ead. Yet he is the youngest; but, then, nature is no party to his
being such, and probably she is no party (by means of any physical
change in the parents) once in a thousand births to a case of absolute
and predeterminate juniority.

Whether with or without the intention of nature, S. T. C. was fated to
be the last of his family. He was the tenth child of the second flock,
and possibly there might have been an eleventh or even a twentieth, but
for the following termination of his father's career, which we give in
the words of his son. 'Towards the latter end of September, 1781, my
father went to Plymouth with my brother Francis, who was to go out as'
(a) 'midshipman under Admiral Graves--a friend of my father's. He
settled Frank as he wished, and returned on the 4th of October, 1781. He
arrived at Exeter about six o'clock, and was pressed to take a bed there
by the friendly family of the Harts; but he refused, and, to avoid their
entreaties, he told them that he had never been superstitious, but that
the night before he had had a dream, which had made a deep impression on
him. He dreamed that Death had appeared to him, as he is commonly
painted, and had touched him with his dart. Well, he returned home; and
all his family, _I_ excepted, were up. He told my mother his dream; but
he was in good health and high spirits; and there was a bowl of punch
made, and my father gave a long and particular account of his travels,
and that he had placed Frank under a religious captain, and so forth. At
length he went to bed, very well and in high spirits. A short time after
he had lain down, he complained of a pain to which he was subject. My
mother got him some peppermint water, which he took; and after a pause
he said, "I am much better now, my dear!" and lay down again. In a
minute my mother heard a noise in his throat, and spoke to him; but he
did not answer, and she spoke repeatedly in vain. Her shriek awaked me,
and I said, "Papa is dead!" I did not know of my father's return, but I
knew that he was expected. How I came to think of his death, I cannot
tell; but so it was. Dead he was. Some said it was gout in the heart;
probably it was a fit of apoplexy. He was an Israelite without guile,
simple, generous; and, taking some Scripture texts in their literal
sense, he was conscientiously indifferent to the good and evil of this
world.'

This was the account of his father's sudden death in 1781, written by S.
T. Coleridge in 1797.