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_Life and Correspondence of S. T. Coleridge_ (Vol. vii., p.
282.).--There can be but one opinion and feeling as to the want which
exists for a really good biography of this intellectual giant; but there
will be many dissentients as to the proposed biographer, whose life of
Hartley Coleridge cannot be regarded as a happy example of this class of
composition. A life from the pen of Judge Coleridge, the friend of
Arnold and Whateley, is, we think, far more to be desired.
~Theta~.
_Coniger, &c._ (Vol. vii., pp. 182. 241.).--At one extremity, the
picturesque range of hills which forms the noble background of Dunster
Castle, co. Somerset, is terminated by a striking conical eminence,
well-wooded, and surmounted by an embattled tower, erected as an object
from the castle windows. This eminence bears the name of _The Coniger_,
and is now a pheasant preserve. Mr. Hamper, in an excellent notice of
Dunster and its antiquities, in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, October,
1808, p. 873., says:
"The _Conygre_, or rabbit-ground, was a common appendage to
manor-houses."
Savage, however, in his _History of the Hundred of Carhampton_, p. 440.,
is of opinion that
"_Coneygar_ seems to be derived from the Anglo-Saxon _Cyning_,
King; and the Moeso-Gothic _Garas_, the same as the Latin
_Domus_, a house, that is, the king's house or residence. Mr.
Hamper has some notion that _Conygre_ means a rabbit-ground,
&c., but Mr. H. does not go high enough for his etymology;
besides, how does it appear that a rabbit-ground was at any time
an appendage to manor-houses? There is no authority for the
assertion."
I give you this criticism on Mr. Hamper _valeat quantum_, but am
disposed to think he is right. At all events there are no vestiges of
any building on the Coniger except the tower aforesaid, which was
erected by the present Mr. Luttrell's grandfather.