SARA COLERIDGE, the only daughter of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was born at Keswick in 1803. Until her marriage she resided in the house of Robert Southey, who married her mother's sister. To his influence and paternal kindness the formation of her mental character must be largely ascribed, though she possessed in a remarkable measure the intellectual characteristics of her father. Her opening womanhood was spent at Keswick in the diligent culture and exercise of her remarkable powers. She readily lent her assistance to Southey in lightening as far as she could his literary labours: she often accom panied Wordsworth in his mountain rambles. In 1822 she had completed her first literary work, An Account of the Abiponea, an Equestrian People of Paraguay, from the Latin of Martin Dobrizhoffer,' a translation suggested by Southey, and the admirable execution of which he has commemorated in a stanza of his Tale of Paraguay.' In 1829 she married her cousin, Henry Nelson Coleridge, the sub ject of a succeeding article. [COLERIDGE, HENRY NELSON.] She now gave herself to her domestic duties, and her next literary produc tion was prepared as a Latin lesson-book for her children : it is called 'Pretty Lessons for Good Children,' and speedily passed through several editions. On the death of her father in 1834, her husband, who was the poet's literary executor, set himself to the task of pre paring such of the poet's unpublished works as would serve best to exhibit him as a theologian, philosopher, poet, and critic, and Sara Coleridge most heartily devoted herself to assist in this pious duty. During her husband% life much of the collation and a considerable portion of the annotation fell to her share; after his death she did not hesitate to take upon herself the whole of the arduous labour. The
Aida to Reflection,' Notes on Shakepeare and the Dramatists,' and ' Essays on his Own Times' were edited by her alone, and to some of them were affixed elaborate discourses on the most weighty matters in theology, morals, and philosophy, which were discussed in a clear and vigorous style, with a closeness of reasoning and an amount of eru dition quite remarkable in one of her sex. But Sam Coleridge, like her father, had in no stinted measure the imaginative as well as the reasoning faculty. Her fairy tale, Phantasmion ' wanted only the colouring of verse to have been generally allowed to rank among the more beautiful poems of the age ; but in prose its often exquisite imagery and delicate shades of thought and feeling seemed to lack some clear and palpable intention ; and it was regarded for the most part as vague, visionary, and obscure. Probably it will be on her commentaries upon her father's works—from which they are not likely to be by any future editor dissociated—that her fame will ultimately rest ; but her rare acquirements and rarer gifts being thus expended on annotations, are now scarcely likely ever to meet with their due recognition. Sara Coleridge survived her husband ten years : she died May 3rd, 1852. At her death she was engaged in preparing a new edition of her father's poems, which was completed and published by her brother : ' Poems of S. T. Coleridge, edited by Derwent and Sara Coleridge,' 1852.