Biographia Epistolaris, vol 1 | Page 9

These facts I received from my Mother; but I am utterly unable to fill
them up by any further particulars of times, or places, or names. Here I
shall conclude my first Letter, because I cannot pledge myself for the
accuracy of the accounts, and I will not therefore mingle it with that for

the truth of which, in the minutest parts, I shall hold myself responsible.
You must regard this Letter as a first chapter devoted to dim traditions
of times too remote to be pierced by the eye of investigation.
Yours affectionately, S. T. COLERIDGE.
Feb. 1797. Monday.
[Footnote 1: A mistake, should be October 21st.]

LETTER 2. To MR. POOLE
My Dear Poole,
My Father (Vicar of, and Schoolmaster at, Ottery St. Mary, Devon) was
a good mathematician, and well versed in the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew
languages. He published, or rather attempted to publish, several
works;--1st, Miscellaneous Dissertations arising from the 17th and 18th
chapters of the Book of Judges; 2d, "Sententiae Excerptcae" for the use
of his own School; and 3d, his best work, a Critical Latin Grammar, in
the Preface to which he proposes a bold innovation in the names of the
cases. My Father's new nomenclature was not likely to become popular,
although it must be allowed to be both sonorous and expressive.
"Exempli gratia", he calls the ablative case "the quare-quale-quidditive
case!" He made the world his confidant with respect to his learning and
ingenuity, and the world seems to have kept the secret very faithfully.
His various works, uncut, unthumbed, were preserved free from all
pollution in the family archives, where they may still be for anything
that I know. This piece of good luck promises to be hereditary; for all
"my" compositions have the same amiable home-staying propensity.
The truth is, my Father was not a first-rate genius; he was, however, a
first-rate Christian, which is much better. I need not detain you with his
character. In learning, goodheartedness, absentness of mind, and
excessive ignorance of the world, he was a perfect Parson Adams.
My Mother was an admirable economist, and managed exclusively. My
eldest brother's name was John. He was a Captain in the East India
Company's service; a successful officer and a brave one, as I have
heard. He died in India in 1786. My second brother William went to

Pembroke College, Oxford. He died a clergyman in 1780, just on the
eve of his intended marriage. My brother James has been in the army
since the age of fifteen, and has married a woman of fortune, one of the
old Duke family of Otterton in Devon. Edward, the wit of the family,
went to Pembroke College, and is now a clergyman. George also went
to Pembroke. He is in orders likewise, and now has the same School, a
very flourishing one, which my Father had. He is a man of reflective
mind and elegant talent. He possesses learning in a greater degree than
any of the family, excepting myself. His manners are grave, and hued
over with a tender sadness. In his moral character he approaches every
way nearer to perfection than any man I ever yet knew. He is worth us
all. Luke Herman was a surgeon, a severe student, and a good man. He
died in 1790, leaving one child, a lovely boy still alive. [1] My only
sister, Ann, died at twenty-one, a little after my brother Luke:--
Rest, gentle Shade! and wait thy Maker's will; Then rise unchang'd, and
be an angel still!
Francis Syndercombe went out to India as a midshipman under
Admiral Graves. He accidentally met his brother John on board ship
abroad, who took him ashore, and procured him a commission in the
Company's army. He died in 1792, aged twenty-one, a Lieutenant, in
consequence of a fever brought on by excessive fatigue at and after the
siege of Seringapatam, and the storming of a hill fort, during all which
his conduct had been so gallant that his Commanding Officer
particularly noticed him, and presented him with a gold watch, which
my Mother now has. All my brothers are remarkably handsome; but
they were as inferiour to Francis as I am to them. He went by the name
of "the handsome Coleridge." The tenth and last child was Samuel
Taylor, the subject and author of these Epistles.
From October 1772 to October 1773. Baptized Samuel Taylor, my
Godfather's name being Samuel Taylor, Esquire. I had another called
Evans, and two Godmothers, both named Munday.
From October 1773 to October 1774. In this year I was carelessly left
by my nurse, ran to the fire, and pulled out a live coal, and burned
myself dreadfully. While my hand was being drest by Mr. Young, I
spoke for the first time, (so my