Coleridge's work, first as a barrister, and then as a judge, prevented his publishing as much as he otherwise would have done, but his addresses and papers would, if collected, fill a substantial volume and do much honour to his memory. One of the best, and one most eminently characteristic of the man, was his inaugural address to the Philosophical Institution at Edinburgh in 1870; another was a paper on Wordsworth (1873). He was an exceptionally good letter-writer. Of travel he had very little experience. He had hardly been to Paris; once, quite near the end of his career, he spent a few days in Holland, and came back a willing slave to the genius of Rembrandt; but his longest absence from England was a visit, which had something of a representative legal character, to the United States. It is strange that a man so steeped in Greek and Roman poetry, so deeply interested in the past, present and future of Christianity, never saw Rome, or Athens, or the Holy Land. A subsidiary cause, no doubt, was the fatal custom of neglecting modern languages at English schools. He felt himself at a disadvantage when he passed beyond English-speaking lands, and cordially disliked the situation. No notice of Coleridge should omit to make mention of his extraordinary store of anecdotes, which were nearly always connected with Eton, Oxford, the bar or the bench. His exquisite voice, considerable power of mimicry, and perfect method of narration added greatly to the charm. He once told, at the table of Dr Jowett, master of Balliol, anecdotes through the whole of dinner on Saturday evening, through the whole of breakfast, lunch and dinner the next day, through the whole journey on Monday morning from Oxford to Paddington, without ever once repeating himself. He was frequently to be seen at the Athenaeum, was a member both of Grillion's and The Club, as well as of the Literary Society, of which he was president, and whose meetings he very rarely missed. Bishop Copleston is said to have divided the human race into three classes,--men, women and Coleridges. If he did so, he meant, no doubt, to imply that the family of whom the poet of _Christabel_ was the chief example regarded themselves as a class to themselves, the objects of a special dispensation. John Duke Coleridge was sarcastic and critical, and at times over-sensitive. But his strongest characteristics were love of liberty and justice. By birth and connexions a Conservative, he was a Liberal by conviction, and loyal to his party and its great leader, Mr Gladstone.
Wildlife Report
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 6 — Part 159
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