He shrank from mere
uneasiness like a child, and bore the preparatory agonies of his death-
attack like a martyr. Sinned against a thousand times more than sinning, he
himself suffered an almost life-long punishment for his errors, whilst the
world at large has the unwithering fruits of his labours, his genius, and
his sacrifice. _Necesse est tanquam immaturam mortem ejus defleam; si tamen
fas est aut flere, aut omnino mortem vocare, qua tanti viri mortalitas
magis finita quam vita est. Vivit enim, vivetque semper, atque etiam latius
in memoria hominum et sermone versabitur, postquam ab oculis recessit._
* * * * *
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was the youngest child of the Reverend John
Coleridge, Vicar of the Parish of Ottery St. Mary, in the county of Devon,
and master of Henry the Eighth's Free Grammar School in that town. His
mother's maiden name was Ann Bowdon. He was born at Ottery on the 21st of
October, 1772, "about eleven o'clock in the forenoon," as his father the
vicar has, with rather a curious particularity, entered it in the register.
He died on the 25th of July, 1834, in Mr. Gillman's house, in the Grove,
Highgate, and is buried in the old church-yard, by the road side.
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