Samuel Taylor Coleridge

His brother Luke died in 1790 and his only sister Ann in 1791, inspiring Colleridge to write "Monody," one of his first poems, in which he likens himself to Thomas Chatterton. Samuel was very ill around this time and probably took laudanum for the illness, thus beginning his lifelong opium addiction. He went to Cambridge in 1791, poor in spite of some scholarships, and rapidly worked himself into debt with opium, alcohol, and women. He had started to hope for poetic fame, but by 1793, he owed about £150 and was desparate. So he joined the army.

His family was irate when they finally found out. When he enlisted he was asked his name. He hesitated, but saw the name Comberback over a shop door near Westminster-bridge, and instantly said his name was Silas Tomkyn Comberback. From the Rev. Mr. Bowles, "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, he entered this regiment a cornet. Some years afterwards, I believe he was then captain of Coleridge's troop, going into the stables, at Reading, he remarked, written on the white wall, under one of the saddles, in large pencil characters, the following sentence in Latin:
'Eheu! quam infortunii miserrimum est fuisse felicem!'
Being struck with the circumstance, and himself a scholar, Captain Ogle inquired of a soldier whether he knew to whom the saddle belonged. 'Please your honor, to Comberback,' answered the dragoon. 'Comberback!' said the captain,'send him to me.' Comberback presented himself, with the inside of his hand in front of his cap. His officer mildly said, 'Comberback, did you write the Latin sentence which I have just read under your saddle?' 'Please your honor,' answered the soldier, 'I wrote it.' 'Then my lad, you are not what you appear to be. I shall speak to the commanding officer, and you may depend upon my speaking as a friend.' The commanding officer, I think, was General Churchill. Comberback was examined, and it was found out, that having left Jesus College, Cambridge, and being in London without resources, he had enlisted in this regiment. He was soon discharged,-- not from his democratical feelings, for whatever those feelings might be, as a soldier he was remarkably orderly and obedient, though he could not rub down his own horse. He was discharged from respect to his friends and station." - Or as another source has it, discharged on supposed insanity.

Soon after this he was introduced to Southey and Lovell, when the three, with an enthusiastic notion of reforming the political world, proceeded to put their intentions into effect. They began planning Pantisocracy, their own socio-political movement. They commenced at Bristol, where Coleridge delivered lectures on the approaching happiness of the human race, by means of republicanism. These created great a sensation, and were received with great applause; but on his leaving Bristol for other places, the number of his auditors diminished, nor did his writings in his journal, called The Watchman, attract much notice.

Southey was already engaged to a woman named Edith Fricker, and introduced Col to her sister Sara. Within a few weeks, Col was willing to marry Sara, which he did in October of 1795. Robert and Col had started arguing over Pantisocracy, and finally Robert agreed to his family's wish that he become a lawyer instead of emigrating. Robert's best gift to posterity was the fact that he introduced Col to William Wordsworth. It was Col's misfortune that he met Sara Hutchinson through William, who would eventually marry Sara H.'s sister. Col fell in love with this Sara almost immediately, putting an extra strain on an already iffy marriage.

With his marriage, Col tried very hard to become responsible. He scraped together a fairly respectable income of £120 per year, through tutoring and gifts from his admirers. His Poems, published in 1797, was well-received and it looked like he was on the fast track to fame. He already had one son, David Hartley Coleridge, born September 1796, followed by Berkeley Coleridge in May 1798. In 1798, the famous Lyrical Ballads was published, the collaboration between Col and William which pretty much created the Romantic movement. The authors didn't realize this at the time, of course; they went to Germany with William's sister Dorothy. Col's son Berkeley died while he was away; the baby had been given the brand-new smallpox vaccination and died of a reaction to it. Col, as was typical of him, returned home slowly so as not to have to deal openly with Berkeley's death, and got little work done.

After a string of illnesses brought on by the damp climate of the Lake Country, Col turned to newspaper work in 1801 to try and recover financially. He was convinced he would die soon, and insured his life shortly after the birth of his daughter Sara in 1802. In 1804, he left for Malta in hopes of a cure from the warm climate. Here, he spied a bit for his majesty, who wanted Malta as a British port, though officially Col was the temporary Public Secretary. Col had also hoped for a release from his addiction, but this was not to be. He returned to England in 1806, and, plucking up his courage, asked for a legal separation from his wife. Though Sara was furious, the separation happened. Col's paranoia and mood swings, brought on by the continual opium use, were getting worse, and he was hardly capable of sustained work. His freindship with William was all but nonexistent, and Col was again writing newspaper articles to earn a living, further suppplemented by various lecture courses. Most of his remaining work was non-fiction, except for a play or two, and included such works as Biographia Literaria(1817), a work on nearly everything.

He was still haunted by his failure to break free from opium, however, and to this end he moved into the house of an apothecary named James Gillman, asking Gillman to help cut back his opium dose. Like all addicts, though, Col quickly had an alternate supply arranged. Col had apparently separated from his children as well; his friends and relatives had to take up a collection to send Hartley to school, and at one point, he went 8 years without seeing his children. His London friends, though, loved his conversational skills and continually sought him out. His nephew, Henry Nelson Coleridge, published a collection of Col's conversation called Table Talk, and Col himself was not only publishing new works, like Aids to Reflection(1825), but was reprinting the old in hopes of finally making a real financial contribution to his family. By 1830, the reviews of his work were becoming more and more positive, and he was generally hailed as the finest critic of his day. He still couldn't reach financial security, however; a government reorganization lost him his pension from the Royal Society of Literature, his one remaining reliable source of income. He died, surprisingly peacefully, on 25 July 1834, leaving only books and manuscripts behind.

Though he's really only known today for his poetry, though Col's contributions to the field of criticism and our language were many. For instance, he not only coined the word 'selfless,' he introduced the word 'aesthetic' to the English language. Charles Lamb wrote in description of Col in 1817: "his face when he repeats his verses hath its ancient glory, an Arch angel a little damaged." Col summed himself up this way, in the epitaph he wrote for himself:

Beneath this sod
A Poet lies; or that which once was he.
O lift one thought in prayer for S.T.C.
That he, who many a year with toil of breath,
Found Death in Life, may here find Life in Death.

This following was produced by his friends, at Highgate New Church, (Col was reinterred in St. Michael's Church in 1961, with another inscription, 'Stop, Christian passer-by,' etc.)

Sacred to the Memory of
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE,
'Poet, Philosopher, Theologian.
This truly great and good man resided for
The last nineteen years of his life,
In this Hamlet.
He quitted 'the body of his death,'
July 25th, 1834,
In the sixty-second year of his age.
Of his profound learning and discursive genius,
His literary works are an imperishable record.
To his private worth,
His social and Christian virtues,
JAMES AND ANN GILLMAN,
The friends with whom he resided,
During the above period, dedicate this tablet
Under the pressure of a long
And most painful disease,
His disposition was unalterably sweet and angelic.
He was an ever-enduring, ever-loving friend,
The gentlest and kindest teacher,
The most engaging home companion.
'O framed for calmer times and nobler hearts,
O studious poet, eloquent for truth!
Philosopher contemning wealth and death,
Yet docile, child-like, full of life and love.'
HERE,
On this monumental stone, thy friends inscribe thy worth.
Reader! for the world mourn.
A Light has passed away from the earth!
But for this pious and exalted Christian,
'Rejoice, and again I say unto you, rejoice!'
Ubi
Thesaurus
ibi
Cor.
S. T. C.