ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author witnessed a strange instance once, of the Old Man Eloquent being beguiled into singularly incongruous exhibitions of action, look, manner, and, he was about to add, speech; but the speech was in his usual style of elocution and delivery. With Coleridge still as the principal figure, it was a scene for photography to have depicted and preserved a sample of high jinks, such as elder authors have prescribed as pertaining to other epochs. From the Blue Coat School, where he distinguished himself, and Cambridge, where he won the gold medal for the prize Greek Ode, Coleridge joined and associated with, at his native Bristol, Southey, Wordsworth, and other aspiring candidates for poetic fame. These emulous and gifted men acted upon each other; and it is, no doubt, owing to this almost copartnery in verse, that we are indebted for emanations which immortalize the so-called Lake School.
