whether he had any business there. “Sir,” said Coleridge, “for what most other persons come, to be made a soldier.” “Do you think,” said the general, “you can run a Frenchman through the body?” “I do not know,” replied Coleridge, “as I never tried, but I’ll let a Frenchman run me through the body before I’ll run away.” “That will do,” said the general; and Coleridge was turned into the ranks.
The same amiable and benevolent conduct which was so interwoven in his nature, soon made him friends, and his new comrades vied with each other in their endeavours to be useful to him; and being, as before described, rather helpless, he required the assistance of his fellow-soldiers. They cleaned his horse, attended particularly to its heels, and to the accoutrements. At this time he frequently complained of a pain at the pit of his stomach, accompanied with sickness, which totally prevented his stooping, and in consequence he could never arrive at the power of bending his body to rub the heels of his horse, which alone was sufficient to make him dependent on his comrades; but it should be observed that he on his part was ever willing to assist them by being their amanuensis when one was required, and wrote all their letters to their sweethearts and wives.
It appears that he never advanced beyond the awkward squad, and that the drill-sergeant had little hope of his progress from the necessary warnings he gave to the rest of the troop, even to this same squad to which he belonged; and, though his awkward manoeuvres were well understood, the sergeant would vociferously exclaim, “Take care of that Comberbach, take care of him, for he will ride over you,” and other such complimentary warnings. From the notice that one of his officers took of him, he excited, for a short time, the jealousy of some of his companions. When in the street, he walked behind this officer as an orderly, but when out of town they walked abreast, and his comrades not understanding how a soldier in the awkward squad merited this distinction, thought it a neglect of themselves, which, for the time, produced some additional discomfort to Coleridge.
I believe this officer to have been Capt. Ogle, who I think visited him in after life at Highgate. It seems that his attention had been drawn to Coleridge in consequence of discovering the following sentence in the stables, written in pencil, “Eheu! quam infortunii miserrimum est fuisse felicem!” but his more immediate discovery arose from a young man who had left Cambridge for the army, and in his road through Reading to join his regiment, met Coleridge in the street in his Dragoon’s dress, who was about to pass him, but, said he,
“No, Coleridge, this will not do, we have been seeking you these six months; I must and will converse with you, and have no hesitation in declaring that I shall immediately inform your friends that I have found you.”
This led to Coleridge’s return to Cambridge. The same story is also related and made the ground work of some scene in a novel, without the names, by his early friend, Charles Lloyd — he who was included by Canning in the Anti-jacobin with Coleridge, Mr. Southey, and Lamb. He returned to Cambridge, but did not long remain there; and quitted it without taking a degree.
It has been observed, that men of genius move in orbits of their own; and seem deprived of that free will which permits the mere man of talent steadily to pursue the beaten path. Coleridge had very early pictured to himself many of the advantages of mechanical employment, its immunities and exemptions from the sufferings consequent on the laborious exercise of ‘thought’; but yet he never shrank from the task apparently allotted to him; he was made to soar and not to creep; even as a young man, his acquirements were far beyond the age in which he lived. With his amiable qualities, and early love of domestic life, he would have been well content to tread an humbler path, but it was otherwise ordained!
However excellent for the many, the system adopted by our universities was ill suited for a mind like Coleridge’s, and there were some who felt that a College routine was not the kind of education which would best evolve, cultivate, and bring into training powers so ‘unique’. It has been repeated, ‘ad nauseam’, that great minds will not descend to the industrious accumulation of those acquirements best suited to fit them for independence. To say that Coleridge would not ‘condescend’ would be a calumny, — nay, when his health permitted, he would drudge and work more laboriously at some of the mechanical parts of literature, than any man I ever knew. To speak detractingly of great and good men is frequently the result of malice combined with egotism. Though it would be injustice not to admit that he has had warm admirers and deeply affectionate friends, it is much to be regretted that there have been persons who have strangely maligned Coleridge, and who have attributed to him vices of which he was innocent. Had these vices existed, they would not have found any unfair extenuation in this memoir, nor would they have been passed over without notice. In answer to calumnies at that time in circulation, (and with sorrow and just indignation it is added that these reports originated with some who called themselves his friends; but, alas! most false and hypocritical!) the following minute from his notes is quoted:
“My academic adventures and indiscretions must have seemed unpardonable sins,” that is, as they were related by the tale-bearers and gossips of the day. “I mention these,” adds he, “because the only immoralities that can without the grossest slander be laid to my charge, were all comprised within the space of the last two years of my College life. As I went to Cambridge innocent, so I dare affirm, from the first week of my acquaintance with Robert Southey to this hour, Southey himself cannot stand more clear of all intention at violations of the moral law: but, in fact, even during my career at Jesus, the heaviest of my offences consisted in the folly of assuming the show of vices, from which I was all but free, and which in the comparatively few exceptions left loathing and self-disgust on my mind. Were I, indeed, to fix on that week of my existence, in which my moral being would have presented to a pitying guardian angel the most interesting spectacle, it would be that very week in London, in which I was believed by my family to have abandoned myself to debauchery of all kinds, and ‘thus’ to have involved myself in disreputable pecuniary embarrassments. God knows, so intense was my mental anguish, that during the whole time I was physically incapable even of a ‘desire’. My whole body seemed stunned and insensate, from excess of inward suffering — my debts were the ‘cause’, not the effect; but that I know there can be no substitute for a father, I should say, — surely, surely, the innocence of my whole ‘pre’ and ‘post’ academic life, my early distinction, and even the fact, that my Cambridge extravagations did not lose me, nor cool for me, the esteem and regard of a single fellow collegiate, might have obtained an amnesty from worse transgressions.”
Coleridge, who had desponded at the fate of Middleton, after the unsuccessful attempts he made to obtain a fellowship, lost all hope of procuring an income from the college, and as, through the instrumentality of Frend, with whom an intimacy had now taken place, he had been converted to what in these days is called Unitarianism, he was too conscientious to take orders and enter the Established Church. These circumstances opened to him new views, and effected a complete change in his course of life, and thus his former objects and plans were set aside. The friendship between Coleridge and Southey having greatly increased, and still continuing to increase, and Coleridge being easily led by the affection of those he loved, for which he had a constant yearning, determined to follow literature in future life as a profession, that appearing to him the only source of obtaining an honourable livelihood.
Here there was no “mad caprice,” but he calmly decided to leave Cambridge and join Southey in his plans for the future, and commence the profession on which they had mutually agreed. He went to Oxford to visit Mr. Southey, and thence to Wales, and thence to Bristol (Mr. Southey’s native place), at which city they conjointly commenced their career in authorship, and for the first few months shared the same room.
The times were still tumultuous; for although the great hurricane of the revolution ceased abroad, yet, like mighty waters that had been once agitated by a storm, tranquillity was not restored, nor was there any prospect of an immediate calm. The ‘Habeas Corpus’ act was at this time suspended, and the minister of that day, Mr. Pitt, had struck the panic of property among the wealthy and affluent. During the time of danger, when surrounded
