HARTLEY

See also:

• HARTLEY COLERIDGE (1796-1849)
• COLERIDGE, JOHN DUKE COLERIDGE, 1ST BARON
• COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR (1772-1834)
• COLERIDGE, SARA (1802–1852)
• COLERIDGE, SIR JOHN TAYLOR (1790-1876)

COLERIDGE (1796-1849)  , English man of letters, eldest son of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was born on the 19th of September 1796, near Bristol . His early years were passed under Southey's care at Greta Hall, Keswick, and he was educated by the Rev . John Dawes at Ambleside . In 1815 he went to Oxford, as scholar of Merton College . His university career, however, was very unfortunate . He had inherited the weakness of purpose, as well as the splendid conversational powers, of his father, and lapsed into habits of intemperance . He was successful in gaining an Oriel fellowship, but at the close of the probationary year (1820) was judged to have forfeited it . The authorities could not be prevailed upon to reverse their decision; but they awarded to him a free gift of £300 . Hartley Coleridge then spent two years in London, where he wrote short poems for the London Magazine . His next step was to become a partner in a school at Ambleside, but this scheme failed . In 1830 a Leeds publisher, Mr . F .

E .

Bingley, made a contract with him to write biographies of Yorkshire and Lancashire worthies . These were afterwards republished under the title of Biographia Borealis (1833) and Worthies of Yorkshire and Lancashire (1836) . Bingley also printed a volume of his poems in 1833, and Coleridge lived in his house until the contract came to an end through the bankruptcy of the publisher . From this time, except for two short periods in 1837 and 1838 when he acted as master at Sedbergh grammar school, he lived quietly at Grasmere and (1840-184.9) Rydal, spending his time in study and wanderings about the countryside . His figure was as familiar as Wordsworth's, and his gentleness and simplicity of manner won for him the friendship of the country-people . In 1839 appeared his edition of Massinger and Ford, with biographies of both dramatists . The closing decade of Co)eridge's life was wasted in what he himself calls " the woeful impotence of weak resolve." He died on the 6th of January 1849 . The prose style of Hartley Coleridge is marked by much finish and vivacity; but his literary reputation must chiefly rest on the sanity of his criticisms, and above all on his Prometheus, an unfinished lyric drama, and on his sonnets . As a sonneteer he achieved real excellence, the form being exactly suited to his sensitive genius . Essays and Marginalia, and Poems, with a memoir by his brother Derwent, appeared in 1851 .