he had fed. But to proceed. Coleridge's own account is, that while Middleton, afterwards Bishop of Calcutta, remained at Pembroke, he "worked with "him and was industrious, read hard, and obtained "the prize for the Greek Ode,"* &c. It has been stated, that he was locked up in his room to write this Ode; but this is not the fact. Many stories were afloat, and many exaggerations were circulated and believed, of his great want of attention to College discipline, and of perseverance in his studies, and every failure, or apparent failure, was attributed to these causes. Often has he repeated the following story of Middleton, and perhaps this story gave birth to the report. They had agreed to read together in the evening, and were not to hold any conversation. Coleridge went to Pembroke and found Middleton intent on his book, having on a long pair of boots reaching to the knees, and beside him, on a chair, next to the one he was sitting on, a pistol. Coleridge had * Coleridge was always most ready to pass a censure on what appeared to him a defect in his own composition, of which the following is a proof:-In his introductory remarks to this Greek Ode, printed in the Sibylline Leaves, he observes :-"The Slaves "in the West Indies consider Death as a passport to their native 66 country. This sentiment is expressed in the introduction to the "Greek Ode on the Slave Trade, of which the Ideas are better than "the language in which they are conveyed."-Certainly this is taking no merit to himself, although the Ode obtained the Prize. |