through pain to victory? But this I need not say to you. When we mourn for the dead, we mourn but for our own bereavement; we believe, or strive to believe, that they live for themselves and for God; but for us the dead are dead.* It is common on these occasions to dwell on the shortness and uncertainty of life; I know not why, but that is not the moral I draw from death. I rather grieve that it was not I; that I was not, like Kirke White, called away in my youth; that my beloved parents did not close my eyes; that my death should have been the only sorrow I had ever caused them; that when they talked of me, they might weep tears of tender joy, thinking of what I might have been, and no painful thought of what I had been, ever joined "The silent melody of thought that sings A ceaseless requiem to the sainted dead; That so the sharp wound, hid within the heart, To each good impress of the hand of God: "Dear mother, this is a sad attempt at verse, and it may seem to you to evidence small sense of my orphan state that I should choose such a vehicle; but I have so long used myself to express my deeper feelings in metre, that I find a difficulty in expressing them in prose." * This thought is expanded in the beautiful sonnet,— "Still for the world he lives, and lives in bliss, His letter to myself, in which the first gush of his feeling had found vent, I cannot trust myself to characterise. It is, as he said, "a long, long, very long letter," written in all the eloquence of a grief embittered by self-reproach. A short extract, which the object of this memoir seems to require, is all that can be given from this sacred memorial. "DEAR DERWENT, * * "Grasmere, August 1, 1834. * "I feel, I know how utterly incommensurate my grief is to its occasion. Friends think they have nothing to do but console. Perhaps other people do, or think they do, lament the departed enough; I declare that I reproach my own heart for its unfilial insensibility. All the sorrow I feel were scarce adequate to the loss of an affectionate dog. In times past I have shed tears, hot, scalding, painful tears, for mere nothings, and now I cannot weep, though now my tears might be a second baptism, washing my soul from sins of many days. But this day I saw a mother and a father parting with their child for six months only, and they wept, and I could have wept with them. And why? they had no cause, no hint of grief, and yet I envied them not their hope, but their pregnancy of sorrow. And yet, why sorrow? It was his wish that he might so meet death as to testify the depth and sincerity of his faith in Jesus. And was he not, while life and breath were granted him, a powerful preacher of Jesus? For myself I can speak that he, he only, made me a Christian. What with my irregular passions and my intellect powerful, perhaps, in parts, but ever like 'a crazy old church clock and its bewildered chimes'-what but for him I might have been, I tremble to think. But I never forgot him; no, Derwent, I have forgot myself too often, but I never forgot my father. And now if his beatified spirit be permitted to peruse the Day Book of the Recording Angel, to contemplate the memory of God which forgets nothing, in which the very abortions of time, the thoughts which we think we never thought, the meanings which we never meant to mean, live everlastingly-if he may look in that book, or rather, if an intimate knowledge of its contents be consubstantiated with the essence of his beatitude, then will he know that among my many sins it was not one that I loved him not; and wherever the final bolt of judgment may drive me, it will not be into the frozen regions of sons that loved not their fathers. “That I did not pray with him when he uttered his last prayer, that I partook not with him the blessed Sacrament, that I heard not his last words, I shall ever regret; for I had not, as you have, imperative duties to withhold me, and had I known ; but what use is it now to say what I might, or would, or ought to have done? He is gone-gone from earth for ever, and to whom can I pay the huge debt of duty which I owe him?" These sentiments, with the feelings which they engendered, self-reproach, and a passionate desire to find in himself an image of the Good and Holy, -The only Good and Holy-to the knowledge of Whom he had been guided by his earthly parent now departed, were never extinguished, and speedily awoke, if they appeared to sleep. But the spell was not broken. It is needless to remark how little mere feeling can do, however correct, to break through the despotism of habit, or to reinstate the broken springs of action. Yet the struggle was perpetually renewed, and as the sun of life went down, he looked forward with prayerful hope to a gradual restoration and a final reconcilement in death. It may be proper to record here the peculiar provision made for him by his father in his will. The instrument is dated Grove, May 2nd, 1830, four years before the death of the testator. "This is a codicil to my last will and testament. "S. T. COLERIDGE. "Most desirous to secure as far as in me lies for my dear son Hartley the tranquillity indispensable to any continued and successful exertion of his literary talents, and which, from the like characters of our minds in this respect, I know to be especially requisite for his happiness, and persuaded that he will recognise in this provision that anxious affection by which it is dictated, I affix this codicil to my last will and testament; and I hereby give and bequeath to Joseph Henry Green, Esquire, to Henry Nelson Coleridge, Esquire, and to James Gillman, Esquire, and the survivor of them, and the executors and assignees of such survivor, the sum whatever it may be which in the will aforesaid I bequeathed to my son Hartley Coleridge after the decease of his mother, Sara Coleridge, upon trust. And I hereby request them (the said trustees) to hold the sum accruing to Hartley Coleridge from the equal division of my total bequest between him, his brother Derwent, and his sister Sara Coleridge, after his mother's decease, to dispose of the interest or proceeds of the same portion to or for the use of my dear son Hartley Coleridge at such time or times, in such manner, and under such conditions as they the trustees above named know to be my wish, and shall deem conducive to the attainment of my object in adding this codicil, namely, the anxious wish to ensure for my son the continued means of a home, in which I comprise board, lodging, and raiment. Providing that nothing in this codicil shall be so interpreted as to interfere with my son Hartley Coleridge's freedom of choice respecting his place of residence, or with his power of disposing of his portion by will after his decease according as his own judgment and affections may decide. A home he never wanted in the sense intended by his father; and on the death of his mother in 1845, he was placed, by means of an annuity on his life, on a footing of complete independence. But he survived this arrangement little more than three years. It is difficult to pass in narrative without a jar from the discussion of such feelings and such interests to more ordinary topics. In life the transition is natural and easy from the deepest seriousness to every-day occupation, to cheerfulness and gaiety. It appears that, when acting for another, and relieved from personal responsibility, he could discharge the duties of a preceptor with great ability. In the year 1837, he assisted his friend, the Rev. Isaac Green, in the school at Sedbergh for several months, and in the following year he took the place of the Head Master from March to the Midsummer Vacation. Here he found a school already organised, discipline established, and a class |