Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834), poet and philosopher

One autograph letter, signed, to Thomas Allsop, regarding the selection process for various surgical appointments. Allsop was a close associate of Coleridge at this time, and had embarked on a project to record the poet's conversation for posterity.

Coleridge describes the contest to succeed the recently deceased Henry Cline junior (d.1820) as surgeon of St. Thomas's Hospital, endorsing Cline's cousin (and "our friend") Joseph Henry Green (1791–1863). Green had initiated a series of weekly tutorials with Coleridge, centring on German philosophy, in 1818, and these persisted until Coleridge's death. Coleridge asks Allsop to use his influence on Green's behalf, but in fact Green was not to be successful in this attempt. Coleridge records that his rivals are Titus Berry and Frederick Tyrrell (1793-1843); it was Tyrrell who was appointed to the post, in 1822.

Coleridge also discusses the recent contest to become Assistant Surgeon to the London Eye Infirmary (later Moorfields Eye Hospital) and the personal links behind it. He records that the eminent surgeon Sir Astley Cooper (1768-1841) had supported Tyrrell for this post (to which Tyrrell was indeed appointed) because of personal connections, Tyrrell being his former pupil (and later the husband of Cooper's niece). In this, Coleridge alleges, the superior merits of Edward Stanley (c.1792-1862) had been overlooked, against Cooper's better judgement.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) was a poet, critic, and philosopher: he was born on 21 October 1772 at Ottery St Mary, Devon, and was the youngest of the ten children of John Coleridge, the town's vicar and master of the grammar school.

Coleridge was educated at Christ's Hospital, London, and Jesus College, Cambridge. In Cambridge he met Christopher Wordsworth, younger brother of the poet William Wordsworth. He was, however, unsettled as a student and following an episode in which he absconded to join the Dragoons under an assumed name, left once again with hopes of founding a utopian "Pantisocratic" settlement in Pennsylvania, collaborating with his fellow poet Robert Southey (1774-1843). As part of the scheme Southey would marry Edith Fricker, a Bristol seamstress with whom he was in love, and Coleridge would marry her sister Sara; the two men taking them as companions to America. Both poets married their chosen sister in late 1795, but the scheme collapsed as a result of Southey's reluctance to proceed with it, and Coleridge set up as a lecturer in Bristol.

During this transitional period he published his first volumes of poetry (in 1796) and, the previous year, met and befriended William Wordsworth (1770-1850), at that time living in Dorset with his sister Dorothy (1771-1855). At the end of 1796 Coleridge and his family moved to Nether Stowey in the Quantocks and in summer 1797 the Wordsworths moved into the adjacent mansion at Alfoxden. Wordsworth and Coleridge embarked on an intense period of creativity, supported financially by Thomas Wedgwood (brother of the potter Josiah, and someone with an abiding interest in advanced thought) that was to lead to their collaborating on the Lyrical Ballads. The period saw the composition of much of Coleridge's best-known work, even if some pieces such as "Kubla Khan" were not published for some years.

An annuity from Thomas Wedgwood freed Coleridge from financial worries (and allowed him to abandon a plan to become a Unitarian minister), and in 1798 he travelled to Germany, initially with the Wordsworths, to investigate its literature and philosophy. His second son died during his absence and his failure to return for some months probably contributed to the growing distance between him and his wife. Late in 1799 after the poets' returns to England he visited the Wordsworths in the north, meeting their childhood friend Mary Hutchinson - whom William Wordsworth would later marry - and falling in love with her sister Sarah. He spent some time in London literary circles, writing journalism, discussing the implications of the rise of Napoleon, exploring the implications of Spinoza's writings and making the acquaintance of the young Humphry Davy and of the radical William Godwin. In 1800, however, he retreated to a more rural way of life, moving to Keswick to be close to the Wordsworths (and to Sara Hutchinson). The ensuing period is marked by intense philosophical studies, the gradual collapse of his marriage and an increasing dependence upon laudanum, the latter addiction something that would dominate the rest of his life. He separated from his wife in 1806 and behaved increasingly erratically, probably as a result of addiction, this culminating in a quarrel with Wordsworth whom he believed to be sleeping with Sara Hutchinson. The period 1810-1814 represented a personal nadir for Coleridge.

During the latter part of the 1810s, Coleridge produced more literary work, writing on philosophy - the Biographia Literaria and various essays - and resuming poetic work. In 1816 he moved into the house of John Gillman, a Highgate surgeon, in the hope that Gillman might control his addiction, and remained here for the rest of his life. At the London Philosophical Society in 1818 he met Thomas Allsop, who became a disciple and began to record Coleridge's conversation; at the same period he met the surgeon Joseph Henry Green, with whom he discussed philosophy regularly for the rest of his life. (Through Green he briefly met John Keats, who had studied under Green at Guy's Hospital.) During the 1820s Coleridge continued to write in the hopes of producing a great work of philosophy, and continued to produce verse, although on a smaller scale to earlier work. He was reconciled with Wordsworth in 1828, travelling with him to the Rhineland for two months. His latter years were financially precarious, his continued addiction presumably eating into his funds. He died in July 1834 in Gillman's house.