SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE was born in Devonshire, October 21st, 1772. His father. Rev. John Coleridge, vicar of the parish of Ottery St. Mary, was “a kindly and learned man,” whose second wife bore him ten children. Samuel Taylor, the youngest of them, showed when a boy the same dreamy and speculative disposition which made it possible for him to write “The Ancient Mariner.” At Cambridge his first indication of poetical talent was a Greek ode on the slave trade, which won him a gold medal from the university. He left the university without a degree, however, and in connection with Southey planned a colony in Pennsylvania, where ideal liberty, equality, and justice were to be established. As a first step towards this, he and Southey married sisters, the Misses Fricker, of Bristol, and, instead of founding “Pantisocracy” in America, Coleridge found himself obliged to make vigorous efforts to support his wife in England by giving lectures, writing essays, and publishing poems. In 1796 he began a brief experiment as a Unitarian minister, but abandoned the pulpit for literature and journalism. He did not earn a living for his family at either, but he found patrons in the brothers Wedgwood and other wealthy admirers. His friendship with Wordsworth and Southey was the beginning of the “Lake School” of English poets. It was to Coleridge that Wordsworth dedicated his “Prelude,” and in return Coleridge addressed him a highly complimentary ode. His friendship for Wordsworth also brought him the suggestion for his best poem, “The Ancient Mariner,” the publication of which at once fixed his place as a man of genius. His productiveness was interrupted by his habit of eating opium, and for fifteen years he wrote almost nothing. It was after his recovery from this diseased habit that he published a number of his best essays, including “The Friend,” the “Essays on Method,” and “The Sailor’s Fortune.” “Table Talk” was published a year after his death by H. N. Coleridge. Strictly speaking, it is a record of his conversations, but it represents him at his best in prose, as, in the prose which comes from his own pen, interest often flags because of his neglect of incident. In his “Table Talk” it never does. He died July 25th, 1834.