Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert SoutheyCottle, Joseph
General
Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey
Cottle, Joseph
Authors, English -- 19th century -- Biography; Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834; Southey, Robert, 1774-1843
In the various and numerous memoirs, which have been published of the
late Mr. Coleridge, I have been surprised at the accuracy in many
respects, and at the same time their omission of a very remarkable,
and a very honourable anecdote in his history. In the memoir of him
in your last number, you do not merely omit, but you give an
erroneous account of this very circumstance, to which I mean to
allude. You assert that he did not obtain, and indeed did riot aim to
obtain, the honours of the University. So far is this from the fact,
that in his Freshman's year he won the gold medal for the Greek Ode;
and in his second year he became a candidate for the Craven
scholarship, a University scholarship, for which undergraduates of
any standing are entitled to become candidates. This was in the
winter of 1792. Out of sixteen or eighteen competitors a selection of
four was made to contend for the prize, and these four were Dr.
Butler, now the Head Master of Shrewsbury; Dr. Keate, the late Head
Master of Eton; Mr. Bethell, the late Member for Yorkshire; and S. T.
Coleridge. Dr. Butler was the successful candidate.
Pause a moment in Coleridge's history, and think of him at this
period! Butler! Keate! Bethell! and Coleridge!! How different the
career of each in future life! O Coleridge; through what strange
paths did the meteor of genius lead thee! Pause a moment, ye
distinguished men! and deem it not the least bright spot in your
happier career, that you and Coleridge were once rivals, and for a
moment running abreast in the pursuit of honour. I believe that his
disappointment at this crisis damped his ardour. Unfortunately, at
that period there was no classical Tripos; so that if a person did
not obtain the classical medal, he was thrown back among the totally
undistinguished; and it was not allowable to become a candidate for
the classical medal, unless you had taken a respectable degree in
mathematics. Coleridge had not the least taste for these, and here
his case was hopeless; so that he despaired of a Fellowship, and gave
up, what in his heart he coveted, college honours, and a college
life. He had seen his schoolfellow and dearest friend, Middleton,
(late Bishop of Calcutta) quit Pembroke under similar circumstances.
Not _quite_ similar, because Middleton studied mathematics so as to
take a respectable degree, and to enable him to try for the medal;
but he failed, and therefore all hopes failed of a Fellowship--most
fortunately, as it proved in after life, for Middleton, though he
mourned at the time most deeply, and exclaimed, 'I am Middleton,
which is another name for Misfortune!'
'There is a Providence which shapes our ends,
Rough hew them how you will.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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