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In a tolerably well-known passage in one of his essays De Quinceyenumerates the multiform attainments and powers of Coleridge, and thecorresponding varieties of demand made by them on any one who shouldaspire to become this many-sided man's biographer. The description isslightly touched with the humorous hyperbole characteristic of itsauthor; but it is in substance just, and I cannot but wish that it werepossible, within the limits of a preface, to set out the whole of it inexcuse for the many inevitable shortcomings of this volume. Having thusmade an "exhibit" of it, there would only remain to add that thedifficulties with which De Quincey confronts an intending biographer ofColeridge must necessarily be multiplied many-fold by the conditionsunder which this work is here attempted. No complete biography ofColeridge, at least on any important scale of dimensions, is inexistence; no critical appreciation of his work as a whole, andas correlated with the circumstances and affected by the changes of hislife, has, so far as I am aware, been attempted. To perform either ofthese two tasks adequately, or even with any approach to adequacy, awriter should at least have the elbow-room of a portly volume. Toattempt the two together, therefore, and to attempt them within thelimits prescribed to the manuals of this series, is an enterprisewhich I think should claim, from all at least who are not offended byits audacity, an almost unbounded indulgence.
The supply of material for a Life of Coleridge is fairly plentiful,though it is not very easily come by. For the most part it needs to behunted up or fished up – those accustomed to the work will appreciatethe difference between the two processes – from a considerable varietyof contemporary documents. Completed biography of the poet-philosopherthere is none, as has been said, in existence; and the one volume ofthe unfinished Life left us by Mr. Gillman – a name never to bementioned with disrespect, however difficult it may sometimes be toavoid doing so, by any one who honours the name and genius ofColeridge – covers, and that in but a loose and rambling fashion, nomore than a few years. Mr. Cottle's Recollections of Southey,Wordsworth, and Coleridge contains some valuable information oncertain points of importance, as also does the Letters, Conversations,etc., of S. T. C. by Mr. Allsop. Miss Meteyard's Group of EminentEnglishmen throws much light on the relations between Coleridge andhis early patrons the Wedgwoods. Everything, whether critical orbiographical, that De Quincey wrote on Coleridgian matters requires,with whatever discount, to be carefully studied. The Life of Wordsworth,by the Bishop of St. Andrews; The Correspondence of Southey;the Rev. Derwent Coleridge's brief account of his father's life andwritings; and the prefatory memoir prefixed to the 1880 edition ofColeridge's Poetical and Dramatic Works, have all had to beconsulted. But, after all, there remain several tantalising gaps inColeridge's life which refuse to be bridged over; and one cannot butthink that there must be enough unpublished matter in the possessionof his relatives and the representatives of his friends andcorrespondents to enable some at least, though doubtless not all, ofthese missing links to be supplied. Perhaps upon a fitting occasionand for an adequate purpose these materials would be forthcoming.
Birth, parentage, and early years – Christ's Hospital – Jesus College,Cambridge.