'Thirty years afterwards' (but after 1781 or after
1797?), says Mr. H. N. Coleridge, 'S. T. C. breathed a wish for such a
death, "if," he added, "like him I were an Israelite without guile!" and
then added, "The image of my father, my revered, kind, learned,
simple-hearted father, is a religion to me."'

In his ninth year, therefore, thus early and thus suddenly, Coleridge
lost his father; and in the result, though his mother lived for many a
year after, he became essentially an orphan, being thrown upon the
struggles of this world, and for ever torn from his family, except as a
visitor when equally he and they had changed. Yet such is the world, and
so inevitably does it grow thorns amongst its earliest roses, that even
that dawn of life when he had basked in the smiles of two living
parents, was troubled for _him_ by a dark shadow that followed his steps
or ran before him, obscuring his light upon every path. This was Francis
Coleridge, one year older, that same boy whom his father had in his last
journey upon earth accompanied to Plymouth.

We shall misconceive the character of Francis if we suppose him to have
been a boy of bad nature. He turned out a gallant young man, and
perished at twenty-one from over exertion in Mysore, during the first
war with Tippoo Sahib. How he came to be transferred from the naval to
the land service, is a romantic story, for which, as it has no relation
to _the_ Coleridge, we cannot find room.

In that particular relation, viz., to _the_ Coleridge, Francis may seem
at first to have been unamiable, and especially since the little Samuel
was so entirely at the mercy of his superior hardiness and strength;
but, in fact, his violence arose chiefly from the contempt natural to a
bold adventurous nature for a nursery pet, and a contempt irritated by a
counter admiration which he could not always refuse. 'Frank,' says S. T.
C., looking back to these childish days, 'had a violent love of beating
me; but, whenever _that_ was superseded by any humour or circumstances,
he was always very fond of me, and used to regard me with a strange
mixture of admiration and contempt. Strange it was not; for he hated
books, and loved climbing, fighting, playing, robbing orchards, to
distraction.'

In the latter part of 1778, when S. T. C. was six years old, and
recently admitted to King's School at Ottery, he and his brother George
(that brother to whom his early poems were afterwards dedicated) caught
a p