COLERIDGE, Hartley, English poet: b. Clevedon, near Bristol, 19 Sept. 1796; d. Rydal, Westmoreland, 6 Jan. 1849. He was the eldest son of S. T. Coleridge (q.v.), and upon the elder Coleridge taking up his residence in the Lake district, Hartley and his brother Derwent were placed as day scholars under the charge of a clergyman at Ambleside. In 1815 he be came a student at Merton College, Oxford, and having inherited his father's conversational talents, was soon in great request at the wine parties and other festivities of the undergrad uates. An unfortunate propensity was thus formed for drinlcing, which proved even more ruinous than his father's craving for opium. He obtained a fellowship at Oriel College, but forfeited it on account of his intemperance before the close of his probationary year. He then left Oxford and resided for two years in London, contributing occasionally to the Lon don Magazine, in which his first sonnets ap peared. His friends induced him against his will to settle at Arnbleside for the reception of pupils, but this scheme, as might have been expected, failed. He continued, however, to
reside in the Lake country, and during this period enjoyed the friendship and good offices of Wordsworth, who had taken a paternal in terest in him from a child. He likewise employed himself extensively in study and lit erary composition, contributing to Blackwood's Magazine, and producing a volume of (Poems> and (Worthies of Yorkshire and Lancashire.' Many of his sonnets will rank with the finest in the English language, while the charming vivacity of his biographies leaves only room for regret that he had not accomplished more as a prose writer. In 1839 he wrote a life of Massinger for an edition of his works published by Moxon. He was buried in Grasmere church yard, adjoining rhe spot where Wordsworth was laid a few months afterward. A memoir, with a collection of poems written by him in his later years, was published after his death by his brother Derwent.