Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
General
Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834 -- Correspondence
From October 1774 to 1775. I was inoculated; which I mention, because I
distinctly remember it, and that my eyes were bound; at which I
manifested so much obstinate indignation, that at last they removed the
bandage, and unaffrighted I looked at the lancet, and suffered the
scratch. At the close of this year I could read a chapter in the Bible.
Here I shall end, because the remaining years of my life all assisted to
form my particular mind;--the first three years had nothing in them that
seems to relate to it.
God bless you and your sincere S. T. COLERIDGE.
Sunday, March, 1797.
[Footnote 1: William Hart Coleridge, Bishop of Barbadoes and the Leeward
Islands.
(He was appointed to that See in 1824, retired from it in 1842; and
afterwards accepted the Wardenship of St. Augustine's College,
Canterbury. S. C.) [He died in 1849.] ]
A letter from Francis S. Coleridge to his sister has been preserved in
the family, in which a particular account is given of the chance
meeting of the two brothers in India, mentioned shortly in the
preceding Letter. There is something so touching and romantic in the
incident that the Reader will, it is hoped, pardon the insertion of the
original narrative here.
Dear Nancy,
You are very right, I have neglected my absent friends, but do not
think I have forgot them, and indeed it would be ungrateful in me if I
did not write to them.
You may be sure, Nancy, I thank Providence for bringing about that
meeting, which has been the cause of all my good fortune and happiness,
which I now in fulness enjoy. It was an affectionate meeting, and I
will inform you of the particulars. There was in our ship one Captain
Mordaunt, who had been in India before, when we came to Bombay. Finding
a number of his friends there he went often ashore. The day before the
Fleet sailed he desired one Captain Welsh to go aboard with him, who
was an intimate friend of your brother's. "I will," said Welsh, "and
will write a note to Coleridge to go with us." Upon this Captain
Mordaunt, recollecting me, said there was a young midshipman, a
favourite of Captain Hicks, of that name on board. Upon that they
agreed to inform my brother of it, which they did soon after, and all
three came on board. I was then in the lower deck, and, though you
won't believe it, I was sitting upon a gun and thinking of my brother,
that is, whether I should ever see or hear anything of him; when seeing
a Lieutenant, who had been sent to inform me of my brother's being on
board, I got up off the gun: but instead of telling me about my
brother, he told me that Captain Hicks was very angry with me and
wanted to see me. Captain Hicks had always been a Father to me, and
loved me as if I had been his own child. I therefore went up shaking
like an aspen leaf to the Lieutenant's apartments, when a Gentleman
took hold of my hand. I did not mind him at first, but looked round for
the Captain; but the Gentleman still holding my hand, I looked, and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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