Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Project Gutenberg's The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, by James
Gillman Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to
check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or
redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how
the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since
1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of
Volunteers!*****
Title: The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1838
Author: James Gillman
Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8957] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on August 30,
2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE
OF COLERIDGE ***

Produced by Clytie Siddall, Stan Goodman, and Distributed
Proofreaders

THE LIFE
OF
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

BY JAMES GILLMAN

1838

'... But some to higher hopes Were destined; some within a finer mould
Were wrought, and temper'd with a purer flame: To these the Sire
Omnipotent unfolds The world's harmonious volume, there to read The
transcript of himself ....'

TO JOSEPH HENRY GREEN, F.R.S.
PROFESSOR OF ANATOMY OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY, ETC.
ETC.
THE HONOURED FAITHFUL AND BELOVED FRIEND OF
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE,
THESE VOLUMES
ARE MOST RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY
INSCRIBED.

PREFACE.
The more frequently we read and contemplate the lives of those
eminent men so beautifully traced by the amiable Izaak Walton, the
more we are impressed with the sweetness and simplicity of the work.
Walton was a man of genius--of simple calling and more simple habits,

though best known perhaps by his book on Angling; yet in the scarcely
less attractive pages of his biographies, like the flowing of the gentle
stream on which he sometimes cast his line, to practise "the all of
treachery he ever learnt," he leads the delighted reader imperceptibly
on, charmed with the natural beauty of his sentiments, and the
unaffected ease and simplicity of his style.
In his preface to the Sermons of (that pious poet and divine,) Dr. Donne,
so much may be found applicable to the great and good man whose life
the author is now writing, that he hopes to be pardoned for quoting
from one so much more able to delineate rare virtues and high
endowments: "And if he shall now be demanded, as once Pompey's
poor bondman was, who art thou that alone hast the honour to bury the
body of Pompey the great?" so who is he who would thus erect a
funeral pile to the memory of the honoured dead? ...
With the writer of this work, during the latter twenty years of his life,
Coleridge had been domesticated; and his intimate knowledge of that
illustrious character induces him to hope that his present undertaking,
"however imperfectly it may set forth the memory he fain would
honour," will yet not be considered presumptuous; inasmuch as he has
had an opportunity of bringing together facts and anecdotes, with
various memoranda never before published, some of which will be
found to have much of deep interest, of piety and of loveliness.
At the same time he has also been desirous of interweaving such
information as he has been enabled to collect from the early friends of
Coleridge, as well as from those of his after-life. Thus, he trusts, he has
had the means of giving, with truth and correctness, a faithful
portraiture of one whom he so dearly loved, so highly prized. Still he
feels that from various causes, he has laboured under many and great
difficulties.
First, he never contemplated writing this Memoir, nor would he have
made the attempt, had it not been urged on him as a duty by friends,
whom Coleridge himself most respected and honoured; they, "not
doubting that his intimate knowledge of the author, and dear love to his
memory, might make his diligence useful."
Secondly, the duties of a laborious profession, rendered still more
arduous by indifferent health--added to many sorrows, and leisure (if
such it might be called,) which permitted only occasional attention to

the subject--and was liable to frequent interruptions; will, he flatters
himself, give him a claim to the candour and kindness of his readers.
And if Coleridge's