For I am very sad!
For why, good Lord? I've got the itch,
And eke I've got the tad!"
the school name for ringworm.
In classical study Coleridge made wonderful progress, though but little in mathematics. He read on through the catalogue, folios and all, of the library in King-street, and was always in a low fever of excitement. His whole being was, he says, with eyes closed to every object of present sense, to crumple himself up in a sunny comer, and read, read, read; fancying himself on Robinson Crusoe's island, finding a mountain of plum-cake and eating a room for himself, and then eating out chairs and tables—hunger and fancy!
So little affection had Coleridge for the school, that he greatly wanted, at fifteen, to put himself apprentice to a shoemaker. It was of the same class of odd attempts as his future one at soldiering.
"Near the school there resided a worthy and, in their rank of life, a respectable middle-aged couple. The husband kept a little shop and was a shoemaker, with whom Coleridge had become intimate. The wife, also, had been kind and attentive to him, and that was sufficient to captivate his affectionate nature, which had existed from earliest childhood, and strongly endeared him to all around him. Coleridge became exceedingly desirous of being apprenticed to this man, to learn the art of shoemaking; and in due time, when some of the boys were old enough to leave the school and be put to trade, Coleridge, being of the number, tutored his friend Crispin how to apply to the head master, and not to heed his anger, should he become irate. Accordingly, Crispin applied at the hour proposed to see Bowyer, who, having heard the proposal to take Coleridge as an apprentice, and Coleridge's answer and assent to become a shoemaker, broke forth with his favorite adjuration:—'Ods my life, man, what d'ye mean?' At the sound of his angry voice Crispin stood motionless, till the angry pedagogue, becoming infuriate, pushed the intruder out of the room with such force that Crispin might have sustained an action at law against him for the assault. Thus, to Coleridge's mortification and regret, as he afterward in joke would say, 'I lost the opportunity of supplying safeguards to the understandings of those who, perhaps, will never thank me for what I am aiming to do in exercising their reason.'"
Disappointed in becoming a shoemaker, he was next on fire to become a surgeon. His brother Luke was now in London, walking the London hospitals. Here, every Saturday, he got leave and went, delighted beyond every thing if he were permitted to hold the plasters, or attend dressings. He now plunged headlong into books of medicine, Latin, Greek, or English; devoured whole medical dictionaries; then fell from physic to metaphysics; thence to the writings of infidels; fell in love, like all embryo poets, and wrote verse. He was, however, destined neither to make shoes nor set bones, but for the university; whither he went in 1791, at the age of nineteen, being elected to Jesus College, Cambridge.
Here his friend Middleton, afterward Bishop of Calcutta, who had been his most distinguished schoolfellow at Christ's Hospital, had preceded him, and was an under-graduate at Pembroke College. Their friendship was revived, and Coleridge used to go to Pembroke College sometimes to read with him. One day he found Middleton intent on his book, having on a long pair of boots reaching to the knees, and beside him, on a chair next to the one he was sitting on, a pistol. Coleridge had scarcely sat down before he was startled by the report of the pistol. "Did you see that?" said Middleton, "See what?" said Coleridge. "That rat I just sent into its hole again. Did you feel the shot? It was to defend my legs that I put on these boots. I am frightening these rats from my books, which, without some precaution, I shall have devoured." Middleton, notwithstanding his hard studies, failed in his contest for the classical medal, and so in his hopes of a fellowship—a good thing eventually for him, for it drove him out of college into the world and a bishopric.
Coleridge came to the university with a high character for talent and learning; and the Blues, as they are called, or Christ's Hospital boys, anticipated his doing great honor to their body. This he eventually did by his poetical fame, and might have done by his college honors, had he but been as well versed in mathematics as in the classics. In his first year he contested for the prize for the Greek ode, and won it. In his second year he stood for the Craven scholarship, and, of sixteen or eighteen competitors, four were selected to contend for the prize; these were Dr. Butler, late Bishop of Lichfield; Dr. Keate, the late head master of Eton; Mr. Bethell, and Coleridge. Dr. Butler was the successful candidate, and Coleridge was supposed to stand next. But college honors were contingent on a good mathematical stand; this Coleridge, who hated mathematics, despaired of, and determined to quit the university. He was, moreover, harassed with debts, the most serious of which, it seems, was incurred immediately on his arrival at Cambridge. He was no sooner at his college, than a polite upholsterer accosted him, requesting to be permitted to furnish his rooms. The next question was, "How would you like to have them furnished?" The answer, prompt and innocent enough, was, "Just as you please, sir"—thinking the individual employed by the college. The rooms, were, therefore, furnished according to the taste of the artisan, and the bill presented to the astonished Coleridge. On quitting the college, it seems that his debts were about one hundred pounds—no great matter, but to him as overwhelming as if they had been a thousand. Cottle, in his account of him, says he had fallen in love, as well as into debt, with a Mary G——, who rejected his offer. He made his way to London, and there, of all things in the world, enlisted for a soldier. The story is very curious, and as related, both by Cottle and Gillman, who were intimate with him at different periods of his life, is no doubt true.