COLERIDGE A SOLDIER.
After Coleridge left Cambridge, he came to London, where soon feeling himself forlorn and destitute, he enlisted as a soldier in the 15th Elliot’s Light Dragoons. “On his arrival at the quarters of the regiment,” says his friend and biographer, Mr. Gilman, “the general of the district inspected the recruits, and looking hard at Coleridge, with a military air, inquired ‘What’s your name, sir?’ ‘Comberbach!’ (the name he had assumed.) ‘What do you come here for, sir?’ as if doubting whether he had any business there. ‘Sir,’ said Coleridge, ‘for what most other persons come—to be made a soldier.’ ‘Do you think,’ said the general, ‘you can run a Frenchman through the body?’ ‘I do not know,’ replied Coleridge, ‘as I never tried; but I’ll let a Frenchman run me through the body before I’ll run away.’ ‘That will do,’ said the general, and Coleridge was turned in the ranks.”
The poet made a poor dragoon, and never advanced beyond the awkward squad. He wrote letters, however, for all his comrades, and they attended to his horse and accoutrements. After four months’ service, (December 1793 to April 1794), the history and circumstances of Coleridge became known. He had written under his saddle, on the stable wall, a Latin sentence (Eheu! quam infortunii miserrimum est fuisse felicem!) which led to an inquiry on the part of the captain of his troop, who had more regard for the classics than Ensign Northerton, in Tom Jones. Coleridge was, accordingly, discharged, and restored to his family and friends.