Child of Genius
Hartley Coleridge : His Life and Works. By Earl Leslie. Griggs. (University of London Press. 6s.) TEE first-born child of S. T. Coleridge filled the hearts of all who saw him with wonder and with the pain of foreboding.
A .miraculous boy," said Robert Southey ; " the oddest of God's creatures . . I do not know whether I should wish to have such a child or not." His father, S. T. C., called him "t. a spirit dancing on an aspen leaf, unwearied in joy." In one of his loveliest poems, Wordsworth spoke out the presenti ment which all of them felt " 0 blessed vision ! happy child ! Moil art so exquisitely wild, I think of thee_ with many team For what met, be thy lot in future years." This is the child whose story is told by Professor Earl Leslie Griggs. in Hartley Coleridge : His Life and Works."
It is a clear and sympathetic study, written with knowledge and tact. The life of this child of genius has been told before ; but Professor Griggs has had access to unpublished material and has made good use of it.
Little Hartley inherited. another world from this In his earliest childhood it was his delight to chatter away over metaphysical problems with his father. The realest land to him was a land of his own invention, the kingdom of Ejuxria. It was in Ejuxria that he spent most of-his time : he knew the people who lived there, he knew their affairs; he knew all the streams and meadows of this island continent :- " One day he was pensive and gloomy ; on being asked about it he said : My people are too fond of war, and I have just made an eloquent speech in the Senate, which has not made any impression on them, and to war they will go.' " It hardly seemed fair to discipline so fragile and beautiful a child. Coleridge put no restraint upon him ; let him read or study what he wished. And so Hartley kept the freshness of his mind. He remained full of fancy and full of out-of-the- way learning. If it seemed at times that he was inconsiderate of others, no one could bear to reprove him. He went in and out of the house as he chose ; when he had finished reading a book he just left it where he had been sifting ; but if anyone gave signs of being inconvenienced by his thoughtlessness, little Hartley was so distressed that it was impossible not to forgive him.
At Oxford he was a great success among his fellow under- graduates. He was almost the equal of his father in the range and splendour of his conversation. Parties were given "to hear Hartley Coleridge talk." When he sat for his degree the examiners were equally surprised by the extraordinary knowledge he possessed and by the ordinary knowledge he lacked. Some were for giving him a first ; some insisted that he scarcely deserved a fourth. They compromised and awarded him a second.
To the delight of all who knew him he was elected a Fellow of Oriel. As soon as his old schoolmaster heard the tidings, " he rose up, gave a shout, and proclaimed a holiday." At the end of a year the college authorities wrote and asked him to resign, and thus save himself the disgrace of a public dismissal. The charges against him were intemperance. inattention to duty, and association with doubtful characters. Among the Fellows of the time were Whately, Keble, and Thomas Arnold. Their sentence, said Hartley's own brother, Derwent, was severe but not unjust. Coleridge himself was prostrated with grief. He felt as if, once more, the sins of the father were being visited upon the children ; that it was his own weakness of will, his own procrastination, his own sensual laziness, for which Hartley was being punished. Both of them were capable of an almost angelic generosity. Neither of them could do anything if he felt it his plain duty to do it.
Hartley's career was at an end. He tried a little schooling ; he did some journalism. He wrote delicate and graceful poems ; and it is on these that his fame rests. No English poet has written sonnets with more melody, freshness, and ease. But Hartley, none the less, had given himself up in despair. He was never a drunkard ; but from time to time he would drink too much and then hide himself away from the world in shame.
The last period of his life was happy. People had learned not to expect too much of him and to accept his eccentricities. He became a schoolmaster in the Lake District, and the whole countryside adored him for- his friendliness and high spirits. He was not like Wordsworth, a. -reserved and difficult man, "a man as had no pleasure in his- faces" as the neighbours said. He would dash into a labourer's cottage, scribble down his verses, smile and joke with the whole family and talk as if he were.one of themselves. All the peasants were violent partisans of " Fie Hartley " ; they even believed that he wrote Wordsworth's poems for him, since they were convinced that a sour old fellow like Wordsworth could never be a poet. He kept all his oddities. " He could hardly be said to have walked, for he seemed with difficulty to keep his feet on the ground, as he wavered about near -us with arms extended like wings." He would recite poetry or sing to himself and swish his walking-stick wildly in the air. Once a friend asked him if he paid rent for his cottage. " Rent," he answered, " I never thought of that." And once, when he was invited to dine at a clergyman's, he grew bored with waiting for dinner, jumped up f-rom the sofa, kissed the clergyman's wife, and rushed out of the house.
When he died every peasant mourned for him. He was " the child of the whole vale " ; and long after, when writers mime to gather up recollections of the Lake Poets, it was Hartley Coleridge of whom everyone spoke most readily, with most affection and admiration. For he and his father both seemed more splendid than other mortals, " S. T. C. the sunbright and Hartley the starry."
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