Cole, Thomas, an English Nonconformist, was educated at Westminster School, and at Christ Church. Oxford. In 1656 he became principal of St. Mary's Hall, where he was tutor to John Locke. In 1660 he was ejected from Oxford by the king's commissioners for nonconformity, and opened an academy at Nettle- head, Oxfordshire. Thence he removed to London, where he became pastor of a large congregation, and one of the lecturers at Pinner's Hall. He was a strong opponent of the Neonomian (q. v.) doctrine. He died in September, 1697. Among his writings are, A Dis- course on Regeneration, Faith, and Repmtanee, Lond. 1689, 8vo; A Discourse qfthe Christian ReHgion; Im- puted Righteousness for Justification incomprehensible by human Reason, — Ctdamy, NoncotformisCs Memorial, i, 196.
Coleridge, Samvbl Tatlob, was bom at Ottery St. Mary, in Devonshire, of which parish his father was the vicar, on the 21st of October, 1772. An or^ phan at the age of nine, he was sent to Christ's Hospi- tal, w^^ere Charies Lamb was among his contemporB^ ries. Here he made very great progress in classic- al knowledge, and at an early age plunged deeply into metaphysics. Speaking of himself in the Bio- graphia literaria (vol. i, p. 16), he says : ** At a very premature age, even before my fifteenth year, I had bewildered myself in metaphysics and In theological controversy. Nothing else pleased me. History and particular facts lost all interest in my mind. Poetry itself, yea, novels and romances, became insipid to me." In 1791 he entered Jesus College, Cambridge, but in the second year of his residence he suddenly left the University in a fit of despondency, occasioned, it is said, by unrequited love ; and after wandering for a while about the streets of London in extreme pecu- niary distress, terminated this adventure by enlisting in the 15th Dragoons, under the assumed name of Comberbatch. One of the officers, questioning him in a friendly manner, and eliciting his real history, com- municated Coleridge's situation to his friends, who forthwith effbcted his discharge. Coleridge now be- took himself to Bristol, where he joined with three oth- er young and clever men, like himself of ardent poetic temperaments, and imbued with strong but vague ideas of universal brotherhood — Southey, George Bur- net f^om Oxford, and Lovell, a young Quaker. They formed a scheme for emigrating to the banks of the Susquehanna in North America, to form a social colo- ny, where selfishness was to be proscribed. But mon- ey was needed to establish this * * pantisocracy, " as they
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tenned it, and Coleridge had not enongli to ftiniisli him with dailj sabsistence. Joseph Cottle, a benevo- lent bookseller at Bristol, finding that he had written enough poems to make np a small yolome, offered him thirty guineas for them. The volume was published in 1794, and other literary schemes were projected. In
1795 Coleridge married BCiss Sarah Fricker, of Bristol, a sister of the wife of his friend Charles lAoyd, In
1796 he published a volume of poems, the greater number of which had been written at earlier periods, interspersed with some by Charles Lamb ; and in 1797 a second edition appeared, with the addition of some poems by Charles Lloyd.
Coleridge was at this period of his lifb a Unitarian. He says of himself^^I was at that time, and long af- ter, though a Trinitarian (L e. oi normcan PlatonU) in philosophy, yet a zealous Unitarian in religion ; more accurately, I was h pnkuUkropuiy one of those who be- lieve our Lord to have been the real son of Joseph, and who lay the main stress on the resurrection rather than the crucifixion'* {Biog. Lit. i, 168). In 1798 Cole- ridge visited Germany, and went through a course of German literature. On his return to England he went to live at the Lakes, where Southey and Wordsworth had then settled, the one at KeswidE, and the other at Grasmere. The appellation of ** Lake-poets" was giv- en to these three writers after the publication of the Lyrical Ballads, Coleridge now became connected with the Morning Post, and wrote both on politics and litera- ture. From abont 1808 to about 1814 he contributed to the Courier. In 1809 he edited the Friend, first publish- ed as a periodical at the Lakes. He left the Lakes in 1810, and did not afterwards return to them ; his wife and children remained in the house of Southey, and wholly dependent on him. On Coleridge's first ar- rival in London he resided with Mr. Basil Montagu, and in 1816 he became the guest of Mr. Gillman at Highgate, in whose house he died. The many friend- ships which Coleridge attracted to himself through life, the sincerity and constancy of which were abun- dantly shown, place in a striking light the amiabO- ity of his character ; his neglect of his family and extreme carelessness respecting the obligations, both personal and pecuniary, which devolved upon him, as strikingly illustrate its weakness. It waa not before the commencement of his residence in London that he formed any very extensive acquaintance with the writmgs of the later German metaphysicians, by the adoption of whose method and terminology, rather than by any development of a system, in his subse- quent publications, he came to be accounted the rep- resentative of German metaphysics in England. He published successively, between the years 1817 and 1826, the Lc^ Sermons, the Biographia Liieraria, the bound volume of the Friend, the ConsOtutioH of the Church and State according to the Idea of each, and the Aids to RefleeHon. During most of his life Coleridge was poor and dependent, from careless improvidence. He suffered also ft^m chronic ill health, combined with, and to a certain extent caused by, a habit of using opium. He died July 25, 1884.— ^ii^^ Cydo- ptBtUa.