Part 8

"I," says Coleridge, giving us the other side of the case, "was a poor friendless boy; my parents, and those who should have cared for me, were far away. Those few acquaintances of theirs, which they could reckon on being kind to me in the great city, after a little forced notice, which they had the grace to take of me on my first arrival in town, soon grew tired of my holyday visits. They seemed to them to recur too often, though I thought them few enough; one after another, they all failed me, and I felt myself alone among six hundred playmates. O, the cruelty of separating a poor lad from his early homestead! The yearnings which I used to have toward it in those unfledged years! How in my dreams would my native town, far in the west, come back, with its churches, and trees, and faces! To this late hour of my life do I trace the impressions left by the painful recollections of those friendless holydays. The long, warm days of summer never return but they bring with them a gloom from the haunting memories of those _whole day's leave_, when, by some strange arrangement, we were turned out for the live-long day, upon our own hands, whether we had friends to go to or none. I remember those bathing excursions to the New river, which Lamb recalls with such relish, better, I think, than he can, for he was a home-seeking lad, and did not care for such water parties. How we would sally forth into the fields, and strip under the first warmth of the sun, and wanton like young dace in the streams, getting appetites for the noon which those of us that were penniless had not the means of allaying; while the cattle, and the birds, and the fishes were at feed about us, and we had nothing to satisfy our cravings: the very beauty of the day, the exercise of the pastime, and the sense of liberty, setting a keener edge upon them! How, faint and languid, finally, we would return, toward nightfall, to our desired morsel, half-rejoicing, half-reluctant, that the hours of uneasy liberty had expired!

"It was worse, in the days of winter, to go prowling about the streets objectless; shivering at cold windows of print-shops, to extract a little amusement; or, haply, as a last resort, in the hope of a little novelty, to pay a fifty times repeated visit to the lions in the Tower, to whose levee, by courtesy immemorial, we had a prescriptive right of admission, and where our individual faces would be as well known to the warden as those of his own charges."

What an amount of cruelty may be perpetrated even under the show of favor! what hard days for the stomach, under the guise of holydays! Coleridge was, from all accounts, at this time, "a delicate and suffering boy." His stomach was weak, his feet tender, so that he was obliged to wear very large, easy shoes. This might be one cause why he more readily fell into sedentary reading habits. He was to be found during play hours, often, with the knees of his breeches unbuttoned, and his shoes down at the heel, walking to and fro, or sitting on a step, or in a corner, deeply engaged in some book. The future author of the Ancient Mariner, and translator of Wallenstein, sitting on door-steps and at corners, with his book on his knee, was a very interesting object, if the Ancient Mariner and Wallenstein could have been seen seated in that head of black, cropped hair; as it was, it did excite attention; and Bowyer, one of those clever brutes who, on the strength of a good store of Latin and Greek, think themselves authorized to rain a good store of blows on the poor children in their power, testified his hopes of Coleridge's progress by continually and severely punishing him. He was often heard to say that "the lad was so ordinary a looking lad, with his black head, that he generally gave him, at the end of a flogging, an extra cut; for, said he, you are such an ugly fellow."

Books were the poor fellow's solace for the flagellations of the masters and the neglect of the boys, among whom Lamb was not to be reckoned, for he was very fond of him and kind to him. "From eight to fourteen I was a playless day-dreamer," he observes; "a _helluo librorum_; my appetite for which was indulged by a singular incident a stranger who was struck by my conversation, made me free of a circulating library in King-street, Cheapside."

This incident, says Gillman, was indeed singular. Going down the Strand, in one of his daydreams, fancying himself swimming across the Hellespont, thrusting his hands before him as in the act of swimming, one hand came in contact with a gentleman's pocket. The gentleman seized his hand; turned round, and looked at him with some anger, exclaiming "What! so young and so wicked!" at the same time accusing him of an attempt to pick his pocket. The frightened boy sobbed out his denial of the intention, and explained to him how he thought himself Leander swimming across the Hellespont. The gentleman was so struck and delighted with the novelty of the thing, and with the simplicity and intelligence of the boy, that he subscribed, as before stated, to the library, in consequence of which Coleridge was further enabled to indulge his love of reading.

It is stated that at this school he laid the foundation of those bodily sufferings, which made his life one of sickness and torture, and occasioned his melancholy resort to opium. He greatly injured his health, it is said, and reduced his strength by his bathing excursions; but is it not quite as likely that the deficiency of food, and those holyday days when he was turned out to starvation, had quite as much to do with it? On one occasion he swam across the New river in his clothes, and dried them on his back. This is supposed to have laid the foundation of his rheumatic pains; but may not that lying out all night in the rain at a former day have been even a still earlier predisposing cause? However that might be, he says, that "full half the time from seventeen to eighteen was passed in the sick-ward of Christ's Hospital, afflicted with jaundice and rheumatic fever."

At an earlier day he had undergone a medical treatment, which was oddly enough the cause of his breaking out into verse. He had a remarkably delicate white skin, which was once the cause of great punishment to him. His dame had undertaken to cure him of the itch, with which the boys of his ward had suffered much; but Coleridge was doomed to suffer more than his comrades, from the use of sulphur ointment, through the great sagacity of his dame, who with her extraordinary eyes, aided by the power of glasses, could see the malady in the skin, deep and out of power of common vision; and consequently, as often as she employed this miraculous sight, she found, or thought she found, fresh reason for continuing the friction, to the prolonged suffering and mortification of her patient. This occurred when he was about ten years of age, and gave rise to his first attempt at making a verse, as follows:

"O Lord, have mercy on me! For I am very sad! For why, good Lord? I've got the itch, And eke I've got the _tad_!"

the school name for ringworm.

In classical study Coleridge made wonderful progress, though but little in mathematics. He read on through the catalogue, folios and all, of the library in King-street, and was always in a low fever of excitement. His whole being was, he says, with eyes closed to every object of present sense, to crumple himself up in a sunny comer, and read, read, read; fancying himself on Robinson Crusoe's island, finding a mountain of plum-cake and eating a room for himself, and then eating out chairs and tables--hunger and fancy!

So little affection had Coleridge for the school, that he greatly wanted, at fifteen, to put himself apprentice to a shoemaker. It was of the same class of odd attempts as his future one at soldiering.

"Near the school there resided a worthy and, in their rank of life, a respectable middle-aged couple. The husband kept a little shop and was a shoemaker, with whom Coleridge had become intimate. The wife, also, had been kind and attentive to him, and that was sufficient to captivate his affectionate nature, which had existed from earliest childhood, and strongly endeared him to all around him. Coleridge became exceedingly desirous of being apprenticed to this man, to learn the art of shoemaking; and in due time, when some of the boys were old enough to leave the school and be put to trade, Coleridge, being of the number, tutored his friend Crispin how to apply to the head master, and not to heed his anger, should he become irate. Accordingly, Crispin applied at the hour proposed to see Bowyer, who, having heard the proposal to take Coleridge as an apprentice, and Coleridge's answer and assent to become a shoemaker, broke forth with his favorite adjuration:--'Ods my life, man, what d'ye mean?' At the sound of his angry voice Crispin stood motionless, till the angry pedagogue, becoming infuriate, pushed the intruder out of the room with such force that Crispin might have sustained an action at law against him for the assault. Thus, to Coleridge's mortification and regret, as he afterward in joke would say, 'I lost the opportunity of supplying safeguards to the understandings of those who, perhaps, will never thank me for what I am aiming to do in exercising their reason.'"

Disappointed in becoming a shoemaker, he was next on fire to become a surgeon. His brother Luke was now in London, walking the London hospitals. Here, every Saturday, he got leave and went, delighted beyond every thing if he were permitted to hold the plasters, or attend dressings. He now plunged headlong into books of medicine, Latin, Greek, or English; devoured whole medical dictionaries; then fell from physic to metaphysics; thence to the writings of infidels; fell in love, like all embryo poets, and wrote verse. He was, however, destined neither to make shoes nor set bones, but for the university; whither he went in 1791, at the age of nineteen, being elected to Jesus College, Cambridge.

Here his friend Middleton, afterward Bishop of Calcutta, who had been his most distinguished schoolfellow at Christ's Hospital, had preceded him, and was an under-graduate at Pembroke College. Their friendship was revived, and Coleridge used to go to Pembroke College sometimes to read with him. One day he found Middleton intent on his book, having on a long pair of boots reaching to the knees, and beside him, on a chair next to the one he was sitting on, a pistol. Coleridge had scarcely sat down before he was startled by the report of the pistol. "Did you see that?" said Middleton, "See what?" said Coleridge. "That rat I just sent into its hole again. Did you feel the shot? It was to defend my legs that I put on these boots. I am frightening these rats from my books, which, without some precaution, I shall have devoured." Middleton, notwithstanding his hard studies, failed in his contest for the classical medal, and so in his hopes of a fellowship--a good thing eventually for him, for it drove him out of college into the world and a bishopric.

Coleridge came to the university with a high character for talent and learning; and the Blues, as they are called, or Christ's Hospital boys, anticipated his doing great honor to their body. This he eventually did by his poetical fame, and might have done by his college honors, had he but been as well versed in mathematics as in the classics. In his first year he contested for the prize for the Greek ode, and won it. In his second year he stood for the Craven scholarship, and, of sixteen or eighteen competitors, four were selected to contend for the prize; these were Dr. Butler, late Bishop of Lichfield; Dr. Keate, the late head master of Eton; Mr. Bethell, and Coleridge. Dr. Butler was the successful candidate, and Coleridge was supposed to stand next. But college honors were contingent on a good mathematical stand; this Coleridge, who hated mathematics, despaired of, and determined to quit the university. He was, moreover, harassed with debts, the most serious of which, it seems, was incurred immediately on his arrival at Cambridge. He was no sooner at his college, than a polite upholsterer accosted him, requesting to be permitted to furnish his rooms. The next question was, "How would you like to have them furnished?" The answer, prompt and innocent enough, was, "Just as you please, sir"--thinking the individual employed by the college. The rooms, were, therefore, furnished according to the taste of the artisan, and the bill presented to the astonished Coleridge. On quitting the college, it seems that his debts were about one hundred pounds--no great matter, but to him as overwhelming as if they had been a thousand. Cottle, in his account of him, says he had fallen in love, as well as into debt, with a Mary G----, who rejected his offer. He made his way to London, and there, of all things in the world, enlisted for a soldier. The story is very curious, and as related, both by Cottle and Gillman, who were intimate with him at different periods of his life, is no doubt true.

In a state of great dejection of mind, he strolled about the streets of London till night came on, when he seated himself on the steps of a house in Chancery-lane, speculating on the future. In this situation, overwhelmed with his own painful thoughts, and in misery himself, he had now to contend with the misery of others; for he was accosted by various kinds of beggars importuning him for money, and forcing on him their real or pretended sorrows. To these applicants he emptied his pockets of his remaining cash. Walking along Chancery-lane, he noticed a bill posted on the wall--"Wanted, a few smart lads for the 15th Elliott'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 cure myself of these absurd prejudices the better; and so I will enlist in this regiment." Forthwith, he went as directed to the place of enlistment. On his arrival, he was accosted by an old sergeant, with a remarkably benevolent countenance, to whom he stated his wish. The old man, looking at him attentively, asked him if he had been in bed? On being answered in the negative, he desired him to take his, made him breakfast, and bade him rest himself awhile, which he did. This feeling sergeant, finding him refreshed in his body, but still suffering apparently from melancholy, in kind words begged him to be of good cheer, and consider well the step he was about to take; gave him half-a-guinea, which he was to repay at his convenience, desiring him, at the same time, to go to the play, and shake off his melancholy, and not to return to him. The first part of the advice Coleridge attended to; but returned, after the play, to the quarters he had left. At the sight of him, this kind-hearted man burst into tears. "Then it must be so," said he. This sudden and unexpected sympathy from an entire stranger deeply affected Coleridge, and nearly shook his resolution; but still considering that he could not in honor even to the sergeant retreat, he kept his secret, and, after a short chat, they retired to rest. In the morning the sergeant mustered his recruits, and Coleridge, with his new comrades, was marched to Reading. On his arrival at the quarters of the regiment, the general of the district inspected the recruits, and looking hard at Coleridge, with a military air, "What's your name, sir?" He had previously determined to give one thoroughly Kamtschatkan; but having observed one somewhere, over a door, Cumberbatch, he thought this sufficiently outlandish, and therefore gave it with a slight alteration, which implied a joke on himself as a horseman, Silas Tomken Comberbacke, as thus it is spelled in the books at the War-office. "What do you come here for?" said the officer, as if doubting that he had any business there. "Sir," said Coleridge, "for what most other persons come, to be made a soldier." "Do you think," said the general, "you can run a Frenchman through the body?" "I don't know," replied Coleridge, "as I never tried; but I'll let a Frenchman run me through before I'll run away." "That will do," said the general, and Coleridge was turned into the ranks.

Here, in his new capacity, laborious duties devolved on Mr. Coleridge. He endeavored to think on Cæsar, Epaminondas, and Leonidas, with other ancient heroes, and composed himself to his fate, remembering that in every service there must be a commencement; but still he found confronting him no imaginary difficulties. Perhaps he who had most cause of dissatisfaction was the drill-sergeant, who thought his professional character endangered; for, after using his utmost efforts to bring his raw recruit into any thing like a training, he expressed the most serious fears, from his unconquerable awkwardness, that he never should be able to make _a proper soldier of him_. It appears that he never advanced beyond the awkward squad, and that the drill-sergeant was obliged continually to warn the members of this squad by vociferously exclaiming--"Take care of that Comberback! take care of him, for he will ride over you!" and other such complimentary warnings.

Coleridge, or Cumberbatch, or Comberback, could never manage to rub down his own horse. The creature, he said, was a vicious one, and would return kick or bite for all such attempts; but then in justice to the poor animal, the awkwardness of the attempts should be taken into the account. Comberback at this time complained of a pain at the pit of his stomach, accompanied with sickness, which totally prevented his stooping, and in consequence he could never rub the heels of his horse at all. He would very quietly have left his horse unrubbed, but then he got a good rubbing down himself from the drill-sergeant. Between sergeant and steed he was in a poor case, for when he mounted his horse, it, like Gilpin's nag,

"What thing upon its back had got, Did wonder more and more."

But the same amiable and benevolent conduct which was so interwoven in his nature, soon made him friends, and his new comrades vied with each other in their endeavors to be useful to him. They assisted to clean his horse, and he amply repaid the obligation by writing all their letters to their sweethearts and wives. Such an amanuensis we may well affirm no lucky set of soldiers ever had before. Their lasses and good wives must have wondered at the new burst of affectionate eloquence in the regiment.

Poor Comberback's skill in horsemanship did not progress. He was always encountering accidents and troubles. So little did he often calculate for a due equilibrium, that in mounting on one side perhaps--the wrong stirrup--the probability was, especially if his horse moved, that he lost his balance, and if he did not roll back on this side, came down ponderously on the other! The men, spite of their liking for him, would burst into a laugh, and say to one another, "Silas is off again!" Silas had often heard of campaigns, but he never before had so correct an idea of hard service.

From his inability to learn his exercise, the men considered him a sort of natural, though of a peculiar kind--a talking natural. This fancy he stoutly resisted, but no matter--what was it that he could do cleverly?--therefore a natural he must be.

But now came a change. He had been placed as a sentinel at the door of a ball-room, or some public place of resort, when two of his officers passing in, stopped for a moment near Coleridge talking about Euripides, two lines being quoted by one of them as from that poet. At the sound of Greek the sentinel instinctively turned his ear, when, with all deference, touching his cap, he said, "I hope your honor will excuse me, but the lines you have repeated are not quite accurately cited. These are the lines;" which he gave in their true form. "Beside," said Comberback, "instead of being in Euripides they will be found in the second antistrophe of the OEdipus of Sophocles." "Why, who the d---l are you?" said the officer, "old Faustus ground young again?"--"I am only your honor's humble sentinel," said Coleridge, again touching his cap.

The officers hastened into the room, and inquired about that "odd fish" at the door; when one of the mess, the surgeon, it is believed, told them that he had had his eye upon him, but he could neither tell where he came from, nor any thing about his family of the Comberbacks. "But," continued he, "instead of an 'odd fish,' I suspect him to be a 'stray bird' from the Oxford or Cambridge aviary." They learned also the laughable fact that he was bruised all over by frequent falls from his horse. The officers kindly took pity on the poor scholar, and had him removed to the medical department, where he was appointed "assistant" in the regimental hospital. This change was a vast improvement in Mr. Coleridge's condition; and happy was the day also on which it took place, for the sake of the sick patients; for Silas Tomken Comberback's amusing stories, they said, did them more good than all the doctor's physic. If he began talking to one or two of his comrades,--for they were all on a perfect equality, except that those who were clever in their exercise lifted their heads a little above the awkward squad, of which Comberback was, by acclamation, the preëminent member,--if he began to talk, however, to one or two, others drew near, increasing momently, till by and by the sick beds were deserted, and Comberback formed the center of a large circle. Many ludicrous dialogues occurred between Coleridge and his new disciples, particularly with the "geographer."

On one occasion he told them of the Peloponnesian war, which lasted twenty-seven years. "There must have been famous promotions there," said one poor fellow, haggard as a death's head. Another, tottering with disease, ejaculated, "Can you tell, Silas, how many rose from the ranks?"

He now still more excited their wonderment by recapitulating the feats of Archimedes. As the narrative proceeded, one restrained his skepticism till he was almost ready to burst, and then vociferated, "Silas, that's a lie!" "D'ye think so?" said Coleridge, smiling, and went on with his story. The idea, however, got among them that Silas's fancy was on the stretch, when Coleridge, finding that this would not do, changed his subject, and told them of a famous general called Alexander the Great. As by a magic spell, the flagging attention was revived, and several, at the same moment, to testify their eagerness, called out, "The general! the general!" "I'll tell you all about him," said Coleridge, and impatience marked every countenance. He then told them who was the father of this Alexander the Great--no other than Philip of Macedon. "I never heard of him," said one. "I think I have," said another, ashamed of being thought ignorant. "Silas, wasn't he a Cornish man? I knew one of the Alexanders at Truro."

Coleridge now went on, describing to them, in glowing colors, the valor, the wars, and the conquests of this famous general. "Ah," said one man, whose open mouth had complimented the speaker for the preceding half-hour, "Ah," said he, "Silas, this Alexander must have been as great a man as our colonel!" Coleridge now told them of the "Retreat of the Ten Thousand." "I don't like to hear of retreat," said one. "Nor I," said a second; "I'm for marching on." Coleridge now told of the incessant conflicts of those brave warriors, and of the virtues of "the square." "They were a parcel of crack men," said one. "Yes," said another, "their bayonets fixed, and sleeping on their arms day and night." "I should like to know," said a fourth, "what rations were given with all that hard fighting;" on which an Irishman replied, "To be sure, every time the sun rose, two pounds of good ox beef, and plenty of whisky."