Description

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born on October 21st, 1772 in Ottery St Mary, Devon, England. As a young child he was an early and devoted reader having no time for play or sports. After his father died in 1781, 8-year-old Samuel was sent to Christ's Hospital, a charity school founded in the 16th century in Greyfriars, London, where he remained throughout childhood, studying and writing poetry. From 1791 Coleridge attended Jesus College, Cambridge and in 1792, he won the Browne Gold Medal for an ode on the slave trade. In December 1793, he left the college to enlist in the Royal Dragoons using the name "e;Silas Tomkyn Comberbache"e;. His brothers arranged for his discharge a few months later under the reason of "e;insanity"e; and he was readmitted to Jesus College, though never to receive a degree. At the university, he was introduced to political and theological ideas including those of the poet Robert Southey. In 1795, the two friends married sisters Sarah and Edith Fricker, Bristol, but Coleridge's marriage with Sarah proved unhappy. He grew to detest his wife. Coleridge made plans to establish a journal, The Watchman, to be printed every eight days in order to avoid a weekly newspaper tax. The first issue was published in March 1796; it ceased publication in May the same year. The years 1797 and 1798, during which he lived in what is now known as Coleridge Cottage, in Nether Stowey, Somerset, were among the most fruitful of Coleridge's life. Besides the R