Several contemporary writers agree in testifying to Colepeper’s great debating powers and to his resources as an adviser, but complain of his want of stability and of his uncertain temper. Clarendon, with whom he was often on ill terms, speaks generally in his praise, and repels the charge of corruption levelled against him. That he was gifted with considerable political foresight is shown by a remarkable letter written on the 20th of September 1658 on the death of Cromwell, in which he foretells with uncommon sagacity the future developments in the political situation, advises the royalists to remain inactive till the right moment and profit by the division of their opponents, and distinguishes Monck as the one person willing and capable of effecting the Restoration (Clarendon State Papers, iii. 412). Colepeper was twice married, (1) to Philippa, daughter of Sir John Snelling, by whom he had one son, who died young, and a daughter, and (2) to Judith, daughter of Sir J. Colepeper of Hollingbourn, Kent, by whom he had seven children. Of these Thomas (d. 1719; governor of Virginia 1680-1683) was the successor in the title, which became extinct on the death of his younger brother Cheney in 1725.
(P. C. Y.)
COLERAINE, a seaport and market town of Co. Londonderry, Ireland, in the north parliamentary division, on the Bann, 4 m. from its mouth, and 61½ m. N.W. by N. from Dublin by the Northern Counties (Midland) railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 6958. The town stands upon both sides of the river, which is crossed by a handsome stone bridge, connecting the town and its suburb, Waterside or Killowen. The principal part is on the east bank, and consists of a central square called the Diamond, and several diverging streets. Among institutions may be mentioned the public schools founded in 1613 and maintained by the Honourable Irish Society, and the Academical Institution, maintained by the Irish Society and the London Clothworkers’ Company. The linen trade has long been extensively carried on in the town, from which, indeed, a fine description of cloth is known as “Coleraines.” Whisky-distilling, pork-curing, and the salmon and eel fisheries are prosecuted. The mouth of the river was formerly obstructed by a bar, but piers were constructed, and the harbours greatly improved by grants from the Irish Society of London and from a loan under the River Bann Navigation Act 1879. Coleraine ceased to return one member to the Imperial parliament in 1885; having previously returned two to the Irish parliament until the Union. It was incorporated by James I. It owed its importance mainly to the Irish Society, which was incorporated as the Company for the New Plantation of Ulster in 1613. Though fortified only by an earthen wall, it managed to hold out against the rebels in 1641. There are no remains of a former priory, monastery and castle. A rath or encampment of large size occupies Mount Sandel, 1 m. south-east.
COLERIDGE, HARTLEY (1796-1849), English man of letters, eldest son of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was born on the 19th of September 1796, near Bristol. His early years were passed under Southey’s care at Greta Hall, Keswick, and he was educated by the Rev. John Dawes at Ambleside. In 1815 he went to Oxford, as scholar of Merton College. His university career, however, was very unfortunate. He had inherited the weakness of purpose, as well as the splendid conversational powers, of his father, and lapsed into habits of intemperance. He was successful in gaining an Oriel fellowship, but at the close of the probationary year (1820) was judged to have forfeited it. The authorities could not be prevailed upon to reverse their decision; but they awarded to him a free gift of £300. Hartley Coleridge then spent two years in London, where he wrote short poems for the London Magazine. His next step was to become a partner in a school at Ambleside, but this scheme failed. In 1830 a Leeds publisher, Mr. F. E. Bingley, made a contract with him to write biographies of Yorkshire and Lancashire worthies. These were afterwards republished under the title of Biographia Borealis (1833) and Worthies of Yorkshire and Lancashire (1836). Bingley also printed a volume of his poems in 1833, and Coleridge lived in his house until the contract came to an end through the bankruptcy of the publisher. From this time, except for two short periods in 1837 and 1838 when he acted as master at Sedbergh grammar school, he lived quietly at Grasmere and (1840-1849) Rydal, spending his time in study and wanderings about the countryside. His figure was as familiar as Wordsworth’s, and his gentleness and simplicity of manner won for him the friendship of the country-people. In 1839 appeared his edition of Massinger and Ford, with biographies of both dramatists. The closing decade of Coleridge’s life was wasted in what he himself calls “the woeful impotence of weak resolve.” He died on the 6th of January 1849. The prose style of Hartley Coleridge is marked by much finish and vivacity; but his literary reputation must chiefly rest on the sanity of his criticisms, and above all on his Prometheus, an unfinished lyric drama, and on his sonnets. As a sonneteer he achieved real excellence, the form being exactly suited to his sensitive genius. Essays and Marginalia, and Poems, with a memoir by his brother Derwent, appeared in 1851.
COLERIDGE, JOHN DUKE COLERIDGE, 1st Baron (1820-1894), lord chief justice of England, was the eldest son of Sir John Taylor Coleridge. He was born at Heath’s Court, Ottery St Mary, on the 3rd of December 1820. He was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, of which he was a scholar. He was called to the bar in 1846, and went the western circuit, rising steadily, through more than twenty years of hard work, till in 1865 he was returned as member for Exeter in the Liberal interest. The impression which he made on the heads of his party was so favourable that they determined, early in the session of 1867, to put him forward as the protagonist of their attack on the Conservative government. But that move seemed to many of their staunchest adherents unwise, and it was frustrated by the active opposition of a section, including Hastings Russell (later ninth duke of Bedford), his brother Arthur, member for Tavistock, Alexander Mitchell of Stow, A. W. Kinglake and Henry Seymour. They met to deliberate in the tea-room of the House, and were afterwards sometimes confounded with the tea-room party which was of subsequent formation and under the guidance of a different group. The protest was sufficient to prevent the contemplated attack being made, but the Liberals returned to power in good time with a large majority behind them in 1868. Coleridge was made, first solicitor-, and then attorney-general.
As early as 1863 a small body of Oxford men in parliament had opened fire against the legislation which kept their university bound by ecclesiastical swaddling clothes. They had made a good deal of progress in converting the House of Commons to their views before the general election of 1865. That election having brought Coleridge into parliament, he was hailed as a most valuable ally, whose great university distinction, brilliant success as an orator at the bar, and hereditary connexion with the High Church party, entitled him to take the lead in a movement which, although gathering strength, was yet very far from having achieved complete success. The clerically-minded section of the Conservative party could not but listen to the son of Sir John Coleridge, the godson of Keble, and the grand-nephew of the man who had been an indirect cause of the Anglican revival of 1833,—for John Stuart Mill was right when he said that the poet Coleridge and the philosopher Bentham were, so far as England was concerned, the leaders of the two chief movements of their times: “it was they who taught the teachers, and who were the two great seminal minds.”
Walking up one evening from the House of Commons to dine at the Athenaeum with Henry Bruce (afterwards Lord Aberdare) and another friend, Coleridge said: “There is a trial coming on which will be one of the most remarkable causes célèbres that has ever been heard of.” This was the Tichborne case, which led to proceedings in the criminal courts rising almost to the dignity of a political event. The Tichborne trial was the most conspicuous feature of Coleridge’s later years at the bar, and tasked his powers as an advocate to the uttermost, though he was assisted by the splendid abilities and industry of Charles (afterwards Lord) Bowen. In November 1873 Coleridge succeeded Sir W. Bovill as chief justice of the common pleas, and was immediately afterwards raised to the peerage as Baron Coleridge of Ottery St Mary. In 1880 he was made lord chief justice of England on the death of Sir Alexander Cockburn.