sumed name.

The authorities at Jesus College were notified, and knowing that such a
youth was out of place serving as a soldier, and feeling further a small
pang of regret possibly for having driven him away, a plan was set on foot
to secure his discharge. This was soon brought about, and doubtless much
to Coleridge's relief. Erelong he found himself back at Cambridge--a
little subdued, and a trifle more discreet, for his rough contact with the
workaday world.

A journey to Oxford, to visit an old friend, proved a pivotal point in his
life. The fame of Coleridge as a poet had gone abroad, and the literary
fledglings at Oxford sought to do the visitor honor in the proper way.
Among others whom he met on this visit were Robert Southey and Robert
Lovell, both poets of considerable local fame.

Lovell had been married but a few months before to a young woman by the
name of Fricker. Southey was engaged to a sister of the bride, and there
was still a third sister fancy-free. The three poets became fast friends.
They were all radicals, full of ambition to make a name for themselves,
and all intent on elevating society out of the ruts into which it had
fallen. All had suffered contumely on account of advanced ideas; and all
were out of conceit with the existing order.

They discussed the matter at length, and decided to set the world an
example, by founding an ideal colony and showing how to make the most of
life.

Coleridge had long been interested in America, and from an
acquaintanceship with sundry soldiers who had helped fight the battles of
George the Third in the New World, he had gathered a rather romantic idea
of the country. The stories of returned sailors and soldiers, told to
civilians, are seldom exactly authentic. And Coleridge the poet, bubbling
with the effervescence of youth, argued that a home on the banks of the
Susquehanna, with love and books and comradeship, was the ideal condition.

The matter was broached to the three sisters Fricker, and they of course
responded--what woman worthy of the name of woman would not? And so the
arrangements were fast being made, and as a necessary feature the three
poets were duly and legally married to the three sisters, and Eden was to
be peopled with the best.

A date was arranged for sailing, but some trifling matter of finance
delayed the exodus--in fact, certain expected loans were not forthcoming.
Coleridge put in the time lecturing and preaching from Unitarian