Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit | Page 3

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This etext was prepared by David Price, email [email protected]
from the 1892 Cassell & Company edition.

CONFESSIONS OF AN INQUIRING SPIRIT AND MISCELLANEOUS
ESSAYS FROM "THE FRIEND"
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Contents:
Introduction Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit Letters on the
Inspiration of the Scriptures. An Essay on Faith Notes on the Book of
Common Prayer A Nightly Prayer A Sailor's Fortune Essay I Essay II
Essay III Essay IV Essay V Essay VI
INTRODUCTION

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born on the 21st of October, 1772,
youngest of many children of the Rev. John Coleridge, Vicar of the
Parish and Head Master of the Grammar School of Ottery St. Mary, in
Devonshire. One of the poet's elder brothers was the grandfather of
Lord Chief Justice Coleridge. Coleridge's mother was a notable

housewife, as was needful in the mother of ten children, who had three
more transmitted to her from her husband's former wife. Coleridge's
father was a kindly and learned man, little sophisticated, and
distinguishing himself now and then by comical acts of what is called
absence of mind. Charles Buller, afterwards a judge, was one of his
boys, and, when her husband's life seemed to be failing, had promised
what help he could give to the anxious wife. When his father died,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was but eight years old, and Charles Buller
obtained for him his presentation to Christ's Hospital. Coleridge's mind
delighted in far wandering over the fields of thought; from a boy he
took intense delight in dreamy speculation on the mysteries that lie
around the life of man. From a boy also he proved his subtleties of
thought through what Charles Lamb called the "deep and sweet
intonations" of such speech as could come only from a poet.
From the Charterhouse, Coleridge went to Jesus College, Cambridge,
where he soon won a gold medal for a Greek ode on the Slave Trade,
but through indolence he slipped into a hundred pounds of debt. The
stir of the French Revolution was then quickening young minds into
bold freedom of speculation, resentment against tyranny of custom, and
yearning for a higher life in this world. Old opinions that familiarity
had made to the multitude conventional were for that reason distrusted
and discarded. Coleridge no longer held his religious faith in the form
taught by his father. He could not sign the Thirty-nine Articles, and felt
his career closed at the University. His debt also pressed upon him
heavily. After a long vacation with a burdened mind, in which one
pleasant day of picnic gave occasion to his "Songs of the Pixies,"
Coleridge went back to