Samuel Taylor Coleridge - His Detailed Time Line (version v) | |||||||||
by Keith A. Wilson | |||||||||
If
you are a student of Coleridge or a researcher, I hope you find the following
time line informative and in some way assists you in your endevors. Should you find any errors, etc. I would
appreciate your feed back. this
document is not a complete source of dates for Coleridge's works but a
"where was he" on certain dates in his life. I'll leave it up to others to cite the dates
for his poetry, etc. The following information especially the source quotes are sometimes contradictory (see September 7, 1803). I have not researched these contradictions but have merely cited these quotes based on the research of the various authors. I leave it up to the reader of this document to clear up any contradiction detected, however, if you are able to do so, I would be grateful if you would let me know via my email address on the main page of this web site. This document is a work in progress and will be added too over time so in other words it is not complete and may never be given the number of "Coleridge" histories to be read. Email Me or go to my Home Page |
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The source footnotes (eg fn1) can be found at the bottom of this page. | |||||||||
AGE | DATE | EVENT | SOURCE and INFORMATION | ||||||
October 21, 1772 | Samuel
Taylor Coleridge born at Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire, England |
Public domain | |||||||
1 | August 12, 1774 | Robert Southey born | Public
domain, born at Wine Street, Bristol, Gloucester |
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5 | 1778 | STC enters grammar school | fn1, p. xiii " 'In
this year (1778) I was admitted into the Grammar School, and soon outstripped
all of my age.' " |
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6 | 1779 | Coleridge's first year at King's School | fn2, p. 14 "In his
first year at the King's School (1779) an epidemic swept through the pupils,
and both Sam and George lay dangerously ill isolated at the top of the School
House with 'putrid fever'. This is the
first time that Coleridge experienced the terrible nightmares that returned
to him intermittently for the rest of his life, dreams so vivid and
overmastering that he would wake whole households at Stowery, at Grasmere,
and even at Highgate with his screams, and which are the subject - and indeed
the inspiration - of many poems." |
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October 1779 | Coleridge fights with brother Frank and runs away | fn2, p. 16 "Sam,
typically demanding, had asked his mother to prepare him some special sliced
cheese for toasting. Frank stole in,
and minced it up 'to disappoint the favourite', and a violent fight
ensued." "Sam fled down
through the gardens of the Chanter's House to his old friend the
river..." where he spent the night on the banks of the River Otter to be
rescued the next day by Sir Stafford Northcote. ed note: the biographies are not clear if this incident took place before or after Sam's birth date of October 21st. |
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8 | November 21, 1780 | Coleridge's
brother, the Rev. William Coleridge dies at Hackney, London |
Public domain | ||||||
October 6, 1781 | STC's father, the Rev. John Coleridge dies | 1.
Encyclopædia Britannica says his father died on October 6, 1781 2. The Story of a Devonshire House by Lord Coleridge, K.C., p. 20 (says d. Oct. 14, 1781) 3. Coleridge, The Early Family Letters, James Engell, p 6 (quoted from the Parish Register records the date as Oct. 6, 1781) 4. fn1, p. xiv "His father died suddenly on the 4th October 1781, and his place, both as vicar and as schoolmaster, was taken by a Mr. Warren, with whom Coleridge remained as a dayscholar until the following April, when a presentation to Christ's Hospital was obtained for him from a Mr. John Way,..." |
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9 | April 1782 | Coleridge's mother sends him to London | fn2, p. 23-24 "If Ann
Coleridge did not wish to be parted from her youngest child, there is no sign
of this, for she immediately despatched him to London in April to spend the
spring and summer with her brother John Bowdon." "It was all highly unsuitable for a
child of nine and a half, and pleased him no end. 'My Uncle was very proud of me, & used
to carry me from Coffee-house to Coffee-house, and Tavern to Tavern, where I
drank, & disputed, as if I had been a man-.' " |
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July 18, 1782 | Coleridge
enters Christ Hospital (school) (Newgate Street City of London) Coleridge meets the young Lamb who was also a scholar at the school |
fn1, p. xiv
"…Coleridge entered the great school on the 18th July 1782, an
intervening period of about ten weeks having been spent in London with his
mother's brother, Mr. John Bowdon who had a shop in Threadneedle
Street." fn2, p. 24-25 "In July he 'donned the Blue coat & yellow stockings', and went down to the prep school at Herfford for six weeks, where he was briefly very happy - 'for I had plenty to eat & drink, & pudding & vegetables almost every day'. Then , in September 1782, he was delivered up to the Under Grammar School of Christ's Hospital,..." fn8, chapter I p. 11 "Soon after the death of the Rev. John Coleridge, the Judge obtained from John Way, Esq., one of the governors of Christ's Hospital, a presentation to that school, and young Coleridge was sent by the Judge and placed there on the 18th July, 1782. 'O! what a change!' he goes on in the note above quoted." |
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11 | 1784 | Coleridge
may have returned to Ottery during holidays |
fn1, p. xviii "A tetter to his mother of 1785 suggests a bare possibility that he went to Ottery in 1784…" | ||||||
14 | April 7, 1787 | STC's brother, John Coleridge dies at Tillicherry, India | fn2, p. 10 "Francis so
worshipped John that he finally contrived to join him in India at the
incredibly early age of twelve. John
even had a remarkable plan for Sam to join him in India as a cadet; but this
was to be forestalled by his own tragic death from malaria, at Tillicherry,
in January 1787." |
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15 | February 28, 1788 | Brother, James "The Colonel" Coleridge marries Frances Duke Taylor at St. Mary Arches, Exeter, Devonshire | 1.
Coleridge Early Visions by Richard Holmes (year only) 2. Burkes 1928, p. 567 (month, day and year) 3. The Story of a Devonshire House by Lord Coleridge, K.C., p. 63 (year & location) 4. FamilySearch® International Genealogical Index Batch number: M050991, Source Call No. 0917102, Printout Call No. 1037022 (date and location) |
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1788 | "Sam"
enters the ranks of the "Grecians" STC meets Mrs. Evans and her three daughters |
fn1, p. xv "In his sixth year
as a scholar, which was the sixteenth of his life, he entered the ranks of
the 'Grecians' - the small band selected by the headmaster for special
training under his own birch for the University Exhibitions of the school,
one of which he gained in due time." fn1, p. xvi, "About this time be became acquainted with a widow lady,'whose son,...taught me what it was to have a mother. I loved her as such; She had three daughters, and, of course, I fell in love with the eldest' [Mary]." |
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September 10, 1788 | Brother,
the Doctor Luke Herman Coleridge marries Sarah Hart at Saint Martin, Exeter,
Devonshire |
Public domain | |||||||
16 | July 14, 1789 | The Bastille falls | fn2, p. 33 "The year
1789 was a turning point for Coleridge's whole generation. With the fall of the Bastille in July, the
first tide of revolutionary excitement flooded through Europe, reaching even
into the remote cloisters of Christ's Hospital." |
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1789 | Coleridge returns to Ottery. | fn1, p. xv "A long
exile it proved, for it seems
probalble that the boy did not return to Ottery until the summer of
1789" fn2, p. 33 "Feeling his wings and independence for the first time, he visited Ottery during the summer, where he went through the solemn rite of recarving his initials in the Pixies' Parlour, alongside those of his distant brothers." |
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17 | September 7, 1790 | STC leaves Christ's Hospital | fn8, p. 38 - 39 "Coleridge left Christ's Hospital for Jesus' College, Cambridge, 7th September, 1790,…" | ||||||
18 | December 1790 | Samuel's brother, the Doctor Luke Herman Coleridge dies at Thorverton, Devon and is buried in the Church yard at Thorverton | fn2, p. 38 "Early in 1791 came news of Luke's sudden death of a fever at Exeter: and this was quickly followed by the death of his beloved Nancy, after a long consumptive illness. Again, Coleridge turned to poetry, writing several more sonnets of deep and clumsy emotion:..." | ||||||
Winter 1790 | Coleridge ill with rheumatic fever | fn2, p. 37
"…throughout that last winter Coleridge was periodically ill with
rheumatic fever, contracted as a result of a late autumn bathing expedition
to the New River. For several months
he spent long periods in the school sanatorium, dosed with opium to help him
sleep, and doing little except write some striking scraps of
poetry." |
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18 | January 12, 1791 | STC appointed to an "Exhibition" at Jesus College, Cambridge | fn1, p. xviii "…the
Committee of Almoners of Christ's Hospital appointed Coleridge to and
Exhibition at Jesus College, Cambridge, on the books of which he was entered
as a sizar on the 5th February." fn2, p. 37 "Officially his career at Christ's Hospital ended in triumph. As the senior Grecian in his year, he was awarded in January 1791 a School Exhibition worth £40 to take him to Cambridge, renewable for four years;..." |
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February 5, 1791 | Entered Jesus' College, Cambridge | fn8, footnote to chapter I,
p. 39 "Entered at Jesus' College, Feb 5th, 1791, at the age of 19…"
ed. note: Coleridge was 18 at the time but in his 19th year |
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March 12, 1791 | Sister Anne
"Nancy" Coleridge dies at the age of 24 |
see December 1790 | |||||||
1791 | STC returns to Ottery | fn1, p. xviii "There
is, however, no reasonable doubt that Coleridge went home in 1791, between
school and college, or that Happiness was written at Ottery in that year." ed. note, sister
Nancy died March 12, 1791, Coleridge could have returned to Ottery at or near
to this event. see also December 1790
regarding the death of his brother Luke Herman. |
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19 | October 1791 | Coleridge enters Jesus' College, Cambridge | fn2, p. 39
"Coleridge was just nineteen when he went up to Jesus College, Cambridge
in the autumn of 1791." |
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Christmas 1791 | Coleridge spends Christmas with the Evanses | fn2, p. 41 "The
Christmas vacation of 1791 was spent with the Evanses in Villiers Street
where Coleridge passed a 'potently medicinal' fortnight, eating turkey,
tutoring Tom, and walking the trree sisters to their milliner's shop in
Jermyn Street." |
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January 21, 1792 | Lt. Francis "Frank" Syndercombe Coleridge dies unmarried at Seringapatam, India at the age of 22 | fn2, p. 5 "...the most
handsome and dashing of the boys, who would also go to India. 'All my Brothers are remarkably handsome,'
observed Coleridge mournfully, 'but they were as inferior to Francis as I am
to them.' This question of
inferiority" was to be a recurring anxiety of the youngest, uncertain
whether he was the Benjamin or the black sheep." |
check out this quote from Coleridge Early Visions. Excerpt from Coleridge Early Years by Richand Holmes | ||||||
March 26, 1792 | STC
matriculated |
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21 | December 2, 1793 | Coleridge enlists in the army | fn1, p. xx "On the 2nd
December 1793 he enlisted under the name of Silas Tomkyn Comberbach, in the
15th, or King's Regiment of Light Dragoons." fn5, p. 13 "He disappeared for two months and reappeared on 2 December 1793 when he volunteered as a private..." fn8, chapter II, p. 57 "Walking along Chancery Lane in the morning, he noticed a bill posted on the wall, 'Wanted a few smart lads for the 15th, Elliot's Light Dragoons;' — he paused a moment, and said to himself, 'Well, I have had all my life a violent antipathy to soldiers and horses, the sooner I can cure myself of these absurd prejudices the better, and I will enlist in this regiment.' " |
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April 10, 1794 | STC is discharge from the army | fn1, p. xx "…the
dragoon summoned courage to write to his favourite brother George, and, after
some confidential correpondance with him, a properly humble and dutiful
letter was concocted, and addressed, on February 20, 1794, by Samuel to the
head of the family, his brother Captain James Coleridge. His discharge was procured, but not until
the 10th of April." |
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April 11, 1794 | Coleridge returns to Cambridge | fn2, p. 59 "Coleridge
reuturned to Cambridge on 11 April 1794, travelling up on the outside of the
night mail after symbolically missing the Cambridge fly. He had booked a seat, but then went for a
contemplative walk, and the fly shot by him on the road For all his brothers' hopes, he would never
again settle down at the university, his dreams were elsewhere." |
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June 17, 1794 | Coleridge meets Robert Southey at Oxford at the start of the "first of Coleridge's many epic walks". Birth of the Panisocratic scheme. | fn2, p. 61"It was the
first of Coleridge's many epic walks: during the serious part of the tour
they covered over 500 miles in just over a month - from Gloucester to
Anglesey through the Welsh hills, and back by the coast to Bristol. They departed from Cambridge at dawn on 15
June, planning a brief stop-over with Bob Allen in Oxford, before
disappearing into wild Wales."... "They tramped into Oxford about 17 June, going straight round to Allen's rooms in University College for a memorable reunion between the two Grecians. Coleridge had brought a subscribers' list for his Imitations in his knapsack, and armed with this they trooped over to Balliol to meet Robert Southey, the twenty-year-old poet from Bristol..." |
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August 5, 1794 | Returning from an expedition to Wales, Coleridge arrived in Bristol | fn5, p. 14 "After his
expediton to Wales, Coleridge arrived in Bristol on 5 August and presented
himself at the Lovells' in order to renew his acquaintance with Southey and
Robert Lovell." fn16, p. 11-12 "In the summer of 1794, at the close of a pedestrian tour in Wales, he reached Bristol; and walked thence with Southey into Somerset, to see their common friend Burnett at his father's house, and discuss the recently formed scheme of Pantisocracy and emigration to America." |
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1794 (Summer) | The Fall of Robespierre created | fn15, p. 15 "We are
still in the summer of 1794, and we left Coleridge at Bristol with Southey,
Lovell, and the Miss Frickers. To this
year belongs that remarkable experiment in playwriting at high pressure, The Fall of Robespierre. It originated, we learn from Southey, in 'a
sportive conversation at poor Lovell's,' when each of the three friends
agreed to produce one act of a tragedy, on the subject indicated in the above
title, by the following evening." |
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August 18, 1794 | Met with Thomas Poole at Nether Stowery | fn16, p. 12 "On August
18 he met Thomas Poole at Nether Stower; and, returning to Southey's mother's
house at Bath, met and became engaged to Sarah Fricker, to whose sister,
Edith, Southey became engaged. He
stayed thereafter at Bristol for several weeks, writing and lecturing; then
went to Cambridge, which he left for London in December." |
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22 | December 11, 1794 | Coleridge returns to London | fn2, p. 83 "Coleridge
was back in London for the Christmas vacation by 11 December, where he was to
remain for a month, lodging at the Salutation & Cat, furiously writing
letters and poetry, and trying to decide if he should really leave the university. In theory the Patisocratic expedition was
still scheduled for March or April 1795, but none of the £2,000 capital had
been raised, and various alternatives had to be considered." |
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January 1795 | Southey retreves Coleridge from London | fn16, p. 12 "Early in
January, 1795, Southey went up to London, and brought him back to 48 College
Street, Bristol, where he (Southey) lodged with Burnett; and there Coleridge
remained with Southey, sharing rooms with his two fiends, writing and lecturing
till summer. Then they separated,
Southey returning to Bath, and Coleridge going alone into rooms at 25 College
Street, a house which no longer exists.
In September he went down to Nether Stowey to visit Poole." |
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February 1795 | Published his
first prose work Two lectures given in the month of February, 1795 |
fn8, chapter II, p. 75
"In the year 1795 Coleridge, residing then at Clevedon, a short distance
from Bristol, published his first prose work, with some additions by Mr.
Southey, the Conciones ad Populum. In a short preface he observes, 'The two
following addresses were delivered in the month of February, 1795, and were
followed by six others in defence of natural and revealed religion.'
..." ed. note, Coleridge and Sarah moved to Clevedon on October 31, 1795
after their marriage, see note below. fn9, p. 20, "Mr. Coleridge's next two lectures were delivered the latter end of February, 1795, and afterwards were thrown into a small pamphlet, printed under the title of 'Conciones ad Populum, or Addresses to the people.' After this he consolidated two other of his lectures, and published them under the title of 'The Plot Discovered.' Two detached lectures were given at the Corn Market, and one at a room in Castle Green. All these lectures were anti-Pitt-ite. |
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May 19, 1795 | "Six Lectures on Revealed Religion" given at the Assembly Coffeehouse, Bristol Quay. | fn 2, p. 95 "They soon
renewed their lecturing, Southey completing a biweekly series on the
historical background to the French Revolution on 28 April; and Coleridge
returning to the fray at the Assembly Coffeehouse, Bristol Quay, on 19 May. His subject appeared suitably esoteric:
'Six Lectures on Revealed Religion' according to the well-advertised
prospectus, but containg the sting in its subtitle: 'Its Corruptions and
Political Views' ". |
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June 16, 1795 | Single lecture given on the slave trade | fn9, p. 20 "The next
lexture given by Mr. Coleridge was in reprobation of the Slave Trade. The following was the prospectus. 'To-morrow Evening, Tuesday, June 16th, 1795, S. T. Coleridge will deliver (by particular desire) a Lecture on the Slave Trade, and the duties that result from its continuance. To bigin at 8 o'clock, at the Assembly Coffee House, on the Quay. Admittance, One Shilling.' " |
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June 23, 1795 | A series of six political lectures | fn9, p. 25 "The
following is the prospectus of Mr. Coleridge's series of Political
lectures. 'S. T. Coleridge proposes to give, in Six Lectures, a comparative view of the English Rebellion, under Charles the First, and the French Revolution. The subjects of the proposed Lectures are, FIRST. The distinquishing marks of the French and English character, with their probable causes. The natioal circumstances precursive to--1st, the English Rebellion.--2nd, the French Revolution. SECOND. The Liberty of the Press. ... THIRD. The Fanaticism of the first English and French Revolutionists. ... FOURTH. 1st, Characters of Charles the First, and Louis the Sixteenth. 2nd, of Louis the Fourteenth and the present Empress of Russia. 3rd, Life and Character of Essex, and Fayette. FIFTH. Oliver Cromwell, and Robespierre.--Cardinal Mazarine, and William Pitt.--Dundas, and Barrere. SIXTH. On Revolution in general. ... It is intended that the Lectures should be given once a week; on Tuesday Evenings, at eight o'clock, at the Assembly Coffee House, on the Quay. The First Lecture, on Tuesday, June 23d, 1795. ...' " |
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August, 1795 | Coleridge meets Southey in Bristol and Wordsworth for the first time | fn2, p. 101 "He also
met for the first time a poet he had admired since Cambridge days, and the
discussions at Trinity College Literary Society, William Wordsworth. The meeting took place at 7 Great George
Street, the town house of John Pinney, a rich West Indies sugar
merchant." fn16, 26 "...the impression upon his mind is that he first saw them both, and your mother and aunt Edith at the same time, in a lodging in Bristol. this must have been about the year 1795." from a letter of November 7, 1845 from Mrs. Wordsworth to Sara Coleridge |
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fn16, pp. 28-29 "…as
we know that it took place in the autumn of 1795, before Coleridge's wedding
in October, we are almost shut up to the conclusion that the meeting took
place in Mr. Pinney's house in Great George Street." |
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1795 | Lectures continue (Spring and Summer) | fn15, p. 19
"Throughout the spring and summer of 1795 Coleridge continued his
lectures at Bristol, his head still simmering--though less violently, it may
be suspected, every month--with Pantisocracy, and certainly with all his
kindred political and religious enthusiasms unabated." |
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October 4, 1795 | Samuel and Sarah Fricker are married at St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, Gloucester | fn2, p. 102 "The
marriage of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Sara Fricker took place on 4 October
1795, with proper literary overtones, at St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol,
Chatterton's church where the poet's 'Rowley munuscripts' had been discovered
in the huge muniment room in the bell tower.
'The thought,' wrote Coleridge to Poole, 'gave me a tinge of
melancholy to the solemn Joy, which I felt - united to the woman, whom I love
best of all created Beings.' No member
of Coleridge's family attended, not even George; and Sara was not introduced
at Ottery for a year. This marks the
beginning of a decisive social alienation between Coleridge and his
brothers." fn9, p. 57 "Mr. Coleridge, in prospect of his marriage, had taken a cottage, at Clevedon, a village, happily on the banks of the--Susquehannah?--No, Severn. He was married to Miss Sarah Fricker, October 4th, 1795, and immediately after, set off for his country abode." |
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fn9, p. 58 "The
following is a copy of the certificate. 'St. Mary Redcliff Church, Bristol. Married, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, to Sarah Fricker, Oct. 4th, 1795. Benj. Spry, Vicar Winesses, Martha Fricker Jesiah Wade.' " |
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23 | October 31, 1795 | Coleridge and Sarah move to Clevedon, Somerset | fn2, p. 104 "It is not clear how long Coleridge and Sara had
intended to stay at Clevedon - the rent was only £5 per annum, but the onset
of winter, and literary affairs in Bristol, inevitably drew him back to the
city. Coleridge continued to rent the
cottage until the following March, but in practice he was rarely there with
Sara for more than a few days at a time after November." fn16, p. 12 - 15 "...he was married to Sarah Fricker, in the church of St. Mary Redcliffe, on Octorber 4, 1795, and at once settled in a cottage at Clevedon. This he soon found too far from the Bristol library, and removed to rooms on Redcliffe Hill." |
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November 26, 1795 | STC returns to Bristol.
Attends a public meeting at the Bristol Guildhall to petition the King
"for a speedy Termination of the Present War". Starts lectures in Bristol. |
fn2, p. 106 "On 26 November, he delivered his own lecture 'On the Two Bills' with which Pitt intended to suppress seditious meetings and publications; and this was puiblished in a pamphlet the following day, with the challenging title, The Plot Discovered, or an Address to the People against Ministerial Treason." | |||||||
January 9, 1796 | Coleridge left Bristol for a five-week subscription-gathering tour | fn2, p. 107 "On 9
January 1796 Coleridge left Bristol for a hectic five-week
subscription-gathering tour of the larger Midland towns and cities including
Worcester, Birmingham, Derby and Sheffield." fn9, p. 153 "Mr. Coleridge, conceiving that his means of subsistence depended on the success of this undertaking, armed himself with unwonted resolution, and expressed his determination to travel over half England, and take the posse commitatus by storm. In conformity with such resolution,... (and in) The beginning of Jan. 1796, Mr. Coleridge, laden with recommendatory epistles, and rich in hope, set out on his eventful journey, and visited in succession, Worcester, Birmingham, Nottingham, Lichfield, Derby, Manchester, Sheffield, Liverpool, &c. and as a crowning achievement, at the last, paid his respects to the great metropolis..." |
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February 1796 | Visits Poole | fn16, p. 15 "In
February 1796, he went to Nether Stowey to visit Thomas Poole; but returned
to Bristol, to a house at Kingsdown." |
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February 5 to May, 1796 | "The Watchman" published | fn2, p. 110 "The
first issue of the Watchman appeared as planned on 1 March 1796, opening with a long
'Introductory Essay' on the diffusion of politacal knowledge among his
readers." fn8, chapter II, p. 75 "Mr. Coleridge's next work was the Watchman in numbers — a miscellany to be published every eighth day. The first number appeared on the 5th of February, 1796. This work was a report of the state of the political atmosphere, to be interspersed with sketches of character and verse. It reached the 10th number, and was then dropped;..." |
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fn9, p. 151 "In a
few days the following prospectus fo the new work was circulated far and
near. 'To supply at once the places of a Revieew, Newspaper, and Annual register. On Tuesday, the 1st of March, 1796, will be pulished, No. 1, price fourpence, of a Miscellany, to be continued every eighth day, under the name of THE WATCHMAN, BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE |
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March 1796 | Coleridge moves his family to Kingsdown, Bristol | fn2, p. 110 "March
and April 1796 were months of exhausting struggle. Coleridge moved house to Kingsdown,
Bristol, were he nursed his wife, and later his brother-in-law, Robert
Lovell, who was also dangerously ill." fn11, p. "On the 1st of March, 1796, 'The Watchman' was pulished; it ended with the tenth number on the 13th of May following. In March Mr. C. removed to a house in Oxford Street in Kingsdown, ..." |
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May 3, 1796 | Robert Lovell, Coleridge's brother-in-law dies of fever at
Clevedon, Gloucester |
Public domain | |||||||
May 13, 1796 | The Watchman closed down | fn2, p. 116 "Two days
later (after May 3) he decided to close down the Watchman. He was in debt by some
£80, and his affairs were as bad 'as the most Trinitarian Anathemizer, or
rampant Philo-despot could wish in the moment of cursing' "…"On 13
may 1796 he brought out number ten, the last issue,..." fn9, p. 158 " 'This is the last Number of the Watchman.--Henceforward I shall cease to cry the state of the Political atmosphere. While I express my gratitude to those friends who exerted themselves so liberally in the establishment of this Miscellany, I may resonably be expected to assign some reason for relinquishing it thus abruptly. the reason is short and satisfactory.--The work does not pay its expenses.' " |
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1796 | Preaches in Bath | fn9, p. 178 - 180
""…so that it was determined that Mr. Coleridge, as the
commencement of his brilliant career, should be respectfully requested to
preach his inaugural discourse, in the Socinian chapel at Bath." "Considering that it had been announced, on the preceding Sunday that 'the Rev. S. T. Coleridge, from Cambridge University' would preach there on this day, we naturally calculated on an overflowing audience, but it proved to be the most meagre congregation I had ever seen. The reader will but imperfectly appreciate Mr. C's discourse, without the previous information, that this year (1796) was a year of great scarcity, and consequent privation, amongst the poor;..." ed. note: It's not clear from the text of these pages what time of the year this sermon took place. |
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June 16, 1796 | Coleridge visits the Wordsworths at Racedown | fn16, p. 16 "Coleridge
went out to see him (Wordsworth) at Racedown on June 16, 1796, again on the
28th, and on July 2; returning on that day to Stowey with the Wordsworths,
who remained there a fortnight, before they settled at Alfoxden." |
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July 30, 1796 | Brother
George Coleridge marries Jane "Jenny" Hart at Saint Martin, Exeter,
Devonshire |
Public domain | |||||||
September 19, 1796 | Sam's first son, David Hartley "Job" Coleridge is born at Kingsdown, Bristol, Gloucester | fn2, p. 122 Coleridge was in Birmingham "when news
arrived"…"of the sudden birth of Sara's child, some two weeks
premature."…p. 123 "It seems ominous that Coleridge was a hundred
miles away for this signal event. He
explained that 'Sara had strangely miscalculated' her dates. He left for Bristol the next
day,..." |
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24 | November 1796 | Coleridge experiences neuralgia down the right-hand side of his face. | fn2, p. 127 "In
November there was a domestic crisis in his own household at Bristol, which
produced Coleridge's first deliberate piece of composition under the
influence of opium. First Coleridge
was struck by excruciating neuralgia down the right-hand side of his face,
...the worst pain he had ever experienced,...For a week he dosed himself on
twenty-five drops of opium every five hours, sometimes increasing the dose to
seventy drops. He ran round the house
naked, in a frenzy of pain and delirium." |
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December 31, 1796 | Coleridge Cottage, 35 Lime Street, Nether Stowey where the Coleridge family move to in 1796 | fn4, p. 90 "The
allusion is to Coleridge's latest plan, to take 'a cottage and half a dozen
acres of land in an enchanting Situation about eight miles from Bridgewater'
. [p. 91] It was to be a different cottage, a small house in Nether Stowey at
the bottom of Tom Poole's garden, that Coleridge finally moved on the last
day of the year. Tiny, dark, and damp,
facing straight on to the street, with a gutter running past the front door,
an infestation of mice, and the smell of Poole's nearby tannery all too
prevalent, the cottage nevetheless represented true happiness to
Coleridge. The cottage must have
seemed all the more attractive to an increasingly desperate Coleridge when it
looked, in December 1796, as if Poole was regretting his invitation to him to
come and be his close neighbour." |
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fn16, p. 15 "…they
went to reside in Nether Stowey, on December 31, 1796, where they stayed till
1800. A narrow pathway communicated
with Poole's garden. There was no
quiet possible, and there were almost always visitors. Poole's library was near, and the 'jasmine
arbour' close at hand. yet here
Coleridge's finest poetic work was done; and hither came the Wordsworks,
Charles Lamb, Hazlitt, Thelwall, and others." |
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fn16, p. 48 "On the
30th of December, 1796, Coleridge left Bristol with his wife and child, to
live in the humble cottage at Nether Stowey, which soon afterwards became
closelty associated with his 'poetic prime.' " fn16, p. 48 - 49 "The first literary thing he did, after his arrival at that cottage-home, was to add to the poems he had already written, and which had been published by Cottle; and to plan out a second edition, for which he had begun to prepare in the year 1796. Cottle offered him twenty guineas for an edition of five hundred copies of that volume; but there seems to have been much delay in the printing of it, as it was not compeleted till March, 1797,..." |
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April 1797 | Wordsworth at Nether Stowey 1797 - "Lime-Tree Bower" |
fn2, p. 143 "…Wordsworth…who was walking back from Bristol to Racedown in Dorset, and made a detour to call in at Stowey in early April." | |||||||
April 1797 | Poems on Various Subjects published by Cottle | fn15, p. 22 "…in
April 1797 there appeared at Bristol a volume of some fifty pieces entitled
Poems on Various Subjects, by S. T. Coleridge,
late of Jesus College Cambridge. It was published by his friend Cottle, who,
in a mixture of the generous with the speulative instinct, had given him
thirty guineas for the copyright." |
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May 10, 1797 | Coleridge buckles down to work | fn2, p. 144 "The
coming of spring to the Quantocks, the lengthening days, the seductive trails
of wild flowers leading up into the combes above Stowey, must also have
stimulated him. Coleridge buckled down
to his work again, and by 10 May had written 1,500 lines of his Spanish
tragedy, to be called Osorio." fn8, chapter II, p. 107 "Coleridge also in 1797 wrote the Remorse, or rather the play he first called Osorio, the name of the principal character in it, but finding afterwards that there was a respectable family of that name residing in London, it was changed for the title of the Remorse, and the principal character, Osorio, to Ordonio." |
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Mid June 1797 | Coleridge visits Wordsworth at Racedown. Returns to Stowey, June 28 with
Wordworth November, 1797 The Ancient Mariner started and completed March, 1798 |
fn2, p. 148
"…Coleridge set out on a long summer walk throught the Vale of Taunton
and over the Black Down Hills to visit Wordsworth at Racedown." p. 149
"Coleridge remained at Racedown for a fortnight, during which two of the
greatest friendships of his life were formed irrevocably, for good and
ill." fn16, p. 62 "Coleridge was at Taunton on June 5, 1797, and 'on the evening of that, or the next day, he arrived on foot at Racedown, some forty miles distant,' says Mr. Ernest Coleridge." |
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June 1797 | Composed Lime-tree Bower my Prison | fn8, chapter II, p. 107 "in June, 1797, he was visited by his friend Charles Lamb and his sister. On the morning after their arrival, Coleridge met with an accident which disabled him from walking during the whole of their stay. One evening, when they had left him for a few hours, he composed the poem, This Lime-tree Bower my Prison, in which he refers to his old friend, while watching him in fancy with his sister, winding and ascending the hills at a short distance, himself detained as if a prisoner:..." | |||||||
June 1797 | Visit at Stowey by the Lambs | fn15, p. 38 "In June
1797 Charles and Mary Lamb arrived at the Stowey cottage to find their host
disabled by an accident which prevented him from walking during their whole
stay. It was during their absence on a
walking expedition that he composed the pleasing lines-- 'The lime-tree bower my prison,' " fn16, p. 63 " 'Charles Lamb has been with me for a week1. He left me Friday morning. The second day after Wordsworth came to me, dear Sara emptied a skillet of boiling milk on my foot, which confined me during the whole time of C. Lamb's stay, and still prevents me from all walks longer than a furlong. While Wordsworth, his sister, and Charles Lamb were out one evening, sitting in the arbour of T. Poole's garden, which communicates with mine, I wrote these lines, with which I am pleased.' "2 "1 Charles Lamb's visit to Stowey lasted from July 7 to July 14, 1797." 2 This lime-tree bower my prison! ed note: note the descripency between the Lamb visit dates of June and July |
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July 4, 1797 | Domestic accident | fn2, p. 153 "On July
4, in the chaotic bustle of the cottage, Sara Accidently emptied a skillet of
boiling milk over Coleridge's foot, laming him for several days." |
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End July 1797 | Sara has a miscarriage | fn2, p. 153
"…towards the end of the month, Sara had a miscarriage - 'in so early a
stage, that it occasioned but little pain, one day's indispositon, and no
confinement.' " |
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Summer 1797 | The Wordsworths move to Alfoxden only miles from Nether Stowey | fn2, p. 160 "Throughout the long summer days, and moonlit nights, of August and September 1797, Coleridge, Wordsworth and Dorothy continued their exploration of the Quantocks." | |||||||
fn15, p. 61 " 'In
the summer of 1797 the author, then in ill health, had retired to a lonely
farmhouse between Porlock and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and
Devonshire. In consequence of a slight
indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effects of which he
fell asleep in his chair...' " From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia An anodyne (Greek αν, loss, and οδυνη, pain: a cause which relieves pain) is a medicine that relieves or soothes pain by lessening the sensibility of the brain or nervous system. Also called an analgesic (or colloquially a "painkiller"). The term has been applied incorrectly to various medications, such as narcotics, hypnotics, and opiates. True anodynes were applied externally to the part affected. Such among those classed "simple" were onion, lily, root of mallows, leaves of violet, elderberry, etc. |
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October 1797 | Coleridge goes on a walk along the coast to Lynton | fn2, p. 162 "It was
some time during this first fortnight In October 1797 that he probably went
for a long solitary walk along the coast to Lynton, exhausted from his
labours, and, taken ill on his return journey, stopped off at Ash Farm above
Culbone Church, where he wrote 'Kubla Khan'." p. 167 "Most scholars now date the
composition of 'Kubla Khan' to October 1797, based on the evidence of the
Crewe Ms and this letter to Thelwall of 14 October 1797." |
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1797 Autumn | Walks with the Wordsworths | fn15, p. 50 "In the
Autumn of 1797, records Wordsworth in the MS. notes which he left behind him,
'Mr. Coleridge, my sister, and myself started from Alfoxden pretty late in
the afternoon with a view to visit Linton and the Valley of Stones near to
it; and as our united funds were very small, we agreed to defray the expense
of the tour by writing a poem to be sent to the New
Monthly Magazine.
Accordingley we set off, and proceeded along the Quantock Hills
towards Watchet; and in the course of this walk was planned the poem of the
Ancient Mariner, founded on a dream, as Mr. Coleridge said, of his friend Mr.
Cruikshank. Much the greatest part of
the story was Mr. Coleridge's invention, but certain parts I suggested; for
example, some crime was to be committed which should bring upon the Old
Navigator, as Coleridge afterwards delighted to call him, the spectral
persecution, as a consequence of the crime and his own
wanderings." |
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1797 | Brother James Coleridge buys Heath's Court in Ottery St. Mary. | fn20, p. 322 "About
the year 1797 he left Tiverton, and went to reside on an estate newly
purchased by him, called Heath's Court, in Ottery St Mary; his principal
motive in so doing being that his sons might thereby more conveniently enjoy
the benefit of education in the Free Grammar School, of which his brother,
the late Rev. George Coleridge, had been then recently appointed
master." ed. note: Heath's Court is today called The Chanter's House. Colonel James Coleridge had seven surviving children at 1797. |
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25 | January 1798 | Coleridge offered a position as the Unitarian minister at Shrewsbury | fn2, p. 177 "…with a
salary of £120 and a good house worth £30 in rent. This put him in an extraordinary dilemma -
torn, as he put it, between the press and the pulpit. It also implied the break-up of his life in
the Quantocks with the Wordsworths, and the perhaps suspension of their
experiments in poetry for even the Mariner was not yet finished." "...on 13 January (Coleridge) set out
to preach an inaugural sermon at Shrewsbury." fn8, chapter II, p. 108 - 109 "...Mr. William Hazlitt became acquainted with him, which is thus vividly recorded in the Liberal: 'My father was a dissenting minister at Wem, in Shropshire; and in the year 1798, Mr. Coleridge came to Shrewsbury, to succeed Mr. Rowe in the spiritual charge of a Unitarian congregation there.' He did not come till late on the Saturday afternoon before he was to preach, and Mr. Rowe, who himself went down to the coach in a state of anxiety and expectation, to look for the arrival of his successor, could find no one at all answering the description, but a round-faced man, |
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in a short
black coat (like a shooting jacket), which hardly seemed to have been made
for him, but who appeared to be talking at a great rate to his
fellow-passengers. Mr. Rowe had scarcely returned to give an account of his
disappointment, when the round-faced man in black entered, and dissipated all
doubts on the subject, by beginning to talk.
He did not cease while he stayed, nor has he since that I know
of. He held the good town of
Shrewsbury in delightful suspense for three weeks that he remained there,
'fluttering the proud Salopians like an eagle in a dove-cot;' and the Welsh
mountains, that skirt the horizon with their tempestuous confusion, agree to
have heard no such mystic sounds...' " |
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January 1798 | William Hazlitt attends sermon | fn18 , p. 379 "Iit
was in January, 1798, that I rose one morning before day-light, to walk ten
miles in the mud, to hear this celebrated person preach. Never, the longest day I have to live,
shall I have such another walk as this cold, raw, comfortless one, in the
winter of the year 1798. When I got
there, the organ was playing the 100th psalm; and when it was done, Mr.
Coleridge rose and gave out his text--'And he went up into the mountain to
pray, himself, alone.' As he gave out this text, his voice 'rose
like a stream of rich distilled perfumes;' and when he came to the two last
words, which he pronounce loud, deep, and distinct, it seemed to me, who was
then young, as if the sounds had echoed from the bottom of the human heart,
and as if that prayer might have floated in solemn silence through the
universe. ..." |
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January 16, 1798 | The Wedgwoods offered Coleridge an annuity of £150 "for life" | fn2, p. 178 "On the
Tuesday after his first sermon at Shrewsbury (14 January, 1798), while
breakfasting with the Unitarian minister of nearby Wem, Coleridge received
his reply from Cote House: 'an annuity of £150 for life, legally secured to
me, no condition whatever being annexed'. It was a proposal
which, if accepted, would transform his life." |
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January 17, 1798 | Coleridge accepts the Wedgwood's offer February, 1798, "Frost at Midnight" written at Stowey |
fn2, p. 181 "From Shrewsbury, Coleridge wrote to Josiah Wedgwood on 17 January 1798 accepting the annuity, in a short, heartfelt letter of thanks. Such benevolence had 'filled his eyes with tears'. He dedicated himself to 'honourable effort' in the future, to prove all their good intentions justified. He withdrew from the Shrewsbury ministry, and returned in triumph to Bristol on 30 January, where he stayed a week at Cote House, finally reaching Stowey on 9 February." | |||||||
February 1798 | Coleridge returns to Stowey from Shrewsbury | fn15, p. 62 "Soon
after the Anient Mariner was written, and some time before the volume which was to
contain it appeared, Coleridge quitted Stowey for Shrewsbury to undertake the
duties of a Unitarian preacher in that town.
This was in the month of January 1798, and it seems pretty certain,
though exact dates are not to be ascertained, that he was back again at
Stowey early in the month of February." |
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March 8, 1798 | Confined to bed | fn9, p. 294 "My dear
Cottle, I have been confined to my bed
for some days, through a fever occasioned by the stump of a tooth,…" ed.
note (from a letter to Cottle) |
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March 23, 1798 | Coleridge took the completed Ancient Mariner over to the Wordsworths at Alfoxden. | fn2, p. 172 "…,
Dorothy's Journal shows that the completed work was not brought over to
Alfoxden for reading until 23 March 1798." fn2, p. 185 "Dorothy's Journal shows that Coleridge, occasionally accompanied by Sara, was up at Alfoxden most days in February and March. Thereafter long walks were again impractical for Sara because of her pregnancy. Coleridge continued to come alone, and there is an increasing impression of him disapperaring for days at a time into the Quantock Hills with the Wordsworths, throughout the spring of 1798." fn2, p. 194 "Such expeditons continued throughout May and June,..." |
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May 14, 1798 | STC's second son, Berkeley Coleridge is born at Nether Stowey,
Somserset 1798 - First part of "Christabel", "France: and Ode", "Fears in Solitude" (April 1798), "Kubla Khan", "Lewti", "The Old Man of the Alps", "The Dark Ladie" |
fn5, p. 68 "On 14 May 1798 the Coleridges' second son Berkeley was born, named for George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, author of works on the 'relation of man to nature'." | |||||||
June 1798 | Plans for a trip to Germany | fn2, p. 196-197 "He
(Coleridge) found no difficulty in sweeping Wordsworth and Dorothy into this
next plan, since the St. Aubin family had refused to renew the lease on
Alfoxden after June,…"
"Initially, Coleridge also intended to take Sara and his children
with him, planning only for a '3 or 4 months sojourn' at Hamburg and
Jena. But Berkeley's delicate health
and 'the uncertainty of our happiness, comfort, cheap living etc in Germany'
gradually called this part of the scheme into question." fn2, p. 197 "In June, Coleridge spent several days with the Wedgwoods discussing his plans at their new house in Cobham in Surrey." fn2, 198 "Coleridge's decision to go without Sara was justified on practical grounds. The trip was to be one of strict 'intellectual utility' and economy;..." |
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June 26, 1798 | Wordsworths take leave of Alfoxden | fn16, p. 204 "The
Wordsworths left alfoxden on 26th of June 1798, and stayed with the
Coleridges at Stowey for a week." ed note: see fn2 of July 1798 stating the Wordsworths were at Stowey in July |
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July 1798 | Wordsworths visit the Coleridges at Stowey | fn2, p. 198 "In July, the Wordsworths took leave of Alfoxden, staying for a week at Stowey,…" | |||||||
August 1798 | Coleridge absent from Stowey most of summer | fn2, p. 198 "…Sara, at
first acquiescent, came to feel the separation keenly, and finally with great
bitterness. Indeed Coleridge was
already much absent from Stowey that summer even before departure, He was in Bristol during August, and made a
'sudden dart into Wales' with the Wordsworths for a week, to see John
Thelwall at his farm at Llyswen. By
early September he was in London with Chester, renewing contacts with Godwin,
and cultivating Wordsworth's radical publisher at St Paul's Churchyard,
Joseph Johnson." |
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September 16, 1798 | STC sails for Germany with Wordsworth and Dorothy | fn2, p. 204 "On 16
September 1798 the packet sailed out of Yarmouth at eleven in the morning on
a brisk south-westerly, and the author of the Ancient
Mariner found himself for the first time in open
seas." fn8, chapter II, p. 118 "On the 16th of September, 1798, he sailed from Great Yarmouth to Hamburg, in company with Mr. Wordsworth and his sister in his way to Germany, and now for the first time beheld 'his native land' retiring from him." |
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September 19, 1798 | Arrival in Hamburg | fn2, p. 207 "They
docked at Hamburg on 19 September 1798,...(where) (t)hey remained...for a
fortnight,..." |
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September 29, 1798 | Coleridge and the Wordworths go separate ways in Germany. October 1798, "Lyrical Ballads" published |
fn2, p. 210 "They stayed in Hamburg for the Feast of St Michael on 29 September, which cheered them all, and then Coleridge and Chester removed to Ratzeburg for the winter, while Wordsworth and Dorothy slipped deep into Lower Saxony,..." | |||||||
26 | December 31, 1798 | Sarah Coleridge goes to Bristol to stay in her mother's house | fn5, p. 78 "Sarah went
to her mother's house in Bristol on 31 December 1798 in the hope that the
change of air would do Berkeley some good…In Bristol Sarah had the company
and support of her family - both Mary Lovell and Eliza were living with their
mother and they took turns to sit up with her during the night as Berkeley's
bever and breathing difficulties increased." |
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January 4, 1799 | Coleridge receives a letter from Poole. Advises Poole of plans for extended stay in Germany to end of May | fn2, p. 216
"…Coleridge at last received a long letter from Poole, and immediately
sat down to aswer it with a detailed description of his 'German studies and
future plans…He now unveiled his revised plan to travel south and enrol
himself in the University of Göttingen until the end of the academic year in
May." fn2, p. 216 "Coleridge seems to have been unaware of the heartache that this sudden extension of his plans, from a three-month to an eight-month sojourn abroad, would inevitably cause Sara. This insensitivity eventually aroused great resentment in his wife." |
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February 6, 1799 | Coleridge and Chester leave Ratzeburg for Göttingen. | fn2, p. 218 "Coleridge
and Chester finally departed for Göttingen on 6 February 1799, embarking on a
freezing, six-day journey southwards to the Hartz Mountains. They travelled the 200 miles in a series of
antiquated German stagecoaches, during the coldest week of the
century,..." |
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February 10, 1799 | Berkeley dies at Bristol, Gloucester. | fn5, p. 78 "Berkeley
died on 10 February 1799. Sarah was
shattered, After his death she stayed
with Southey and Edith at their house in Westbury, the breach with Coleridge
forgotten in mutual grief. Southey
organised the funeral and burial.
Sarah seems to have undergone a breakdown, her hair fading and falling
out, so that she was forced to cut it all off and wear a wig" |
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February 12, 1799 | Studies at the University of Göttingen, Germany. | fn2, p. 219 "They
finally reached the small university city, nestling among the hills, on the
evening of 12 February, and took lodgings 'in a damn'd dirty hole in the Burg
Strasse'. " |
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April 4, 1799 | Coleridge finally finds out that his son, Berkeley died on February 10, 1799. | fn2, p. 223 "Over a
month after Berkeley's death, Poole finally decided to inform Coleridge of
the bare facts, in a brisk, mainly, uplifing letter posted on 15 March, which
eventually reached Göttingen on 4 April." fn2, p. 224 "When Coleridge first heard of his child's death, he went for a long walk in the open fields around Göttingen, and threw stones into the river as he had done as a boy at Ottery." |
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Mid April 1799 | Wordsworth and Dorothy appear in Göttingen | fn2, p. 225 "In
mid-April, Wordsworth and Dorothy suddenly appeared in Göttingen, after a
long tour through the Hartz, and urged him to go back with them at once to
England. Even this appeal he
withstood." |
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May 14, 1799 | Travels in Germany | fn8, chapter II, p. 133
" 'We left Elbingerode, May 14th, and travelled for half a mile through
a wild country, of bleak stony hills by our side, with several caverns, or
rather mouths of caverns, visible in their breasts; and now we came to
Rubilland,…' " |
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June 24, 1799 | Coleridge leaves Göttingen, Germany. | S.
T. Coleridge, Edited by R. L. Brett, London, G. Bells & Sons, 1971, p.
xiii fn2, p. 238 "There is no record of his reception at Stowey, but it cannot have been unmixed delight: within a fortnight Sara had gone to visit the Southeys who were on holiday at Minehead." |
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July, 1799 | Coleridge returns to England from Germany stopping off at London on the way to Stowey. | S.
T. Coleridge, Edited by R. L. Brett, London, G. Bells & Sons, 1971, p.
xiii (see also June 24, 1799) fn2, p. 238 - 239 "There is no record of his reception at Stowey, but it cannot have been unmixed delight: within a fortnight Sara had gone to visit the Southeys who were on holiday at Minehead. Poole was of course overjoyed at his return, but for Sara there were recriminations and anxieties: her husband's long absence, the death of Berkeley, uncertainty about their future home, and heavy overdrawing on the Wedgwood annuity. She also insisted on a reconciliation with Robert Southey, after all his kindness." "In Coleridge's absence, Southey had been acting in loco parentis, and Sara had been drawn towards her sister's much more stable household - a reassertion of the old Fricker family loyalties which was to emerge ever more strongly in future years." |
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fn15, p. 75 "His
movements for the next few months are incorrectly stated in most of the brief
memoirs prefixed to the vaious editions of the poet's works, --their writers
having, it is to be imagined, accepted without examination a misplaced date
of Mr. Gillman's. It is not the fact that Coleridge 'returned to England
after an absence of fourteen months, and arrived in London the 27th of
November.' His absence could not have
lasted longer than a year, for we know from the evidence of Miss Wordsworth's
diary that he was exploring the Lake country (very likely for the first time)
in company with her brother and herself in the month of September
1799." |
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Mid August, 1799 | Sara returns to Stowey with the Southeys | fn2, p. 239 "…the
Southeys and Sara came back together to Stowey in mid-August, and the two men
formally embraced each other in the middle of Lime Street…" fn2, p. 240 "The two families spent much of the next six weeks in each other's company: house hunting in Somerset, visiting George Coleridge's family at Ottery; and on a walking expedition through Devon..." |
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27 | October 26, 1799 | Meets Sara Hutchinson "Asra" for the first time in the Lake District. | fn2, p. 246 "They
(Coleridge and Cottle) reached Sockburn-on-Tees four days later (after
leaving Durham on October 22), where they found Wordsworth in rude good
health, comfortably established in the large manor farmhouse belonging to his
old friends the Hutchinsons." |
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November 18, 1799 | Coleridge returns to Sockburn to see the Hutchinsons. | fn2, p. 250 "Even when
Coleridge finally separated from Wordsworth on 18 November, he could not
bring himself to go directly south.
Instead he leaped into a coach and shot back across the Pennines to
Sockburn to see Dorothy and the Hutchinsons.
He remained for two or three days, an oasis of happiness, flirting
with eveyone, and working suddenly on a new ballad, to be called
'Love'...Coleridge later described this second visit to Sockburn as one of
those 'spots of enchantment' where his poetry was renewed, and he fell in
love with Sara Hutchinson." fn5, p. 88 "On 24 November, Coleridge was back in Sockburn with Sara Hutchinson, Mary and Dorothy, staying for a few days before he set off for London." |
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November 26, 1799 | Coleridge leaves Sockburn for London | fn2, p. 253 "On 26
November he finally caught the all-night coach for London, and his new
career." fn8, chapter II, p. 143 "Coleridge returned to England after an absence of fourteen mouths, and arrived in London the 27th November, 1799." |
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December 1799 | Coleridge settles in London to start writing for the Morning
Post. Some examples of Coleridge's Morning Post articles (fn2) December 7, 1799 - a detailed analysis of the new French constitution. January 22, 1800 - a detailed study of one of Lord Grenville's papers. March 19, 1800 - a 3000-word profile of Prime Minister Pitt. |
fn2, p. 254 "Back in
London he immediately took lodgings at 21 Buchingham Street, between the
Thames and the Strand near the Morning Post offices, summoned Sara and Hartley to join him, and set to
work with ferocious energy to establish himself as a jounalist. During the next five months he would wirte
seventy-six articles or 'leading paragraphs' for Stuart, largely on foreigh
affairs and constitution matters. His
first peice, a brilliant and detailed analysis of the new French constitution
proclaimed by Bonaparte, appeared promplty the following Saturday 7 December." fn2, p. 258 "Rather surprisingley, Sara and Hartley also flourished a Buckingham Street, and a new domestic harmony - of a rather noisy kind - was established. Coleridge's regular departures for the newspaper office, as well as his regular income of four or five guineas a week, may have helped to soothe Sara, and she was pregnant again in January 1800." |
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Wordsworth moves to Grasmere | fn17, p. 90 "It was in
the autumn of 1799 that Coleridge first visited the Lake country in company
with William and Joh wordsworth; and it was upon this occasion that
Wordsworth decided to take up his abode in the Town-End Cottage at Grasmere,
to which he migrated with his sister Dorothy in the December of the same
year." |
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March 2, 1800 | Sara and Hartely leave London to stay with friends. | fn2, p. 261 "The
strain of newpaper work had also affected his relations with Sara. On 2 March, she and Hartely left to stay
with friends, and Coleridge moved in with the Lambs at 36 Chapel Street, in
Islington." fn5, p. 90 "On 2 March 1800 Sarah returned to Bristol. The experiment of living together again after such a long separation (they had not lived together for more than a few weeks since September 1798) had not been a success." |
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April 2, 1800 | Coleridge leaves the Morning Post after his four month assignment. | fn2, p. 270 "…he left
Chapel Street on 2 April and bounced north to the Lakes on a visit, as Lamb
regretfully put it, 'to his God, Wordsworth'.
As he travelled about for the next three weeks, the final sheets of Wallenstein were posted back to
Lamb for correction. Wordsworth,
Dorothy, John Wordworth and Mary Hutchinson were now established in the
famous cottage at Town End, just outside Grasmere,...Coleridge remained with
his friends until 2 May, walking all over the district looking for possible
houses, among which he spotted the elegant shape of Greta Hall, perched on a
little hill beneath Skiddaw, just north of Keswick." |
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May 4, 1800 | Coleridge returns to Bristol. | fn2, p. 273 "On 4 May 1800 Coleridge hastened back to Bristol, collected Sara and Hartley and, basing himself at Poole's, began a final search for a possible house in the West Country. But it seems clear that his heart was already set upon the Lakes, with various auxiliary schemes to attract both Godwin and Humphry Davy northwards."..."Since Coleridge's departure for Germany in the autumn of 1798, she (Sara) had only lived with her restless husband for a few months at a time - the longest at Buckingham Street lasting but ten weeks - and the prospect of steady domestic happiness must have looked somewhat remote. Perhaps she saw in his lyrical descriptions of Greta Hall the best chance of putting down new roots in a house where he would be happy; and the expected child - due in September - held out fair promise of a renewed family life together. But, like Poole, she worried increasingly about the influence of Wordsworth, and the constant disruption of her husband's professional career that he seemed to produce." | |||||||
June 22, 1800 | The STC, Sarah and Hartley arrive at the Wordsworth's | fn17, p. 21 "It was
clear that they could not long be parted, and on 22 June, 1800, Dorothy notes
in her journal: 'On Sunday Mr. and Mrs. Coleridge and Hartley came. The day was very warm, we sailed to the
foot of Loughrigg. They stayed with us
three weeks.' " ed note: see June 29, 1800. fn2 states they arrived at Grasmere on June 29th |
|||||||
June 29, 1800 | Coleridge, Sara and Hartley arrived at Wordsworth's home in Grasmere | fn2, p. 275 "Coleridge
'arrived at Grasmere', as he put it, with Sara, Hartley and his customary
comet's train of book-chests, on Sunday 29 June 1800. He had conveniently caught flu on the way,
at Liverpool, and immediately retired to Wordsworth's back bedroom with 'a
brace of swollen eyelids,' leaving Sara and Dorothy to sort out the ensuing
chaos,..." |
|||||||
July 24, 1800 | STC, Sarah Coleridge and son David Hartley leave Grasmere and
travel to Keswick, and move into Greta Hall which they had rented from Mr.
Jackson for £42 per
year STC writes second part of "Christabel"; "Lyrical Ballads", (2nd edition and published in January, 1801 |
fn2, p. 277 "On 24
July Coleridge and his family finally left Grasmere, and travelled the
fifteen miles northwards to Greta Hall, crossing over the high rolling pass
of Dunmail Raise, along the western flank of Helvellyn, and down to Keswick
on Derwent water, beneath the huge guardian shapes of Latrigg Fell and
Skiddaw. Coleridge immediatley climbed
to the roof, and sat writing letters to is friends. One was headed: 'From the leads on the
housetop of Greta Hall, Keswick, Cumberland, at the present time in the
occupancy and usufruct-possession of S. T. Coleridge, Esq., Gentleman-poet
and Philosopher in a mist.' It
described his position very well." Greta Hall by H. W. Howe, Daedalus Press, 1977, p. 10 records the occupation date as July 23, 1800 and the rent as £40 per year. |
|||||||
August 29, 1800 | Coleridge travels to Grasmere from Greta Hall. Leaves there on August 31 for Keswick. | fn2, p. 281 "On 29
August (1800) Coleridge had a large section of Part Two (Christabel)
completed, and with the manuscript in his pocket made a triumphant journey to
Grasmere along the entire ridge of the Eastern Fells - crossing Great Dod,
White Side, and Helvellyn, and slithering perilously down by Nethermost Pike
to Dunmail Raise in the dark."...(p. 282) 'Dorothy (Wordsworth) recorded
his arrival that night at Dove Cottage in her Journal. "At 11 o'clock Coleridge came when I
was walking in the still clear moonshine.
He came over Helvellyn. Wm was
gone to bed and John also...'..." |
|||||||
1800 Summer | The turning point | fn15, p. 88 "We are
now approaching the turning-point, moral and physical, of Coleridge's
career. The next few years determined
not only his destiny as a writer but his life as a man. Between his arrival at Keswick in the
summer of 1800 and his departure for Malta in the spring of 1804 that fatal
change of constitution, temperament, and habits which governed the whole of
his subsequent history had fully established itself." |
|||||||
September 14, 1800 | Sam's third son, Derwent Coleridge is born at Greta Hall, Keswick, Cumberland | fn2, p. 282 "On 14
September (1800), Sara gave birth to a boy at half past ten in the
evening. For once, Coleridge was
present. His first impulse was to call
him Bracy, after the minstrel in 'Christabel'. The child was very ill for several weeks,
and he was finally christened Derwent, perhaps to appease the spirit of the
place. Thereafter, as Coleridge noted,
followed 'an interval, during which I travelled much.'..." |
|||||||
October 4, 1800 | Coleridge visits Dove Cottage again, this time for four days leaving there on the 7th. | fn2, p. 284 "Dorothy's Journal records the susequent visit, over four days. On 4 October: 'Coleridge came in while we were at dinner very wet. - We talked till 12 o'clock. He had sate up all the night before writing Essays for the newspaper. - His youngest child had been very ill in convulsion fits. Exceedingly delighted with the 2nd part of Christabel.' On the 5th: "Coleridge read a second time Christabel - we had increasing pleasure. A delicious morning. Wm and I were employed all the morning in writing an addition to the preface. Wm went to bed very ill after working after dinner.' On the 6th: 'A rainy day. Coleridge intending to go but did not get off. We walked after dinner to Rydale. After tea read The Pedlar. Determined not to print Chiristabel with the LB.'..." | |||||||
28 | January 1801 | Health breaks down Coleridge spends the winter in London |
fn2, p. 297 "In
January 1801 Coleridge's health altogether collapsed, and for three months he
retreated to the upper rooms of Greta Hall." |
||||||
June 1801 | After a long bout of illness at Geta Hall, Coleridge was able to walk on the fells. | fn2, p. 304 "By June he was back out on the fells, climbing over Easedale and seeing below the glimmering lake and church tower, 'places wherein To wander & wander for ever & ever.'…" "But real health had not returned - he relapsed continually with swollen leg joints, and agonising attacks of 'irregular gout', and the opium dosing continued. No serious work was being done apart from reading." | |||||||
Kendal Black Drop | fn15, p. 95 "…it seems
tolerably certain that it was not till the spring of 1801, when the climate
of the Lake country first began to tell unfavourably on his health, that the
'Kendal Black Drop' was taken. Possibly
it may have been about the time (April 1801) when he wrote the letter to
Southey which has been quoted above, and which, it will be remembered,
contained 'so gloomy an account of his health.' " ed note: Kendal Black Drop was a drug based on opium. Named for Kendal in the Lake District (Wikipedia) |
||||||||
Background to the ailment | fn15, p. 95 (con't.) "How painfully ailing he was at this time we know from a variety of sources, from some of which we also gather that he must have been a sufferer in more or less serious forms from his boyhood upwards. Mr. Gillman, for instance, who speaks on this point with the twofold authority of confidant and medical expert, records a statement of Coleridge's to the effect that, as a result of such schoolboy imprudences as 'swimming over the New River in my clothes and remaining in them, full half the time from seventeen to eighteen was passed by me in the sick ward of Christ's Hospital, afflicted with jaundice and rheumatic fever.' From these indiscretions and their consequences 'maybe dated,' Mr. Gillman thinks, 'all his bodily sufferings in future life.' That he was a martyr to periodical attacks of rheumatism for some years before his migration to Keswick is a conclusion resting upon something more than conjecture. The Ode to the Departing Year (1796) was written, as he has himself | ||||||||
told us, under a severe attack
of rheumatism in the head. In 1797 he describes himself in ill health, and as
forced to retire on that account to the 'lonely farmhouse between Porlock and
London on the Exmoor confines of Somerset andDevonshire,' where Kubla Khan
was written." |
|||||||||
July 1801 | Coleridge leaves Greta Hall for Asra. | fn2, p. 305 "In early
July, an unsolicited advance of 50 suddenly arrived from Josiah Wedgwood,
with which he was able to pay off his 'Keswick Bills, rent, etc', and the
household finances were set fair again until Christmas. Almost immediately Coleridge packed his
bag, departing not for the Azores but for Asra." "Durham was only eight miles from
George Hutchinson's new farm at Bishop Middleham, where Asra was
staying. Coleridge arrived at
Middleham on 16 July, and after desultory visits to Durham, concocted a plan
to go and stay with her other brother Tom, at his farm at Gallow Hill, near
Scarborough on the Yorkshire coast,...He and Asra rode the sixty miles
together on horseback, arriving on 31 July and remaining for ten
days." |
|||||||
August 9, 1801 | Coleridge returns to Keswick. | fn2, p. 309 "Coleridge
reluctantly quitted Gallow Hill on 9 August, (and) returned to Keswick,
carefully timing his arrival to coincide with the long-promised visit from
Southey and his family. The presene of
Edith Southey at Greta Hall evidently soothed Mrs Coleridge, and in the
holiday atmosphere of boating and walking the worst of the domestic
confrontation between Coleridge and his wife was at least
postponed." |
|||||||
1801 Summer | Southey encourages Coleridge | fn15, p. 101 "From the
summer of 1801, at any rate, his malaise, both of mind and body, appears to
have grown apace. Repeated letters
from Southey allow us to see how deeply concerned he was at this time about
his friend's condition. Plans for
foreigh travel are discussed between them, and Southey endeavours in vain to
spur his suffering and depressed correspondent to 'the assertions of his
supremacy' in some new literary work." |
|||||||
29 | October 21, 1801 | Coleridge's 29th birthday | fn2, p. 311 On the issue of
his 29th birthday, Coleridge said, "who on earth can say that without a
sigh!" |
||||||
November 16, 1801 | Coleridge returns to London | fn2, p. 312 "By 16
November 1801, Coleridge was back in London, occuping bachelor found for him
by Stuart, at 10 King Street, between Covent Garden and Fleet Street. Flinging himself into the oblivion of
newspaper work, he immediately dashed off three long and brilliant articles
on the newly formed Cabinet of Addington's anministration." fn6, p. 13 "He left Keswick on 10 November (as did his guests, the Wordsworths)." |
|||||||
April 4, 1802 | Dejection written | fn15, p. 96 "Thus much
is, moreover, certain, that whatever were Coleridge's health and habits
during the first two years of his residence at Keswick, his career as a
poet--that is to say, as a poet of the first order--was closed some months
before that period had expired. The
ode entitled Dejection,
to which reference has so often been made, was written on the 4th of April
1802, …" |
|||||||
February 29, 1802 | Coleridge left London to travel north to Gallow Hill, the home
of Tom Wordsworth, arriving there on March 2. |
fn2, p. 316 Hearing that Asra was ill, he "hurried north to Gallow Hill…where he remained to ten days, helping Mary and Tom to nurse her." | |||||||
March 15, 1802 | Coleridge arrives at Greta Hall but only stays four days. | fn2, p. 317 "He
remained at Greta Hall for just four days, and then walked over the windswept
Dunmail Raise to spend the weekend at Grasmere. He arrived at dusk on Friday 19
March,…During the weekend they talked of Wordsworth's marriage…Then Coleridge
returned to Greta Hall where the Wordsworths promised to join him the
following week...on 28 March..." |
|||||||
1802 | "Dejection" published |
||||||||
30 | December 23, 1802 | Sam's first and only daughter, Sara Coleridge is born at Greta
Hall, Keswick, Cumberland |
fn4, p. 209 "Sara Coleridge, as the child was actually named, was born on 23 December 1802. As in 1796 when Hartley was born, Coleridge was on his way home but missed the birth;…" | ||||||
Decenber 24, 1802 | Coleridge and Wedgwood arrive at Greta Hall | fn6, p. 17 "He
(Coleridge) calls at Dove Cottage on 24 December: 'C. came this morning with
Wedgwood....He looked well. We had to
tell him of the Birth of his little Girl, born yesterday.' He had also managed to miss the birth of
Hartley in 1796, and the death of Berkeley while in Germany; but he was at
home when Derwent was born at Greta Hall in 1800." fn2, p. 341 "News of Sara's premature labour-pains finally spun him north again. Coleridge and Wedgwood arrived at Greta Hall on Christmas Eve, just in time to miss the birth of a daughter - now his third surviving child - another Sara. 'I had never thought of a Girl as a possible event,' he told Southey, 'however I bore the sex with great Fortitude.' " ed note: Sara Coleridge (ne' Fricker) was born Sarah Fricker. She was called Sara by Coleridge because apparently he disliked the spelling of Sarah. |
|||||||
January 20, 1803 | Coleridge is off again. | fn6, p. 17 "But he was
soon off again. He started 1803 badly
by getting caught in a storm on Kirkstone Pass, but leaving Keswick on the
20th he travels via London and reaches the Wedgwoods by the end of the month." |
|||||||
January 1803 | Coleridge at Southey's in Bristol | fn15, p. 104 "In
January 1803 we find him staying with Southey at Bristol, 'suffering terribly
from the climate, and talking of going abroad.' a week later he is at Stowey, planning
schemes, not destined to be realised, of foreign travel with Wedgwood. Returning again to Keswick, he started,
after a few months' quiescence, on 15th August, is company with Wordsworth
and his sister, for a tour in Scotland, but after a fortnight he found
himself too ill to proceed." ed note: see August 15th below |
|||||||
February 1803 | Coleridge still traveling | fn6, p. 17 " 'For the
last 5 months of my Life I seem to have annihilated the present Tense with
regard to place - you can never say, where is he? - but only - where was he? where will he be? From Keswick -
to London - Bristol - Pembroke - Birmingham - Manchester/Keswick - Etruria -
Bristol - & in a few days to Blandford - probably, Stowey, Exeter -
possibly, the Lands's End.' " |
|||||||
Spring 1803 | Coleridge visits Poole, Southey and Josiah Wedgwood. | S.
T. Coleridge, Edited by R. L. Brett, London, G. Bells & Sons, 1971, p.
xiv fn4, p. 215 "Coleridge spent the spring of 1803 toing and froing between Bristol, where he stayed with Southey, Nether Stowey, where he was Poole's guest, and Gunville, Josiah Wedgwood's house in Dorset,..." |
|||||||
April or May 1803 | Coleridge returns to Keswick. | fn4, p. 216 "By May
Coleridge was back in Keswick after an absence of four months, having caught
flu in the mail coach on the way." fn6, p. 17 "After an absence of eight weeks Coleridge returned to Keswick on 8 April and writes on 20 May that he has been ill ever since." |
|||||||
July to October 1803 | William
Hazlitt comes to Greta Hall to put some finishing touches on a portrait that
he was doing of Coleridge |
fn2 , p. 349 "…during July, executed 'masterly' portraints of borth poets,…" (Coleridge and Wordsworth) "Hazlitt remained in the district from July till October,…" | |||||||
August 15, 1803 | Dorothy and William Wordsworth "set off with Coleridge on their tour into Scotland…". Before tour ends, Coleridge leaves obstensibly to return home because he was sick but tours Scotland on his own.. | fn4, p. 217 "…he
(Coleridge) was planning a walking tour of Scotland with Wordsworth and
Dorothy. As usual with Coleridge, ill
health did not stop him from undertaking long journeys on foot; he felt much
worse when he sat at home thinking about work and doing none, swallowing
opium, and quarrelling with Sara.
Before he left on 15 August,..." fn4, p. 218 "...Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Dorothy set off for Scotland 'in an Irish-Car and one horse', as Sara Coleridge reported to Southey...The journey was not a success, not so much because of Coleridge's health, for despite feeling dreadful he proved once more a doughty pedestrian, but because he and Wordsworth did not get on....Coleridge soon parted from the other two and set off alone from Arrochar to Glencoe,...Undaunted, he set out for Fort William, then Inverness, before turning south to Perth and Edinbugh. At Perth he heard of the death of little Margaret Southey and wrote in sympathy to Southey, who was now in Keswick." |
|||||||
fn2, p. 352 "They proceeded northwards in increasing rain and gloom, through Carlisle..., Gretna Green, Dumfires, the Falls of Clyde, Glasgow, and the bonny banks of Loch Lommond,..." | |||||||||
1803 "Lyrical Ballads"
(3rd edition) |
fn2, p. 353 "As before in Germany, they decided to split up, after crossing Loch Lomond on the ferry to East Tarbet, Before they parted at Arrochar on 30 August, Coleridge recorded a Scottish scene that may well have inspired one of Wordworth's loveliest lyrics, 'the Solitary Reaper'.... The plan was that Coleridge should send his bag back, and return south on foot to Edinburgh... In fact he was much happier, immediately deciding to strike north again along the line of the Scottish forts to Inverness,...Fort William...Perth... By 15 September Coleridge was back at Greta Hall but not before he had clambered up the crags beneath Arthur's Seat above Edinburgh..." | ||||||||
September 7, 1803 | Robert Southey and Edith move to Greta Hall, Keswick with the Coleridge's | fn4, p. 215 "As it
turned out, Southey did make his home with his wife and her sister Sara at
Great Hall. In September 1803 the baby
Margaret died, and Edith wanted to be with her sister. The Southeys moved in, and sooner rather
than later Southey found himself responsible not only for his own family, but
also for Coleridge's." fn5, p. 133 "On 7 September while Coleridge was still away in Scotland and Sarah on her own at Greta Hall, the Southeys arrived. It was the first time Sarah had seen her sister Edith in two years, and the circumstances were extremely delicate - Edith's first child, Margaret, had died a few weeks earlier. Letters were despatched northwards to Coleridge somewhere in Scotland and word finally reached him at Perth. He wrote back to Southey straight away that he could not 'chit chat with Scotchamen while you are at Keswick childless' and set off south immediately." fn5, p. 135 "They (the Southeys) arrived at Greta Hall on 7 September 1803, little realising that they had come to stay." |
|||||||
fn15, p. 104 "He
arrived at Greta Hall on 7th September 1803, and from time to time during the
next six months his correspondence gives us occasional glimpses of
Coleridge's meancholy state."
ed note: note the difference between this quote and fn5, p. 133 above stating "...Coleridge was still away in Scotland...". |
|||||||||
Mid September, 1803 | Coleridge returns to Keswick. | fn4, p. 220 "By
mid-September Coleridge was back in Keswick,…" see August 15, 1803 above, fn2, p. 353 |
|||||||
Autumn 1803 | Coleridge stays in Keswick for the fall | fn2, p. 355 "With
Southey and Edith established at Greta Hall (temporarily as they supposed)
Coleridge's path of escape was suddenly clear. But he lingered through the last three
months of autumn, consoling Southey [about the death of his daughter] with
many walks over the fells and through Borrowdale." |
|||||||
31 | December 20, 1803 | Coleridge leaves Greta Hall. | fn6, p. 20 "On 20
December Coleridge left Greta Hall for nearly two years. He had at last decided to move to a warmer
climate, and after many negotiations over a suitable post, difficulties of
transport and financial arrangements, he finally sailed for Malta on 9
April." fn4, p. 222 "By 20 December Coleridge was with the Wordsworths at Grasmere, intending to go straight on to London, '& thence to Ottery' to try to borrow money from his brothers for his foreign journey. In fact he did not leave Grasmere until 14 January...Once in London at the end of January, Coleridge took up again with his usual acquaintances. He lodged in Westminster with Poole,..." |
||||||
fn15, p. 105 "From
Grasmere he went to Liverpool, where he spent a pleasant week with his old
Unitarian friend, Dr. Crompton, and arrived in London at the close of
1803." |
|||||||||
End of January 1804 | Coleridge
in London |
see
fn4, p. 222
above |
|||||||
April 2, 1804 | Coleridge leaves England for Malta | fn15, p. 105 "…,and
on 2d April 1804, he sailed from England in the Speedwell, dropping anchor sixteen days later in Valetta
harbour." ed note: see descrepency in travel time and arrival date to Malta in fn4, p. 226 below |
|||||||
April 9, 1804 | Another date given for leaving England for Malta | fn4, p. 225 "He was
setting off ill, depressed and alone on a journey whick held many hazards,
not least the state of war which made a military convoy a necessary
protection for the Speedwell, which finally set sail with a fair wind on 9 April
1804." |
|||||||
May 18, 1804 | Coleridge arrives in Malta. | fn4, p. 226 "On 18
May, nearly six weeks after setting out, he arrived in Malta, having suffered
terrible bouts of seasickness and agonizing constipation in the last days of
the journey." fn8, chapter III, p. 167 " 'Friday afternoon, four o'clock, April 18,1804. The Speedwell dropped anchor in the harbour of Malta: one of the finest in the world, the buildings surrounding it on all sides, of a neat ever-new-looking sand-free-stone. Some unfinished, and in all, the windows placed backward, looked like Carthage when Æneas visited it-or a burnt out place.' " |
|||||||
July 6, 1804 | Coleridge moves into the Governor's Palace | fn4, p. 228
"Coleridge moved into the Governor's Palace on 6 July in high hopes of
getting a salaried secretarial post under Ball. Indeed he was already active in prparing
dispatches to London, and was soon Private Secretary to Sir Alexander Ball,
at £25 a month,
rising to Public Secretary in January 1805 on the death of the previous
incumbent, Alexander Macaulay." |
|||||||
August 10, 1804 | Coleridge visits Sicily | fn4, p. 228 "On 10
August Coleridge visited Sicily to prepare reports for Sir Alexander Ball and
to see the sights as a privileged tourist.
…he climbed Mount Etna on 19 August." |
|||||||
32 | November, 1804 | Coleridge returns to Malta | fn4, p. 229
"Coleridge had returned to Maltra from Sicily in November
1804…" |
||||||
January 18, 1805 | Coleridge is appointed Acting Public Secretary in Malta | fn4, p. 228
"Coleridge moved into the Governor's Palace on 6 July in high hopes of
getting a salaried secretarial post under Ball. Indeed he was already active in preparing
dispatches to London, and was soon Private Secretary to Sir Alexander Ball,
at £25 a
month,..." |
|||||||
July 10, 1805 | Thomas Wedgewood dies | fn15, p. 112 "His
friend and patron, Mr. Thomas Wedgwood, had died while he was in Malta; but
the full pension of £150 per annum bestowed upon him by the two brothers
jointly continued to be paid to him by Josiah, the senior. Coleridge, however, had landed in England
in ignorance of his patron's death. He had wholly neglected to keep up any
correspondence with the Wedgwoods during his stay in Malta, and though
'dreadfully affected' by it, as Mr. Poole records, he seems to have allowed
nearly a year to elapse before communicating with the surviving
brother." |
|||||||
September 23, 1805 | Leaves Malta. | fn4, p. 233 "On th
23rd of that month (September) he set off, planning to sail from Messina to
Naples, then travel on to Rome and Venice.
Travel was slow, and Coleridge stopped to enjoy the hospitality of the
consul in Sicily, By mid-October he
was poised to leave Messina, but his proposed overland route through Italy
was made impossible by new victories of Bonaparte." |
|||||||
Septermber 27, 1805 | Arrives in Syracuse | fn8, chapter II "On
the arrival of the new secretary at Malta, Mr. Coleridge left it, September
27, 1805, and after a day's voyage, arrived at Syracuse. He remained in
Sicily a short time only, for he was eager to visit the "eternal
city" (Rome,) in which he staid some months." |
|||||||
October 15, 1805 | Coleridge travels from Messina to Naples. | fn4, p. 233 "On the
night of 15 October, while still in Messina,...Coleridge travelled, perhaps
with British troops, to Naples, arriving on 20 November." |
|||||||
33 | December 15, 1805 | Arrives in Naples | fn15, p. 109 "At
Naples, which he reached on the 15th of December, he made a longer
stay,…" |
||||||
December 25, 1805 | Coleridge sets out for Rome. | fn4, p. 233 "On
Christmas Day 1805 Coleridge set out for Rome,…" |
|||||||
May 18, 1806 | Coleridge leaves Rome. | fn4, p. 234 "On 18
May 1806 Coleridge finally left Rome…" |
|||||||
June 7, 1806 | Coleridge arrives at Leghorn | fn4, p. 234 "At
Leghorn on 7 June, while waiting to board a ship,…" |
|||||||
June 23, 1806 | Coleridge sails for home. | fn4, p. 235 "On 23
June he and Russell sailed for home on the American ship the
Gosport." |
|||||||
August 17, 1806 | STC returns to England | fn4, p. 235 "He
arrived, more dead than alive, on English soil on 17 August." fn15, p. 111 "After an absence of two years and a half Coleridge arrived in England in August 1806. That his then condition of mind and body was a profoundly miserable one, and that he himself was acutely conscious of it,..." |
|||||||
fn15, p. 112 "His
history from the day of his landing in England in August 1806 till the day
when he entered Mr. Gillman's house in 1816 is one long and miserable story
of self-indulgence and self- reproach, of lost opportunities, of neglected
duties, of unfinished undertakings. His movements and his occupation for the
first year after his return are not now traceable with exactitude, but his
time was apparently spent partly in London and partly at Grasmere and
Keswick." |
|||||||||
October 9, 1806 | Coleridge leaves London for Keswick | fn4, p. 237 "At last
Coleridge set off from London on 9 October, but he proceeded indirectly by
way of a visit to the Clarksons at Bury St. Edmunds. From Bury he paid a brief visit to
Cambridge, the first since he had failed to return to complete his degree
twelve years before." |
|||||||
34 | October 26, 1806 | Coleridge arrives at Kendall | fn4, p. 237 "He saw
the Wordsworths and Sara Hutchinson before they departed to spend the winter
as guests of the Beaumonts at Coleorton in Leicestershire." |
||||||
35 | Late October or early November, 1806 | Coleridge finally arrives home at Keswick | fn4, p. 237 "The
meeting with the Wordsworths seems to have given Coleridge the courage to go
home to Keswick at last, with the now irrevocable intention of demanding a
separation." |
||||||
Shortly before Chirstmas, 1806 | Coleridge shows up at Coleorton with Hartley | fn4, p. 238 Coleridge
writes a Christmas letter to his wife Sara about their son Hartley "'All
here [at Coleorton] love him most dearly: and your name sake [Sara
Hutchinson] takes upon her all the duties of his Mother & darling Friend
with all the Mother's love & fondness. He is very fond of her.'
" |
|||||||
Chistmas 1806 to April 1807 | Coleridge remains at Coleorton with Hartley | fn4, p. 239 "Coleridge and Hartley remained at Coleorton with the Wordsworths until April 1807" | |||||||
April and May 1807 | STC in London | fn4, p. 242
"Coleridge had spent some of April and May in London; in June he was in
Nether Stowey with Sara and the children, all of them guests of
Poole." |
|||||||
June 1807 | At
Nether Stowey with Sara and the children |
see April and May 1807 | |||||||
August 1807 | Coleridge meets DeQuincey at Stowey | fn4, p. 244 "In
August 1807 deQuincey was content to meet Coleridge…" |
|||||||
1807 | Coleridge
in Bristol (meets DeQuincey), Nether Stowey and London |
S. T. Coleridge, Edited by R. L. Brett, London, G. Bells & Sons, 1971, p. xv | |||||||
34-35 | August to November 1807 | Coleridge stayed in Bristol | fn4, p. 244 "Coleridge
told Davy he would be in London by the end of September. Instead he stayed in Bristol until late
November, while Sara and the children, their expected visit to Ottery
thwarted, returned to Keswick in October with the gallant De Quincey as their
companion" |
||||||
35 | November 1807 to July 1808 | Coleridge
in London. Lectures at the Royal
Instituition Writes for the Morning Post primarily around 1800 |
fn4, p. 244 - 249 fn15, p. 119 "…in November 1807, and in the previous month De Quincey had been able to render Coleridge a minor service, while at the same moment gratifying a long cherished wish of his own. Mrs. Coleridge was about to return with her children to Keswick, but her husband, not yet master of this £300 windfall, and undoubtedly at his wits' end for money, was arranging for a course of lectures to be delivered at the Royal Institution early in the ensuing year, and could not accompany them. De Quincey offered accordingly to be their escort, and duly conducted them to Wordsworth's house, thus making the acquaintance of the second of his two great poetical idols within a few months of paying his first homage to the other." |
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February 1808 | Coleridge lives at the Courier office. | fn15, p. 119 "In February 1808 Coleridge again took up his abode in London at his old free quarters in the Courier office, and began the delivery of a promised series of sixteen lectures on Poetry and the Fine Arts. 'I wish you could see him,' again writes Poole to Wedgwood, 'you would pity and admire. He is much improved, but has still less voluntary power than ever. Yet he is so committed that I think he must deliver these lectures.' (p. 120) Coleridge's lectures on Poetry and the Fine Arts were confused, ill arraanged, and generally disappointing to the last degree. Sometimes it was not even possible to bring the horse to the water. Charles Lamb writes to Manning on the 20th of February 1808 (early days indeed) that Coleridge had only delivered two lectures, and that though 'two more were intended, he did not come.' " | |||||||
later on p.
120 "…what De Quincey has to say of the lectures themselves when they
did by chance get delivered is no less melancholy. 'The lecturer's appearance,' he says, 'was
generally that of a man struggling with pain and overmastering illness.'
" |
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May 1808 | Lectures end | fn15, p. 123 "From the close of this series of lectures in the month of May 1808 until the end of the year it is impossible to trace Coleridge's movements or even to determine the nature of his occupation with any apporach to exactitude. The probability is, however, that he remained in London at his lodgings in the Courier office, and that he supported himself by rendering assistance in various ways to Mr. Daniel Stuart. We know nothing of him, however, with certainty until we find him once more at the Lakes in the early part of the year 1809, but not in his own home." ed. note: see fn4 quote in July 1808 | |||||||
July 1808 | Coleridge leaves London | fn4, p. 249 "Having
recovered from the worst of his illness, Coleridge left London in early July
1808 to visit the Clarksons at Bury St. Edmunds." |
|||||||
September 1808 | Coleridge visits with the Wordsworths at Allan Bank in the Lake District. | S.
T. Coleridge, Edited by R. L. Brett, London, G. Bells & Sons, 1971, p.
xv fn4, p. 249 "At the beginning of September he arrived in Grasmere, where the Wordsworths had moved into a larger house, Allan Bank, handing over Dove Cottage to De Quincey…The arrangement was that Coleridge would live with the Wordsworths, and that Hartley and Derwent, now at Ambleside School, would visit there every weekend." |
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36 | Fall 1808 to Spring 1809 | Coleridge
while at Allan Bank worked on "The Friend" with William and Mary
Wordsworth, Sara Hutchinson, Dorothy Wordsworth and De Quincey |
fn4, p. 249 "In spite of such moments of angry and jealous love, Coleridge was happier and more energetic than he had been for months, if not years. He sought medical advice about his opium habit, and was able to reduce the dose temporarily. And he was planning a new literary venture, one which did, despite delays and setbacks, come to something." | ||||||
June 8,1809 to March 10,1810 | Coleridge published "The Friend" | fn4, pp. 251 - 252
"…despite problems with paper and printing, and the inevitable money
difficulties, Coleridge did get started. What is more, he produced his paper
from June 1809 to March 1810 with only occasional contributions from others
such as Wordsworth and Southey." fn8, chapter III, p. 187 "The first number, printed on stamped paper, was dated June 8th, 1809." "The work ceased at the 27th number, March 15th, 1810. As is usually the case when authors become their own publishers, there was a pecuniary loss; but as long as printing lasts, it must remain a record of his powers." |
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fn15, p. 123-124 "Wordsworth had removed from his former abode at Grasmere to Allan Bank, a larger house some three-quarters of a mile distant, and there Coleridge took up his residence, more, it would seem, as a permanent inmate of his friend's house than as a guest. The specific cause of this migration from Greta Hall to Allan Bank does not appear, but all the accessible evidence, contemporary and subsequent, seems to point to the probability that it was the result of a definite break-up of Coleridge's own home. He continued, at any rate, to reside in Wordsworth's house during the whole seven months of his editorship of the Friend,...and we shall see that upon its failure he did not resume his residence at Greta Hall, but quitted the Lake country at once and for ever." | |||||||||
August 1, 1809 | First of the Friend publications | fn15, p. 126 "Its
first number appeared on 1st August 1809,…" |
|||||||
37 | November 4, 1809 | Coleridge's mother, Anne Coleridge (ne' Bowden) dies at Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire | Public
domain, and fn4, p. 256 "Coleridge did not visit his mother, who died on 4 November. Nor did he attend her funeral. His brother James commented on George receiving no answer to his letters asking Coleridge to come to Devon: 'It is strange, passing strange, but such men there are. My brother Sam will be admirable, in my opinion, but neither respectable, nor venerable.' As it happened, Coleridge's mother-in-law, Mrs Fricker, had died only a few days before his mother..." |
||||||
1809 | Coleridge and Sarah separate | fn14, p. 117 "Strange
had been the trials in the life of the mother in the alienation of her
husband, and his long separation from her; for the last twenty-five years of
his life they had lived wholly apart."
ed. note: 25 years before STC's death would put the separation sometime in 1809 |
|||||||
March 1810 | Friend ceases | fn15, p. 127 "It (the
Friend) lingered on till its twenty-eighth number, and expired, unlike the Watchman, without any farewell to
its friends, in the third week of March 1810." |
|||||||
May, 1810 | Coleridge at Keswick to October | fn4, p. 257 "Coleridge
was in Keswick from early May 1810, having become once more friendly with his
wife, at least as far as their children were cocerned." |
|||||||
October 1810 | Coleridge leaves Keswick for London arriving October 26 | fn4, p. 259 "…in
October 1810 he [Coleridge] left Keswick in the company of Wordsworth's
friend Basil Montagu, and on their arrival in London Montagu informed him how
the Wordsworth felt about him. The
effect was shattering to Coleridge,…" |
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38-39 | October 1810 to November 1811 | Coleridge lives in London at various places: Hudson's Hotel, Covent Garden, John Morgan's home in Hammersmith, Brown's Coffee House off Fleet Street |
fn4, p. 265 "Not much
is known about Coeridge's exact movements to and from Morgan's house between
November 1810 and March 1811." fn15, p. 135 "…on reaching London in the summer of 1810 Coleridge became the guest of the Montagus, and that, after some months' residence with them, he left as the immediate result of some difference with his host which was never afterwards composed. ... But at some time or other, towards the close probably of 1810, or in the early months of 1811, Coleridge quitted Mr. Montagu's house for that of Mr. John Morgan, a companion of his early Bristol days, and a common friend of his and Southey's; and here, at No. 7 Portland Place, Hammersmith, he was residing when for the second time, he resolved to present himself to the London public in the capacity of lecturer." |
||||||
March to December 1811 | Coleridge writes for the "Courier" | fn4, p. 266 "In 1811
he cecame once more closely involved with politics, for Stuart at last
prevailed on him to repay his patience and regular 'loans' with some copy for
the Courier. Between March and
December 1811 Coleridge wrote a staggering ninety articles for Stuart. though he was now conservative in his
views, he was not, and never would be, a complete party man." fn15, p. 136 "A couple of months before the commencement of this course, viz. in September 1811, Coleridge seems to have entered into a definite journalistic engagement with his old editor, Mr. Daniel Stuart, then the proprietor of the Courier." fn15, p. 138 "...it is beyond dispute that his regular contributions to the Courier in 1811-12 are not only vastly inferior to his articles of a dozen years before in the Morning Post but fall sensibly short of the level of the letters of 1809,..." |
|||||||
39 | November 18,1811 | Coleridge delivers first lecture series in London | fn1, p. lxxxiv "The
lectures were to be on Shakespeare and Milton in illustration of the
Principles of Poetry, and there application as grounds of Criticism to the
most popular works of later English Poets…" "The first lecture was delivered on
the day appointed, 18th November and the others followed in due succession,
on Mondays and Thursdays, until January 27, 1812 - seventeen in
all." fn4, p. 269 "Both [Henry Crabb] Robinson and Collier junior were prominent in helping Coleridge to arriange a new set of lectures, which were given at the London Philosophical Society's rooms off Fleet Street between November 1811 and January 1812...(p. 270), The first lecture was given on Monday 18 November 1811...There were fifteen lectures, delivered on Mondays and Thursdays...(p. 276) The series was counted a success. for the last lecture, on 27 January [1812], 'the room was crowded' ". |
||||||
February 1812 | Coleridge returns to Greta Hall, Keswick | fn1, p. lxxxiv
"Immediately after this (the lectures) Coleridge set off for Greta hall,
picking up on the way his two boys at Ambleside. During the weeks he remained with Mrs.
Coleridge, she received many letters and messages from Miss Wordsworth
begging her to urge Coleridge to write to her, and on no account to leave the
Lake country without seeing them. It
was all in vain." fn4, p. 277 "A week or so after the lectures finished, Coleridge wrote to his wife to say that he was coming north on the Liverpool Mail. He was eagerly expected at Keswick,..." |
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April 1812 | Coleridge returns to London at the end of April | fn1, p. lxxxiv "It was
probably a hope of saving something out of the wreck of Brown's estate that
caused Coleridge to take Penrith on his way back to London, but it hardly
excuses him for staying there for a whole month without communication with
any of his friends...before he reappeared in town towards the end of
April." fn4, p. 278 "By the middle of April 1812 he was back in London, never again to return to the Lake District to which he had been so lovingly lured by Wordsworth in 1800." |
|||||||
April 1812 | Courier contributions end | fn15, p. 139 "The
series of contributions extends from September of 1811 until April of the
following year, and appears to have nearly come to a premature and abrupt
close in the intermediate July, when an article written by Coleridge in
strong opposition to the proposed reinstatement of the Duke of York in the
command-in-chief was, by ministerial influence, suppressed before
publication." |
|||||||
May, 1812 | Reconciliation with Wordsworth | S.
T. Coleridge, Edited by R. L. Brett, London, G. Bells & Sons, 1971, p. xv
(NOTE: previous entry states
Coleridge returned to London by the end of April) fn4, p. 263 "Many friends became involved [with the break in friendship with Wordsworth], and the break was finally mended in spring 1812, when Wordsworth came to London to have it out with Coleridge, with Crabb Robinson acting a patient go-between...He never again felt the old warmth towards Wordsworth." See also p. 279, first full paragraph. |
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40 | January 23,1813 | "Remorse"reopens at Drury Lane | S.
T. Coleridge, Edited by R. L. Brett, London, G. Bells & Sons, 1971, p.
xv fn1, lxxxvi "All accounts which have come down to us describe the performance as, on the whole, a great success. The best evidence, however, is the fact that it ran for twenty nights, and that Coleridge received for his share £400…" |
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May 12, 1813 | After a one week delay, Coleridge starts the third set of six lectures in London | fn4, p. 280
"Wordsworth also attended some of Coleridge's lectures, which began, not
on 12 May as advertised, but a week later because of the assassination of the
Prime Minsister, Spencer Perceval, in the House of Commons on 11
May." |
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1813 Fall | Robert Southey appointed Poet Laureate | Appointed
sometime in the Fall of 1813 |
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41 | October 1813 - 1814 | Coleridge Lectures in Bristol on the French Revolution, Milton, Napoleon, etc. | fn4, p. 285 "…October 1813 [Coleridge] set off to raise
money in Bristol, where the Morgans had lived until 1808 and had many
friends…Cottle, Wade, Eslin and Poole.
He manfully gave eight of his literary lectures again in the city in
which he had made his glorious debut as a lecturer. But under the unaccustomed effort and
assumptions of responsibility his health broke down." |
||||||
April 1814 | Coleridge gives more lectures in Bristol | fn4, p. 287 "Somehow
Coleridge climbed out of the pit. He
gave more lectures in Bristol in April 1814, a set of six on Milton and
Cervantes… He also gave, on 26 April,
the first of three political lectures on the rise of the French
Revolution,…" |
|||||||
1814 | Remorse performed in Bristol |
S. T. Coleridge, Edited by R. L. Brett, London, G. Bells & Sons, 1971, p. xv | |||||||
1814 | STC under the care of Dr. Daniel of opium addiction |
S. T. Coleridge, Edited by R. L. Brett, London, G. Bells & Sons, 1971, p. xv | |||||||
42-43 | December 1814 to April 1816 | STC moves to Calne in Wiltshire with the Morgans |
fn4, p. 288 "...from December 1814 to April 1816, at Calne in Wiltshire, where he lived with the financially restored Morgans | ||||||
1815 | Remorse performed in Calne | S.
T. Coleridge, Edited by R. L. Brett, London, G. Bells & Sons, 1971, p.
xvi |
|||||||
43 | April 16, 1816 May 25, 1816 |
Moves in with Dr. Gillman and his wife who try to control his
addiction. http://english.washcoll.edu/kiplin_hall/thepoets.html says STC moved on May 25 |
fn4, p. 297 "In the same month [April] he approached an apothecary-surgeon in Highgate, James Gillman, asking to be taken into his home as a paying guest for a month, so that his opium-taking could be medically supervised…On this basis Coleridge moved in with Gilman and his family, and stayed with them for the rest of his life." | ||||||
44 | 1817 | "Biographia
Literaria" (July 1817), "Zapolya", "Sibylline
Leaves" published |
S. T. Coleridge, Edited by R. L. Brett, London, G. Bells & Sons, 1971, p. xvi | ||||||
45 | 1818 | Writes two pamphlets in support of Peel's Bill against
child-labour "The Friend" revised and enlarged, "Treatise on Method" published. STC gives three courses of lectures (on poetry and philosophy) |
S.
T. Coleridge, Edited by R. L. Brett, London, G. Bells & Sons, 1971, p.
xvi fn4, p. 320 "(Coleridge) decided to lecture once more as a means of making money, since, despite his recent flurry of publications, he had earned very little from them,… The course was given at the rooms of the London Philosophical Society in Fleur-de-Luce Court, off Fleet Street, between 27 January and 13 March 1818." |
||||||
January 1818 | Lecture series in London | fn15, p. 160 "In the
month of January 1818 Coleridge once more commenced the delivery of a course
of lectures in London." fn15, p. 161 "These lectures, says Mr. Gillman, were from Coleridge's own account more profitable than any he had before given, though delivered in an unfavourable situation; a lecture-room in Flower de Luce Court, which, however, being near the Temple, secured to him the benefit--if benefit it were--of a considerable number of law students among his auditors. It was the first time that his devoted guardian had ever heard him in public, and he reports the significant fact that though Coleridge lectured from notes, which he had carefully made, 'it was obvious that his audience were more delighted when putting his notes aside, he spoke extempore...' " ed not: see December 14, 1818 below |
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46 | November 18, 1818 | Coleridge sees portrait of his daughter Sara now sixteen | fn4, p. 326 "On 3
November 1818 Coleridge was introduced in a circumspect way to a portrait of
his daughter, now nearly sixteen,…the daughter he had not seen since
1812." |
||||||
December 1818 | Hartley Coleridge graduates from Merton College, Oxford |
fn4, p. 326 "In December 1818 Hartley Coleridge graduated. He took a second class degree…" | |||||||
December 14 1818 to March 29, 1819 | Coleridge give fourteen lectures in London. | fn4, p. 327
"Coleridge's much increased activity now that he was established at the
Gillman's continued with his embarking in December 1818 on two sets of
lectures at the Crown and Anchor Tavern on the Strand. He gave six on Shakespeare,… The larger of the two courses of lectures
given by Coleridge was philosophjical.
He gave fourteen lectures, beginning on 14 December 1818 and ending on
29 March 1819." p. 329 "Coleridge made little from his lectures. While continuing the philosophical course in February and March 1819, he commenced yet another short course, of seven lectures, on literature from Spenser and Shakespeare to Milton. It was his final effort of the kind. He was exhausted, and so probably was his audience." fn8, chapter IV, p. 333 "Syllabus Of The Course"...p. 335 - 336 "In his lectures he was brilliant, fluent, and rapid; his words seemed to flow as from a person repeating with grace and energy some delightful poem. If, however, he sometimes paused, it was not for the want of words, but that he was seeking the most appropriate, or their most logical arrangement." |
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April 1819 | Hartley Coleridge appointed to a Fellowship at Oriel
College |
fn4, p. 326 Hartley Coleridge "whose brilliance was recognized at Oxford, was appointed to a Fellowship at Oriel College. Both parents though severally, glowed with pride." | |||||||
47 | April 1820 | Derwent visits with his father | fn4, p. 338 'Poor Derwent,
about to start his own university career at last, had only recently renewed
his acquaintance with his father, visiting him at Highgate in April 1820 for
the first time since March 1812, when he had been eleven years old." |
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48 | 1821 | Coleridge still at Highgate |
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49 | 1822 | Coleridge's "Thursday evening class" begins |
S. T. Coleridge, Edited by R. L. Brett, London, G. Bells & Sons, 1971, p. xvii | ||||||
1822 | Hartley sees his father for the last time | fn4, 370 "Hartley was
Coleridge's Nemesis. He never wrote
to, or saw, his father again, having last seen him in London in
1822." |
|||||||
50 | November 1822 | Hartley Coleridge joins staff at Ambleside School | fn4, p. 345 "Hartley did join the staff of Ambleside School in November 1822." | ||||||
January 3, 1823 | Sara Coleridge and her mother visit Highgate | fn4, p. 347 "In January 1823 Sara arrived in Highgate with her mother on a long awaited visit to the father she hardly knew. She and her mother left Keswick in November 1822, proceeding southwards in leisurely fashion, staying on the way with the Beaumonts at Coleorton, with Derwent in Cambridge, and with the Clarksons at Playford in Essex. On 3 January they arrived at the Gillmans' house." | |||||||
January 5, 1823 | Sara Coleridge at Highgate meets her cousins. | fn4, p. 348 "On that
day Coleridge's nephews John Taylor and Henry Nelson Coleridge visited
Highgate and met their cousin for the first time. Henry and Sara fell in love, and by the
time she left London in early March they were already secretly engaged. Coleridge disapproved of the marriage of
first cousins,..." |
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February 1823 | Sara and Mrs. Coleridge (Sarah) spend 5 weeks as guests of John
Coleridge (John Taylor, Coleridge's nephew) in London |
fn4, p. 350 "Sara and Mrs Coleridge spent five weeks as guests of John Coleridge and wis wife in Bloomsbury before leaving London on 5 March for a visit to the Ottery Coleridges." | |||||||
May 1, 1823 | Coleridge attends a party at his nephew John Taylor Coleridge in Bloomsbury | fn4, p. 350 "At John's party of 1 May Coleridge was once more 'in great force'. This time the other guests were none other than Colonel James and his wife [Frances Duke]. Henry was delighted to report the success of this meeting, the first between Coleridge and his older brother for many years." | |||||||
Autumn 1823 | Coleridge in Ramsgate, Kent with Mrs. Gillman | fn4, p. 354 "While he
and Mrs Gillman were in Ramsgate in the autumn of 1823, Gillman had moved
house to No. 3, The Grove, Highgate, the house in which Coleridge spent the
rest of his life." |
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51 | 1824 | Coleridge elected FRSL (Fellow of The Royal Society of
Literature), granted an annuity of £100 |
S. T. Coleridge, Edited by R. L. Brett, London, G. Bells & Sons, 1971, p. xvii | ||||||
April 1824 | Wordsworth visits Coleridge | fn4, p. 355 "In April
Wordsworth came on his usual spring visit to London, and the poets dined
together again at the Monkhouses' " |
|||||||
52 | November 29, 1824 | Coleridge on holiday in Ramsgate | fn4, p. 357 "On 29 November 1824, …Coleridge was again on holiday in Ramsgate with Mrs Gillman,…" | ||||||
May 1825 | "Aide to Reflection" published | S.
T. Coleridge, Edited by R. L. Brett, London, G. Bells & Sons, 1971, p.
xvii see also fn4, p. 346 and 361 |
|||||||
May 18, 1825 | Lectures at the Royal Institution | fn12, p. 84
"Coleridge's health declined rapidly in the 1820s, and no portrait of
him, painted or verbal, could fail to record this. S. C. Hall remembered him as he looked at
his lecture at the Royal Institution, which took place on 18 May
1825:…" |
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53 | October 1825 | Coleridge in Ramsgate again | fn4, p. 369 "By
October poor Henry [Gillman] had got into trouble, and Coleridge left
Ramsgate, where he was spending his annual holiday with Mrs Gillman, to go to
Eton and sort things out." |
||||||
October 1826 | Coleridge and Mrs. Gillman in Ramsgate |
fn4, p. 376 "In
October 1826 Coleridge went on his usual two-month visit with Mrs Gillman to
Ramsgate, where once again bad news
from Eton arrived. This time Henry
Gillman was sent down for unspecified worgdoing." |
|||||||
54 | October 29, 1826 | Derwent Coleridge ordained | fn7, pp. 80 - 81
"Derwent was ordained Deacon at Exeter Cathedral on Sunday, 29 October
1826." fn4, p. 377 "In October 1826 he [Derwent Coleridge] was ordained deacon and began serving as a curate in Cornwall under yet another cousin, the Revd James Coleridge, eldest son of the Colonel." |
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55 | December 6, 1827 | Derwent Coleridge marries Mary Simpson Pridham at St. Andrews
Church, Plymouth, Devonshire |
Public domain | ||||||
January 12, 1828 | Samuel's brother, the Rev. George Coleridge dies at Ottery | Public
domain see also fn4, p. 378 |
|||||||
April 1828 | Coleridge visited by his brother, James | fn4, p. 381 "In April
1828 Coleridge was visited by his brother James, now reconciled to becoming
in due course father-in-law to Coleridge's daughter, …" |
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June 21 - August 6, 1828 | Continental tour with Wordsworth "Poetical Works" published |
S.
T. Coleridge, Edited by R. L. Brett, London, G. Bells & Sons, 1971, p.
xvii fn4, pp. 382 - 383 "Another subject of discussion at Aders's breakfast party in June was Wordsworth's plan to spend a few weeks traveling in Belgium, Holland and the Rhineland with his daughter Dora... Relations with Coleridge were now relaxed enough...for him to be included in the tour at the last minute. The 'two Poets and their amiable Daughter', as Dora put it, set off on 21 June... by 6 August the travellers had arrived back in London." |
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56 | October 1828 | Coleridge complains of ill health | fn4, p. 384 "In
October 1828, his birthday month, Coleridge's writes letters more frequently
complained of his ill health and guilty conscience." |
||||||
September 3, 1829 | Sara Coleridge marries her cousin, Henry Nelson Coleridge at
Crosthwaite Church, Keswick, Cumberland Hartley Coleridge last saw his sister Sara at her marriage "Poetical Works, 2nd edition |
fn5, p. 222 "Sara
Coleridge was married in Crosthwaite church on 3 September in glorious
weather, surrounded by her family and friends. Southey gave her away, her childhood
playfellow John Wordsworth was the clergyman and Dora Wordsworth, Edith May,
Bertha and Kate Southey were among the seven bridesmaids dressed in pale
green satin, carrying armloads of late roses." fn4, p. 370 "Not only did he never see his father [after 1822], but after his sister Sara's marriage in 1829 he did not see her again either." fn4, p. 385 "Hartley did turn up at Rydal Mount a few days after the wedding, managing to miss both Sara and his mother, who was staying with the Wordsworths." (contrast to the above quote) |
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September 1829 | Sarah Coleridge leaves Greta Hall for good | fn5, p. 223 "Sarah
Coleridge had made up her mind to leave Greta Hall after her daughter's
wedding…so Sarah went on a farewell visit to Rydal Mount after the wedding
and on 28 September travelled to Cornwall to stay with Derwent and his wife
at Helston." |
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57 | December 1829 | "On the Consitution of Church and State"
published |
see fn4, p. 387 | ||||||
July 2, 1830 | Writes will |
fn8, chapter II, p. 96 "In his will, dated Highgate, July 2nd, 1830…" | |||||||
October 7, 1830 | Sara Coleridge's first child born | fn4, p. 397 "Poor Mrs
Coleridge. She had left Derwent's
house for Hampstead to be with Sara during the birth of her first Child,
Herbert, born on 7 October 1830." |
|||||||
58 | 1831 | Last meeting with Wordsworth |
S. T. Coleridge, Edited by R. L. Brett, London, G. Bells & Sons, 1971, p. xvii | ||||||
November 1831 | Health issues | fn15, p. 181 "In
November 1831 he writes that for eighteen months past his life had been 'one
chain of severe sicknesses, brief and imperfect convalescences, and
capricious relapses.' Henceforth he
was almost entirely confined to the sick-room. His faculties, however, still remained
clear and unclouded." |
|||||||
1832 | Coleridge constantly ill | fn4, p. 399 "Coleridge
was now constantly ill, though he appears to have given up opium for about
six weeks between the end of March and some time in May 1832, resuming it…at
the request of Green and Gillman,…" |
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59 | August 9, 1832 | Coleridge witnesses the christening of Sara's second child | fn4, p. 400 "Coleridge
roused himself to go to Hampstead for the christening of Sara's second child,
Edith, on 9 August 1832… If he felt
thus warmly towards his wife on the occasion, she too had renewed positve feeling
towards him,…" |
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Detailed description of the view from Coleridge's window at Highgate | fn10, chapter VIII "The Gillmans did not encourage much company, or excitation of any sort, round their sage; nevertheless access to him, if a youth did reverently wish it, was not difficult. He would stroll about the pleasant garden with you, sit in the pleasant rooms of the place,--perhaps take you to his own peculiar room, high up, with a rearward view, which was the chief view of all. A really charming outlook, in fine weather. Close at hand, wide sweep of flowery leafy gardens, their few houses mostly hidden, the very chimney-pots veiled under blossomy umbrage, flowed gloriously down hill; gloriously issuing in wide-tufted undulating plain-country of the brightest green; dotted all over with handsome villas, handsome groves; crossed by roads and human traffic, here inaudible or heard only as a musical hum: and behind all swam, under olive-tinted haze, the illimitable limitary ocean of London, with its domes and steeples definite in the sun, big Paul's and the many memories attached to it hanging high over all. Nowhere, of its kind, could you see a grander prospect on a bright summer day, with | ||||||||
the set of the
air going southward,--southward, and so draping with the city-smoked not you
but the city." |
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Description of Coleridge at Highgate | fn10, chapter VIII "The good man, he was now getting old, towards sixty perhaps; and gave you the idea of a life that had been full of sufferings; a life heavy-laden, half-vanquished, still swimming painfully in seas of manifold physical and other bewilderment. Brow and head were round, and of massive wight, but the face was flabby and irresolute. the deep eyes, of a light hazel, were as full of sorrow as of inspiration; confused pain looked mildly from them, as in a kind of mild astonishment. The whole figure and air, good and amiable otherwise, might be called flabby and irresolute; expressive of weakness under possibility of strength. He hung loosely on his limbs, with knees bent, and stooping attitude; in walking, he rather shuffled than decisively steps; and a lady once remarked, he never could fix which side of the garden walk would suit him best, but continually shifted, in corkscrew fashion, and kept trying both. A heavy-laden high-aspiring and surely much-suffering man. His voice, naturally soft and good, had contracted itself into a plaintive snuffle and singsong; he spoke as if | ||||||||
preaching,--you
would have said, preaching earnestly and also hopelessly the weightiest
things. I sitill recollect his
'object' and 'subject,' terms of continual recurrence in the Kantean
parovince; and how he sang and snuffled them into 'om-m-mject' and
'sum-m-mject,' with a kind of solemn shake or quaver, as he rolled
along. No talk, in his century or in
any other, could be more surprising."
ed. note: more detail contained in chapter VIII of this book. |
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60 | April 1833 | Coleridge's health was wretched. | fn4, p. 401 "By April
1833 Coleridge's health was wretched.
Henry Nelson Coleridge noticed that he had 'a good deal lost his
articulation;…' " |
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June and July 1833 | Coleridge visits Cambridge and Ramsgate | fn4, p. 404 "Durning
the summer of 1833 Coleridge experienced one of those miraculous recoveries
at which Dorothy Wordsworth used to marvel.
To everyone's estonishment he was fit enough to visit Cambridge for
three days in June and to enjoy a summer holiday with the Gillmans in their
old haunt, Ransgate, in July. After
three weeks in Ramsgate, he returned to Highgate,..." |
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61 | October 1833 | Coleridge's bodily health declines |
fn4, p. 404 "Though Coleridge was largely cheerful, his bodily health continued to decline." | ||||||
January 1834 | Sara Coleridge gave birth to twins, Berkeley and Florence who only survive two days | see fn4, p. 405 | |||||||
March 1834 | Coleridge growing weaker | fn4, p. 405 "Coleridge
himself was growing weaker. In March
he was suffering from a tumour in the cheek and neck and another outbreak of
erysipelas." |
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First half of 1834 | "Poetical Works", 3rd edition published |
S. T. Coleridge, Edited by R. L. Brett, London, G. Bells & Sons, 1971, p. xvii | |||||||
July 25, 1834 | STC dies at 3 The Grove, Highgate, London home of Dr. Gillman | fn4, p. 406 "On 25 July Coleridge died, as nearly at peace with himself as was possible, concerned about his friends, and glad to be leaving behind a life of suffering. It had not been a happy life for many of the sixty-one years it lasted. But it had been an extraordinary one.." | |||||||
Post Mortem | fn13, p. 31 "In 1830 Sara and Henry Nelson Coleridge moved nearby to Hampstead, and supported him through the last few years. Coleridge died on 25 July 1834 in Highgate. A post mortem revealed evidence of serious and long-standing heart problems, suggesting a physiological basis for the laudanum dependency which had so desturctively blighted Coleridge's vulnerable sensibiliity." | ||||||||
August 2, 1834 | Coleridge buried in Highgate 1961 Coleridge's remains are reburied at St. Michael's Church, Near Highgate Cemetery, London |
fn4, p. 406 "Coleridge was buried in Highgate, in a vault next to Highgate School, on August 2, 1834. Henry and Edward Coleridge attended, as did Green and James Gillman junior, whose father was too ill to go. John Sterling came from Cambridge. The vault filled up, in due course, with other family members: Henry Nelson Coleridge in 1843, Coleridge's unfortunate wife in 1845, his beloved daughter in 1852, and her brilliant son Herbert in 1861." | |||||||
August 2, 1834 (The quote following states the will was read following the burial) |
STC's will read by Mr. Green | fn18, p. 66 "Mr. Green, after the ceremony, read aloud his will, and was greatly overcome in performing his task. It is indeed a most affecting document. What little he had to bequeath (a policy of assurance worth about 2560) is my mother's for life, of course, and will come to her children equally after her time. Mr. Green has the sole power over my father's literary remains, and the philosophical part he will himself prepare for publication; some theological treatises he has placed in the hands of Mr. Julius Hare, of Cambridge, and his curate, Mr. Sterling (both men of great ability). Henry will arrange literary and critical pieces--notes on the margins of books, or any miscellaneous productions of that kind that may be met with among his MSS., and probably some letters will appear if they can be collected." | |||||||
September 8, 1837 | Thomas
Poole dies (born November 14, 1765 at Nether Stowey) |
Friend of Coleridge | |||||||
November 16, 1837 | Edith
Southey (ne' Fricker) dies |
Edith Southey was Coleridge's Sarah's sister | |||||||
1839 | James Gillman dies | Walton's Lives
and Gillman's Life of Coleridge, B. R. McElderry, Jr., PMLA, Vol. 52, No. 2
(Jun., 1937, pp. 412-422 |
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January 26, 1843 | Son-in-Law,
Henry Nelson Coleridge dies at home, husband of Sara Coleridge |
Sara Coleridge was STC's only daughter | |||||||
1843 | Josiah
Wedgwood dies |
From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
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March 21, 1843 | Robert Southey dies at Greta Hall, Keswick | ||||||||
September 24, 1845 | Coleridge's
wife, Sarah dies at 10 Chester Place, Regent's Park, London the home of her
daughter |
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May 03, 1852 | Daughter
Sara Coleridge dies at home |
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1853 | Joseph Cottle dies |
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia | |||||||
March 28, 1883 | Son
Derwent Coleridge, last of STC's children dies at Torquay, Devonshire |
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Summary
of Coleridge's life divided into three parts; 1. the "Poetic Period" 1772 - 1798 2. the "Critical Period" 1798 - 1818, and 3. the "Theological Period" 1818 - 1834 |
fn15, p. 170 "His
life until the age of twenty-six may fairly be described as in its 'poetic
period.' It was during these years,
and indeed during the last two or three of them, that he produced all the
poetry by which he will be remembered, while he produced little else of mark
or memorability. The twenty years
which follow from 1798 to 1818 may with equal accuracy be styled the
'critical period.' It was during these
years that he did his best work as a journalist, and all his work as a public
lecturer on aesthetics. It was during
them that he said his say, and even his final say, so far as any public modes
of expression were concerned, on politics and on art. From 1818 to his death his life was devoted
entirely to metaphysics and theology, and with such close and constant
reference to the latter subject, to which indeed his metaphysics had
throughout his life been ancillary, that it deserves to give the name of the
'theological period' to these closing years." |
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fn1 | James Dykes Campbell, The Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, MacMillan and Co., Limited, London, 1905 | ||||||||
fn2 | Richard Holmes, Coleridge - Early Visions, Flamingo, London, 1999 | ||||||||
fn3 | Richard Holmes, Coleridge, Darker Reflections, Flamingo, London, 1999 | ||||||||
fn4 | Rosemary Ashton, The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Blackwell, 1997 | ||||||||
fn5 | Kathleen Jones, A Passionate Sisterhood, Constable, 1997 | ||||||||
fn6 | H. W. Howe, Greta Hall, Daedalus Press, 1977 | ||||||||
fn7 | R. Hainton & G. Hainton, The Unknown Coleridge, Janus, 1996 | ||||||||
fn8 | James Gillman, The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1838, Globusz Publishing ebooks New York • Berlin | ||||||||
fn9 | Joseph Cottle, Early Recollections, Vol. I, 1837, (online book) | ||||||||
fn10 | Thomas Carlyle, Life of John Sterling, 1851, (Coleridge at Highgate), (The Project Gutenberg Ebook) | ||||||||
fn11 | Henry Nelson Coleridge and Sara Coleridge, The Biographical Supplement of Biographia Literaria of S. T. Coleridge, 1847 (The Project Gutenberg Ebook) | ||||||||
fn12 | Morton D. Paley, The Life Portraits of Coleridge, 1999, Oxford University Press | ||||||||
fn13 | The Cambridge Companion to Coleridge edited by Lucy Newlyn, St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, 2002, Cambridge University Press, extract from Coleridge's Life by Kelvin Everest | ||||||||
fn14 | Ellis Yarnell, Wordsworth and the Coleridges, 1899, The MacMillan Company, New York | ||||||||
fn15 | H. D. Traill, English Men of Letters: Coleridge, 1884 | ||||||||
fn16 | Professor William Angus Knight, Coleridge and Wordsworth in the West Country, 1914, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York | ||||||||
fn17 | Eleanor A. Towle, The Poet's Children, Hartley and Sara Coleridge, Methuen & Co. LTD. London | ||||||||
fn18 | Edith Coleridge, Memoir and Letters by Sara Coleridge, 1875 | ||||||||
fn19 | The Annual Register or a view of History, Politics and Literature of the Year 1834, printed for Baldwin and Cradock, London | ||||||||
fn20 | The Gentleman's Magazine by Sylvanus Urban, Vol. V New Series, 1836, London | ||||||||
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