[1] Instar is a convenient term suggested by D. Sharp to indicate a
stage in the life-history of an insect between two successive
castings of the cuticle.
COLEPEPER, JOHN COLEPEPER (or CULPEPPER), 1ST BARON (d. 1660), English
politician, was the only son of Sir John Colepeper of Wigsell, Sussex.
He began his career in military service abroad, and came first into
public notice at home through his knowledge of country affairs, being
summoned often before the council board to give evidence on such
matters. He was knighted, and was elected member for Kent in the Long
Parliament, when he took the popular side, speaking against monopolies
on the 9th of November 1640, being entrusted with the impeachment of Sir
Robert Berkeley on the 12th of February 1641, supporting Stafford's
attainder, and being appointed to the committee of defence on the 12th
of August 1641. He separated, however, from the popular party on the
Church question, owing to political rather than religious objections,
fearing the effect of the revolutionary changes which were now
contemplated. He opposed the London petition for the abolition of
episcopacy, the project of religious union with the Scots, and the Root
and Branch Bill, and on the 1st of September he moved a resolution in
defence of the prayer-book. In the following session he opposed the
militia bill and the Grand Remonstrance, and finally on the 2nd of
January 1642 he joined the king's party, taking office as chancellor of
the exchequer. He highly disapproved of the attempt upon the five
members, which was made without his knowledge, but advised the
enterprise against Hull. On the 25th of August 1642 he appeared at the
bar of the House of Commons to deliver the king's final proposals for
peace, and was afterwards present at Edgehill, where he took part in
Prince Rupert's charge and opposed the retreat of the king's forces from
the battlefield. In December he was made by Charles master of the rolls.
He was a leading member of the Oxford Parliament, and was said, in
opposition to the general opinion, to have counselled considerable
concessions to secure peace. His influence in military affairs caused
him to be much disliked by Prince Rupert and the army, and the general
animosity against him was increased by his advancement to the peerage on
the 21st of October 1644 by the title of Baron Colepeper of Thoresway in
Lincolnshire.
He was despatched with Hyde in charge of the prince of Wales to the West
in March 1645, and on the 2nd of March 1646, after Charles's final
defeat, embarked with the prince for Scilly, and thence to France. He
strongly advocated the gaining over of the Scots by religious
concessions, a policy supported by the queen and Mazarin, but opposed by
Hyde and other leading royalists, and constantly urged this course upon
the king, at the same time deprecating any yielding on the subject of
the militia. He promoted the mission of Sir John Berkeley in 1647 to
secure an understanding between Charles and the army. In 1648 he
accompanied the prince in his unsuccessful naval expedition, and
returned with him to the Hague, where violent altercations broke out
among the royalist leaders, Colepeper going so far, on one occasion in
the council, as to challenge Prince Rupert, and being himself severely
assaulted in the streets by Sir Robert Walsh. He continued after the
execution of the king to press the acceptance on Charles II. of the
Scottish proposals. He was sent to Russia in 1650, where he obtained a
loan of 20,000 roubles from the tsar, and, soon after his return, to
Holland, to procure military assistance. By the treaty, agreed to
between Cromwell and Mazarin, of August 1654, Colepeper was obliged to
leave France, and he appears henceforth to have resided in Flanders. He
accompanied Charles II. to the south of France in September 1659, at the
time of the treaty of the Pyrenees. At the Restoration he returned to
England, but only survived a few weeks, dying on the 11th of June 1660.
Several contemporary writers agree in testifying to Colepeper's great
debating powers and to his resources as an adviser, but complain of his
want of stability and of his uncertain temper. Clarendon, with whom he
was often on ill terms, speaks generally in his praise, and repels the
charge of corruption levelled against him. That he was gifted with
considerable political foresight is shown by a remarkable letter written
on the 20th of September 1658 on the death of Cromwell, in which he
foretells with uncommon sagacity the future developments in the
political situation, advises the royalists to remain inactive till the
right moment and profit by the division of their opponents, and
distinguishes Monck as the one person willing and capable of effecting
the Restoration (_Clarendon State Papers_, iii. 412). Colepeper was
twice married, (1) to Philippa, daughter of Sir John Snelling, by whom
he had one son, who died young, and a daughter, and (2) to Judith,
daughter of Sir J. Colepeper of Hollingbourn, Kent, by whom he had seven
children. Of these Thomas (d. 1719; governor of Virginia 1680-1683) was
the successor in the title, which became extinct on the death of his
younger brother Cheney in 1725. (P. C. Y.)
COLERAINE, a seaport and market town of Co. Londonderry, Ireland, in the
north parliamentary division, on the Bann, 4 m. from its mouth, and
61-1/2 m. N.W. by N. from Dublin by the Northern Counties (Midland)
railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 6958. The town stands upon both
sides of the river, which is crossed by a handsome stone bridge,
connecting the town and its suburb, Waterside or Killowen. The principal
part is on the east bank, and consists of a central square called the
Diamond, and several diverging streets. Among institutions may be
mentioned the public schools founded in 1613 and maintained by the
Honourable Irish Society, and the Academical Institution, maintained by
the Irish Society and the London Clothworkers' Company. The linen trade
has long been extensively carried on in the town, from which, indeed, a
fine description of cloth is known as "Coleraines." Whisky-distilling,
pork-curing, and the salmon and eel fisheries are prosecuted. The mouth
of the river was formerly obstructed by a bar, but piers were
constructed, and the harbours greatly improved by grants from the Irish
Society of London and from a loan under the River Bann Navigation Act
1879. Coleraine ceased to return one member to the Imperial parliament
in 1885; having previously returned two to the Irish parliament until
the Union. It was incorporated by James I. It owed its importance mainly
to the Irish Society, which was incorporated as the Company for the New
Plantation of Ulster in 1613. Though fortified only by an earthen wall,
it managed to hold out against the rebels in 1641. There are no remains
of a former priory, monastery and castle. A rath or encampment of large
size occupies Mount Sandel, 1 m. south-east.
COLERIDGE, HARTLEY (1796-1849), English man of letters, eldest son of
the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was born on the 19th of September
1796, near Bristol. His early years were passed under Southey's care at
Greta Hall, Keswick, and he was educated by the Rev. John Dawes at
Ambleside. In 1815 he went to Oxford, as scholar of Merton College. His
university career, however, was very unfortunate. He had inherited the
weakness of purpose, as well as the splendid conversational powers, of
his father, and lapsed into habits of intemperance. He was successful in
gaining an Oriel fellowship, but at the close of the probationary year
(1820) was judged to have forfeited it. The authorities could not be
prevailed upon to reverse their decision; but they awarded to him a free
gift of L300. Hartley Coleridge then spent two years in London, where he
wrote short poems for the _London Magazine_. His next step was to become
a partner in a school at Ambleside, but this scheme failed. In 1830 a
Leeds publisher, Mr. F. E. Bingley, made a contract with him to write
biographies of Yorkshire and Lancashire worthies. These were afterwards
republished under the title of _Biographia Borealis_ (1833) and
_Worthies of Yorkshire and Lancashire_ (1836). Bingley also printed a
volume of his poems in 1833, and Coleridge lived in his house until the
contract came to an end through the bankruptcy of the publisher. From
this time, except for two short periods in 1837 and 1838 when he acted
as master at Sedbergh grammar school, he lived quietly at Grasmere and
(1840-1849) Rydal, spending his time in study and wanderings about the
countryside. His figure was as familiar as Wordsworth's, and his
gentleness and simplicity of manner won for him the friendship of the
country-people. In 1839 appeared his edition of Massinger and Ford, with
biographies of both dramatists. The closing decade of Coleridge's life
was wasted in what he himself calls "the woeful impotence of weak
resolve." He died on the 6th of January 1849. The prose style of Hartley
Coleridge is marked by much finish and vivacity; but his literary
reputation must chiefly rest on the sanity of his criticisms, and above
all on his _Prometheus_, an unfinished lyric drama, and on his sonnets.
As a sonneteer he achieved real excellence, the form being exactly
suited to his sensitive genius. _Essays and Marginalia_, and _Poems_,
with a memoir by his brother Derwent, appeared in 1851.
COLERIDGE, JOHN DUKE COLERIDGE, 1ST BARON (1820-1894), lord chief
justice of England, was the eldest son of Sir John Taylor Coleridge. He
was born at Heath's Court, Ottery St Mary, on the 3rd of December 1820.
He was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, of which he was a
scholar. He was called to the bar in 1846, and went the western circuit,
rising steadily, through more than twenty years of hard work, till in
1865 he was returned as member for Exeter in the Liberal interest. The
impression which he made on the heads of his party was so favourable
that they determined, early in the session of 1867, to put him forward
as the protagonist of their attack on the Conservative government. But
that move seemed to many of their staunchest adherents unwise, and it
was frustrated by the active opposition of a section, including Hastings
Russell (later ninth duke of Bedford), his brother Arthur, member for
Tavistock, Alexander Mitchell of Stow, A. W. Kinglake and Henry Seymour.
They met to deliberate in the tea-room of the House, and were afterwards
sometimes confounded with the tea-room party which was of subsequent
formation and under the guidance of a different group. The protest was
sufficient to prevent the contemplated attack being made, but the
Liberals returned to power in good time with a large majority behind
them in 1868. Coleridge was made, first solicitor-, and then
attorney-general.
As early as 1863 a small body of Oxford men in parliament had opened
fire against the legislation which kept their university bound by
ecclesiastical swaddling clothes. They had made a good deal of progress
in converting the House of Commons to their views before the general
election of 1865. That election having brought Coleridge into
parliament, he was hailed as a most valuable ally, whose great
university distinction, brilliant success as an orator at the bar, and
hereditary connexion with the High Church party, entitled him to take
the lead in a movement which, although gathering strength, was yet very
far from having achieved complete success. The clerically-minded section
of the Conservative party could not but listen to the son of Sir John
Coleridge, the godson of Keble, and the grand-nephew of the man who had
been an indirect cause of the Anglican revival of 1833,--for John Stuart
Mill was right when he said that the poet Coleridge and the philosopher
Bentham were, so far as England was concerned, the leaders of the two
chief movements of their times: "it was they who taught the teachers,
and who were the two great seminal minds."
Walking up one evening from the House of Commons to dine at the
Athenaeum with Henry Bruce (afterwards Lord Aberdare) and another
friend, Coleridge said: "There is a trial coming on which will be one of
the most remarkable _causes celebres_ that has ever been heard of." This
was the Tichborne case, which led to proceedings in the criminal courts
rising almost to the dignity of a political event. The Tichborne trial
was the most conspicuous feature of Coleridge's later years at the bar,
and tasked his powers as an advocate to the uttermost, though he was
assisted by the splendid abilities and industry of Charles (afterwards
Lord) Bowen. In November 1873 Coleridge succeeded Sir W. Bovill as chief
justice of the common pleas, and was immediately afterwards raised to
the peerage as Baron Coleridge of Ottery St Mary. In 1880 he was made
lord chief justice of England on the death of Sir Alexander Cockburn.
In jury cases his quickness in apprehending facts and his lucidity in
arranging them were very remarkable indeed. He was not one of the most
learned of lawyers, but he was a great deal more learned than many
people believed him to be, and as an ecclesiastical lawyer had perhaps
few or no superiors. His fault--a natural fault in one who had been so
successful as an advocate--was that of being too apt to take one side.
He allowed, also, certain political or personal prepossessions to colour
the tone of his remarks from the bench. A game-preserving landlord had
not to thank the gods when his case, however buttressed by generally
accepted claims, came before Coleridge. Towards the end of his life his
health failed, and he became somewhat indolent. On the whole, he was not
so strong a man in his judicial capacity as Campbell or Cockburn; but it
must be admitted that his scholarship, his refinement, his power of
oratory, and his character raised the tone of the bench while he sat
upon it, and that if it has been adorned by greater judicial abilities,
it has hardly ever known a greater combination of varied merits. It is
curious to observe that of all judges the man whom he put highest was
one very unlike himself, the great master of the rolls, Sir William
Grant. Coleridge died in harness on the 14th of June 1894.
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.
Coleridge had three sons and a daughter by his first wife, Jane
Fortescue, daughter of the Rev. George Seymour of Freshwater. She was an
artist of real genius, and her portrait of Cardinal Newman was
considered much better than the one by Millais. She died in February
1878; a short notice of her by Dean Church of St Paul's was published in
the _Guardian_, and was reprinted in her husband's privately printed
collection of poems. Coleridge remained for some years a widower, but
married in 1885 Amy Augusta Jackson Lawford, who survived him. He was
succeeded in the peerage by his eldest son, Bernard John Seymour (b.
1851), who went to the bar and became a K.C. in 1892. In 1907 he was
appointed a judge of the Supreme Court. The two other sons were Stephen
(b. 1854), a barrister, secretary to the Anti-Vivisection Society, and
Gilbert James Duke (b. 1859).
His _Life and Correspondence_, edited by E. H. Coleridge, was
published in 1904; see further E. Manson, _Builders of our Law_
(1904); and for the history of the Coleridge family see Lord
Coleridge, _The Story of a Devonshire House_ (1907). (M. G. D.)
COLERIDGE, SIR JOHN TAYLOR (1790-1876), English judge, the second son of
Captain James Coleridge and nephew of the poet S. T. Coleridge, was born
at Tiverton, Devon, and was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford,
where he had a brilliant career. He graduated in 1812 and was soon after
made a fellow of Exeter; in 1819 he was called to the bar at the Middle
Temple and practised for some years on the western circuit. In 1824, on
Gifford's retirement, he assumed the editorship of the _Quarterly
Review_, resigning it a year afterwards in favour of Lockhart. In 1825
he published his excellent edition of _Blackstone's Commentaries_, and
in 1832 he was made a serjeant-at-law and recorder of Exeter. In 1835 he
was appointed one of the judges of the king's bench. In 1852 his
university created him a D.C.L., and in 1858 he resigned his judgeship,
and was made a member of the privy council. In 1869, although in extreme
old age, he produced his pleasant _Memoir of the Rev. John Keble_, whose
friend he had been since their college days, a third edition of which
was issued within a year. He died on the 11th of February 1876 at Ottery
St Mary, Devon, leaving two sons and a daughter; the eldest son, John
Duke, 1st Baron Coleridge (q.v.), became lord chief justice of England;
the second son, Henry James (1822-1893), left the Anglican for the Roman
Catholic church in 1852, and became well-known as a Jesuit divine,
editor of _The Month_, and author of numerous theological works. Sir
John Taylor Coleridge's brothers, James Duke and Henry Nelson (husband
of Sara Coleridge), are referred to in other articles; his brother
Francis George was the father of Arthur Duke Coleridge (b. 1830), clerk
of assizes on the midland circuit and author of _Eton in the Forties_,
whose daughter Mary E. Coleridge (1861-1907) became a well-known writer
of fiction.
COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR (1772-1834), English poet and philosopher, was
born on the 21st of October 1772, at his father's vicarage of Ottery St
Mary's, Devonshire. His father, the Rev. John Coleridge (1719-1781), was
a man of some mark. He was known for his great scholarship, simplicity
of character, and affectionate interest in the pupils of the grammar
school, of which he was appointed master a few months before becoming
vicar of the parish (1760), reigning in both capacities till his death.
He had married twice. The poet was the youngest child of his second
wife, Anne Bowdon (d. 1809), a woman of great good sense, and anxiously
ambitious for the success of her sons. On the death of his father, a
presentation to Christ's Hospital was procured for Coleridge by the
judge, Sir Francis Buller, an old pupil of his father's. He had already
begun to give evidence of a powerful imagination, and he has described
in a letter to his valued friend, Tom Poole, the pernicious effect which
the admiration of an uncle and his circle of friends had upon him at
this period. For eight years he continued at Christ's Hospital. Of these
school-days Charles Lamb has given delightful glimpses in the _Essays of
Elia_. The headmaster, Bowyer (as he was called, though his name was
Boyer), was a severe disciplinarian, but respected by his pupils.
Middleton, afterwards known as a Greek scholar, and bishop of Calcutta,
reported Coleridge to Bowyer as a boy who read Virgil for amusement, and
from that time Bowyer began to notice him and encouraged his reading.
Some compositions in English poetry, written at sixteen, and not without
a touch of genius, give evidence of the influence which Bowles, whose
poems were then in vogue, had over his mind at this time. Before he left
school his constitutional delicacy of frame, increased by swimming the
New River in his clothes, began to give him serious discomfort.
In February 1791 he was entered at Jesus College, Cambridge. A
school-fellow who followed him to the university has described in
glowing terms evenings in his rooms, "when Aeschylus, and Plato, and
Thucydides were pushed aside, with a pile of lexicons and the like, to
discuss the pamphlets of the day. Ever and anon a pamphlet issued from
the pen of Burke. There was no need of having the book before
us;--Coleridge had read it in the morning, and in the evening he would
repeat whole pages verbatim." William Frend, a fellow of Jesus, accused
of sedition and Unitarianism, was at this time tried and expelled from
Cambridge. Coleridge had imbibed his sentiments, and joined the ranks of
his partisans. He grew discontented with university life, and in 1793,
pressed by debt, went to London. Perhaps he was also influenced by his
passion for Mary Evans, the sister of one of his school-fellows. A poem
in the _Morning Chronicle_ brought him a guinea, and when that was spent
he enlisted in the 15th Dragoons under the name of Silas Tomkyn
Comberbache. One of the officers of the dragoon regiment, finding a
Latin sentence inscribed on a wall, discovered the condition of the very
awkward recruit. Shortly afterwards an old school-fellow (G. L. Tuckett)
heard of his whereabouts, and by the intervention of his brother,
Captain James Coleridge, his discharge was procured. He returned for a
short time to Cambridge, but quitted the university without a degree in
1794. In the same year he visited Oxford, and after a short tour in
Wales went to Bristol, where he met Southey. The French Revolution had
stirred the mind of Southey to its depths. Coleridge received with
rapture his new friend's scheme of Pantisocracy. On the banks of the
Susquehanna was to be founded a brotherly community, where selfishness
was to be extinguished, and the virtues were to reign supreme. No funds
were forthcoming, and in 1795, to the chagrin of Coleridge, the scheme
was dropped. In 1794 _The Fall of Robespierre_, of which Coleridge wrote
the first act and Southey the other two, appeared. At Bristol Coleridge
formed the acquaintance of Joseph Cottle, the bookseller, who offered
him thirty guineas for a volume of poems. In October of 1795 Coleridge
married Sarah Fricker, and took up his residence at Clevedon on the
Bristol Channel. A few weeks afterwards Southey married a sister of Mrs
Coleridge, and on the same day quitted England for Portugal.
Coleridge began to lecture in Bristol on politics and religion. He
embodied the first two lectures in his first prose publication,
_Conciones ad Populum_ (1795). The book contained much invective against
Pitt, and in after life Coleridge declared that, with this exception, and
a few pages involving philosophical tenets which he afterwards rejected,
there was little or nothing he desired to retract. The first volume of
_Poems_ was published by Cottle early in 1796. Coleridge projected a
periodical called _The Watchman_, and in 1796 undertook a journey, well
described in the _Biographic Literaria_, to enlist subscribers. _The
Watchman_ had a brief life of two months, but at this time Coleridge
began to think of becoming a Unitarian preacher, and abandoning
literature for ever. Hazlitt has recorded his very favourable impression
of a remarkable sermon delivered at Shrewsbury; but there are other
accounts of Coleridge's preaching not so enthusiastic. In the summer of
1795 he met for the first time the brother poet with whose name his own
will be for ever associated. Wordsworth and his sister had established
themselves at Racedown in the Dorsetshire hills, and here Coleridge
visited them in 1797. There are few things in literary history more
remarkable than this friendship. The gifted Dorothy Wordsworth described
Coleridge as "thin and pale, the lower part of the face not good, wide
mouth, thick lips, not very good teeth, longish, loose, half-curling,
rough, black hair,"--but all was forgotten in the magic charm of his
utterance. Wordsworth, who declared, "The only wonderful man I ever knew
was Coleridge," seems at once to have desired to see more of his new
friend. He and his sister removed in July 1797 to Alfoxden, near Nether
Stowey, to be in Coleridge's neighbourhood, and in the most delightful
and unrestrained intercourse the friends spent many happy days. It was
the delight of each one to communicate to the other the productions of
his mind, and the creative faculty of both poets was now at its best. One
evening, at Watchett on the British Channel, _The Ancient Mariner_ first
took shape. Coleridge was anxious to embody a dream of a friend, and the
suggestion of the shooting of the albatross came from Wordsworth, who
gained the idea from Shelvocke's _Voyage_ (1726). A joint volume was
planned. Wordsworth was to show the real poetry that lies hidden in
commonplace subjects, while Coleridge was to treat supernatural subjects
to illustrate the common emotions of humanity. From this sprang the
_Lyrical Ballads_, to which Coleridge contributed _The Ancient Mariner_,
the _Nightingale_ and two scenes from _Osorio_, and after much cogitation
the book was published in 1798 at Bristol by Cottle, to whose
reminiscences, often indulging too much in detail, we owe the account of
this remarkable time. A second edition of the _Lyrical Ballads_ in 1800
included another poem by Coleridge--_Love_, to which subsequently the
sub-title was given of _An Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie_.
To the Stowey period belong also the tragedy of _Osorio_ (afterwards
known as _Remorse_), _Kubla Khan_ and the first part of _Christabel_. In
1798 an annuity, granted him by the brothers Wedgwood, led Coleridge to
abandon his reluctantly formed intention of becoming a Unitarian
minister. For many years he had desired to see the continent, and in
September 1798, in company with Wordsworth and his sister, he left
England for Hamburg. _Satyrane's Letters_ (republished in _Biog. Lit._
1817) give an account of the tour.
A new period in Coleridge's life now began. He soon left the Wordsworths
to spend four months at Ratzeburg, whence he removed to Gottingen to
attend lectures. A great intellectual movement had begun in Germany.
Coleridge was soon in the full whirl of excitement. He learnt much from
Blumenbach and Eichhorn, and took interest in all that was going on
around him. During his stay of nine months in Germany, he made himself
master of the language to such purpose that the translation of
_Wallenstein_--his first piece of literary work after his return to
England--was actually accomplished in six weeks. It was published in
1800, and, although it failed to make any impression on the general
public, it became at once prized by Scott and others as it deserved. It
is matter for regret that a request to Coleridge that he should
undertake to translate _Faust_ never received serious attention from
him. During these years Coleridge wrote many newspaper articles and some
poems, among them "Fire, Famine and Slaughter," for the _Morning Post_
(January 8, 1798). He had vehemently opposed Pitt's policy, but a change
came over his way of thought, and he found himself separated from Fox on
the question of a struggle with Napoleon. He had lost his admiration for
the Revolutionists, as his "Ode to France" shows (_Morning Post_, April
16, 1798). Like many other Whigs, he felt that all questions of domestic
policy must at a time of European peril be postponed. From this time,
however, his value for the ordered liberty of constitutional government
increased; and though never exactly to be found among the ranks of
old-fashioned Constitutionalists, during the remainder of his life he
kept steadily in view the principles which received their full
exposition in his well-known work on _Church and State_. In the year
1800 Coleridge left London for the Lakes. Here in that year he wrote the
second part of _Christabel_. In 1803 Southey became a joint lodger with
Coleridge at Greta Hall, Keswick, of which in 1812 Southey became sole
tenant and occupier.
In 1801 begins the period of Coleridge's life during which, in spite of
the evidence of work shown in his compositions, he sank more and more
under the dominion of opium, in which he may have first indulged at
Cambridge. Few things are so sad to read as the letters in which he
details the consequences of his transgression. He was occasionally seen
in London during the first years of the century, and wherever he
appeared he was the delight of admiring circles. He toured in Scotland
with the Wordsworths in 1803, visited Malta in 1804, when for ten months
he acted as secretary to the governor, and stayed nearly eight months at
Naples and Rome in 1805-1806. In Rome he received a hint that his
articles in the _Morning Post_ had been brought to Napoleon's notice,
and he made the voyage from Leghorn in an American ship. On a visit to
Somersetshire in 1807 he met De Quincey for the first time, and the
younger man's admiration was shown by a gift of L300, "from an unknown
friend." In 1809 he started a magazine called _The Friend_, which
continued only for eight months. At the same time Coleridge began to
contribute to the _Courier_. In 1808 he lectured at the Royal
Institution, but with little success, and two years later he gave his
lectures on Shakespeare and other poets. These lectures attracted great
attention and were followed by two other series. In 1812 his income from
the Wedgwoods was reduced, and he settled the remainder on his wife. His
friends were generous in assisting him with money. Eventually Mackintosh
obtained a grant of L100 a year for him in 1824 during the lifetime of
George IV., as one of the royal associates of the Society of Literature,
and at different times he received help principally from Stuart, the
publisher, Poole, Sotheby, Sir George Beaumont, Byron and Wordsworth,
while his children shared Southey's home at Keswick. But between 1812
and 1817 Coleridge made a good deal by his work, and was able to send
money to his wife in addition to the annuity she received. The tragedy
of _Remorse_ was produced at Drury Lane in 1813, and met with
considerable success. Three years after this, having failed to conquer
the opium habit, he determined to enter the family of Mr James Gillman,
who lived at Highgate. The letter in which he discloses his misery to
this kind and thoughtful man gives a real insight into his character.
Under judicious treatment the hour of mastery at last arrived. The shore
was reached, but the vessel had been miserably shattered in its passage
through the rocks. For the rest of his life he hardly ever left his home
at Highgate. During his residence there, _Christabel_, written many
years before, and known to a favoured few, was first published in a
volume with _Kubla Khan_ and the _Pains of Sleep_ in 1816. He read
widely and wisely, in poetry, philosophy and divinity. In 1816 and the
following year, he gave his _Lay Sermons_ to the world. _Sibylline
Leaves_ appeared in 1817; the _Biographia Literaria_ and a revised
edition of _The Friend_ soon followed. Seven years afterwards his most
popular prose work--_The Aids to Reflection_--first appeared. His last
publication, in 1830, was the work on _Church and State_. It was not
till 1840 that his _Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit_, by far his most
seminal work, was posthumously published. In 1833 he appeared at the
meeting of the British Association at Cambridge, but he died in the
following year (25th of July 1834), and was buried in the churchyard
close to the house of Mr Gillman, where he had enjoyed every consolation
which friendship and love could render. Coleridge died in the communion
of the Church of England, of whose polity and teaching he had been for
many years a loving admirer. An interesting letter to his god-child,
written twelve days before his death, sums up his spiritual experience
in a most touching form.
Of the extraordinary influence which he exercised in conversation it is
impossible to speak fully here. Many of the most remarkable among the
younger men of that period resorted to Highgate as to the shrine of an
oracle, and although one or two disparaging judgments, such as that of
Carlyle, have been recorded, there can be no doubt that since Samuel
Johnson there had been no such power in England. His nephew, Henry
Nelson Coleridge, gathered together some specimens of the _Table Talk_
of the few last years. But remarkable as these are for the breadth of
sympathy and extent of reading disclosed, they will hardly convey the
impressions furnished in a dramatic form, as in Boswell's great work.
Four volumes of _Literary Remains_ were published after his death, and
these, along with the chapters on the poetry of Wordsworth in the
_Biographia Literaria_, may be said to exhibit the full range of
Coleridge's power as a critic of poetry. In this region he stands
supreme. With regard to the preface, which contains Wordsworth's theory,
Coleridge has honestly expressed his dissent:--"With many parts of this
preface, in the sense attributed to them, and which the words
undoubtedly seem to authorize, I never concurred; but, on the contrary,
objected to them as erroneous in principle, and contradictory (in
appearance at least) both to other parts of the same preface, and to the
author's own practice in the greater number of the poems themselves."
This disclaimer of perfect agreement renders the remaining portion of
what he says more valuable. Coleridge was in England the creator of that
higher criticism which had already in Germany accomplished so much in
the hands of Lessing and Goethe. It is enough to refer here to the
fragmentary series of his Shakespearian criticisms, containing evidence
of the truest insight, and a marvellous appreciation of the judicial
"sanity" which raises the greatest name in literature far above even the
highest of the poets who approached him.
As a poet Coleridge's own place is safe. His niche in the great gallery
of English poets is secure. Of no one can it be more emphatically said
that at his highest he was "of imagination all compact." He does not
possess the fiery pulse and humaneness of Burns, but the exquisite
perfection of his metre and the subtle alliance of his thought and
expression must always secure for him the warmest admiration of true
lovers of poetic art. In his early poems may be found traces of the
fierce struggle of his youth. The most remarkable is the _Monody on the
Death of Chatterton_ and the _Religious Musings_. In what may be called
his second period, the ode entitled _France_, considered by Shelley the
finest in the language, is most memorable. The whole soul of the poet is
reflected in the _Ode to Dejection_. The well-known lines--
"O Lady! we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does nature live;
Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud,"
with the passage which follows, contain more vividly, perhaps, than
anything which Coleridge has written, the expression of the shaping and
colouring function which he assigns, in the _Biographia Literaria_, to
imagination. _Christabel_ and the _Ancient Mariner_ have so completely
taken possession of the highest place, that it is needless to do more
than allude to them. The supernatural has never received such treatment
as in these two wonderful productions of his genius, and though the
first of them remains a torso, it is the loveliest torso in the gallery
of English literature. Although Coleridge had, for many years before his
death, almost entirely forsaken poetry, the few fragments of work which
remain, written in later years, show little trace of weakness, although
they are wanting in the unearthly melody which imparts such a charm to
_Kubla Khan_, _Love_ and _Youth and Age_. (G. D. B.; H. CH.)
In the latter part of his life, and for the generation which followed,
Coleridge was ranked by many young English churchmen of liberal views as
the greatest religious thinker of their time. As Carlyle has told in his
_Life of Sterling_, the poet's distinction, in the eyes of the younger
churchmen with philosophic interests, lay in his having recovered and
preserved his Christian faith after having passed through periods of
rationalism and Unitarianism, and faced the full results of German
criticism and philosophy. His opinions, however, were at all periods
somewhat mutable, and it would be difficult to state them in any form
that would hold good for the whole even of his later writings. He was,
indeed, too receptive of thought impressions of all kinds to be a
consistent systematizer. As a schoolboy, by his own account, he was for
a time a Voltairean, on the strength of a perusal of the _Philosophical
Dictionary_. At college, as we have seen, he turned Unitarian. From that
position he gradually moved towards pantheism, a way of thought to which
he had shown remarkable leanings when, as a schoolboy, he discoursed of
Neo-Platonism to Charles Lamb, or--if we may trust his
recollection--translated the hymns of Synesius. Early in life, too, he
met with the doctrines of Jacob Behmen, of whom, in the _Biographia
Literaria_, he speaks with affection and gratitude as having given him
vital philosophic guidance. Between pantheism and Unitarianism he seems
to have balanced till his thirty-fifth year, always tending towards the
former in virtue of the recoil from "anthropomorphism" which originally
took him to Unitarianism. In 1796, when he named his first child David
Hartley, but would not have him baptized, he held by the "Christian
materialism" of the writer in question, whom in his _Religious Musings_
he terms "wisest of mortal kind."
When, again, he met Wordsworth in 1797, the two poets freely and
sympathetically discussed Spinoza, for whom Coleridge always retained a
deep admiration; and when in 1798 he gave up his Unitarian preaching, he
named his second child Berkeley, signifying a new allegiance, but still
without accepting Christian rites otherwise than passively. Shortly
afterwards he went to Germany, where he began to study Kant, and was
much captivated by Lessing. In the _Biographia_ he avows that the
writings of Kant "more than any other work, at once invigorated and
disciplined my understanding"; yet the gist of his estimate there is
that Kant left his system undeveloped, as regards his idea of the
Noumenon, for fear of orthodox persecution--a judgment hardly compatible
with any assumption of Kant's Christian orthodoxy, which was notoriously
inadequate. But after his stay at Malta, Coleridge announced to his
friends that he had given up his "Socinianism" (of which ever afterwards
he spoke with asperity), professing a return to Christian faith, though
still putting on it a mystical construction, as when he told Crabb
Robinson that "Jesus Christ was a Platonic philosopher." At this stage
he was much in sympathy with the historico-rationalistic criticism of
the Old Testament, as carried on in Germany; giving his assent, for
instance, to the naturalistic doctrine of Schiller's _Die Sendung
Moses_. From about 1810 onwards, however, he openly professed Christian
orthodoxy, while privately indicating views which cannot be so
described. And even his published speculations were such as to draw from
J. H. Newman a protest that they took "a liberty which no Christian can
tolerate," and carried him to "conclusions which were often heathen
rather than Christian." This would apply to some of his positions
concerning the Logos and the Trinity. After giving up Unitarianism he
claimed that from the first he had been a Trinitarian on Platonic lines;
and some of his latest statements of the doctrine are certainly more
pantheistic than Christian.
The explanation seems to be that while on Christian grounds he
repeatedly denounced pantheism as being in all its forms equivalent to
atheism, he was latterly much swayed by the thought of Schelling in the
pantheistic direction which was natural to him. To these conflicting
tendencies were probably due his self-contradictions on the problem of
original sin and the conflicting claims of feeling and reason. It would
seem that, in the extreme spiritual vicissitudes of his life, conscious
alternately of personal weakness and of the largest speculative grasp,
he at times threw himself entirely on the consolations of evangelical
faith, and at others reconstructed the cosmos for himself in terms of
Neo-Platonism and the philosophy of Schelling. So great were his
variations even in his latter years, that he could speak to his friend
Allsop in a highly latitudinarian sense, declaring that in Christianity
"the miracles are supererogatory," and that "the law of God and the
great principles of the Christian religion would have been the same had
Christ never assumed humanity."
From Schelling, whom he praised as having developed Kant where Fichte
failed to do so, he borrowed much and often, not only in the
metaphysical sections of the _Biographia_ but in his aesthetic lectures,
and further in the cosmic speculations of the posthumous _Theory of
Life_. On the first score he makes but an equivocal acknowledgment,
claiming to have thought on Schelling's lines before reading him; but it
has been shown by Hamilton and Ferrier that besides transcribing much
from Schelling without avowal he silently appropriated the learning of
Maass on philosophical history. In other directions he laid under
tribute Herder and Lessing; yet all the while he cast severe imputations
of plagiarism upon Hume and others. His own plagiarisms were doubtless
facilitated by the physiological effects of opium.
Inasmuch as he finally followed in philosophy the mainly poetical or
theosophic movement of Schelling, which satisfied neither the logical
needs appealed to by Hegel nor the new demand for naturalistic
induction, Coleridge, after arousing a great amount of philosophic
interest in his own country in the second quarter of the century, has
ceased to "make a school." Thus his significance in intellectual history
remains that of a great stimulator. He undoubtedly did much to deepen
and liberalize Christian thought in England, his influence being
specially marked in the school of F. D. Maurice, and in the lives of men
like John Sterling. And even his many borrowings from the German were
assimilated with a rare power of development, which bore fruit not only
in a widening of the field of English philosophy but in the larger
scientific thought of a later generation. (J. M. RO.)
Of Coleridge's four children, two (Hartley and Sara) are separately
noticed. His second child, Berkeley, died when a baby. The third,
Derwent (1800-1883), a distinguished scholar and author, was master of
Helston school, Cornwall (1825-1841), first principal of St Mark's
College, Chelsea (1841-1864), and rector of Hanwell (1864-1880); and
his daughter Christabel (b. 1843) and son Ernest Hartley (b. 1846)
both became well known in the world of letters, the former as a
novelist, the latter as a biographer and critic.
After Coleridge's death several of his works were edited by his
nephew, Henry Nelson Coleridge, the husband of Sara, the poet's only
daughter. In 1847 Sara Coleridge published the _Biographia Literaria_,
enriched with annotations and biographical supplement from her own
pen. Three volumes of political writings, entitled _Essays on his Own
Times_, were also published by Sara Coleridge in 1850. The standard
life of Coleridge is that by J. Dykes Campbell (1894); his letters
were edited by E. H. Coleridge.
COLERIDGE, SARA (1802-1852), English author, the fourth child and only
daughter of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his wife Sarah Fricker of
Bristol, was born on the 23rd of December 1802, at Greta Hall, Keswick.
Here, after 1803, the Coleridges, Southey and his wife (Mrs Coleridge's
sister), and Mrs Lovell (another sister), widow of Robert Lovell, the
Quaker poet, all lived together; but Coleridge was often away from home;
and "Uncle Southey" was a _pater familias_. The Wordsworths at Grasmere
were their neighbours. Wordsworth, in his poem, the _Triad_, has left us
a description, or "poetical glorification," as Sara Coleridge calls it,
of the three girls--his own daughter Dora, Edith Southey and Sara
Coleridge, the "last of the three, though eldest born." Greta Hall was
Sara Coleridge's home until her marriage; and the little Lake colony
seems to have been her only school. Guided by Southey, and with his
ample library at her command, she read by herself the chief Greek and
Latin classics, and before she was five-and-twenty had learnt French,
German, Italian and Spanish.
In 1822 Sara Coleridge published _Account of the Abipones_, a
translation in three large volumes of Dobrizhoffer, undertaken in
connexion with Southey's _Tale of Paraguay_, which had been suggested to
him by Dobrizhoffer's volumes; and Southey alludes to his niece, the
translator (canto iii. stanza 16), where he speaks of the pleasure the
old missionary would have felt if
".... he could in Merlin's glass have seen
By whom his tomes to speak our tongue were taught."
In less grandiloquent terms, Charles Lamb, writing about the _Tale of
Paraguay_ to Southey in 1825, says, "How she Dobrizhoffered it all out,
puzzles my slender Latinity to conjecture." In 1825 her second work
appeared, a translation from the medieval French of the "Loyal
Serviteur," _The Right Joyous and Pleasant History of the Feats, Jests,
and Prowesses of the Chevalier Bayard, the Good Knight without Fear and
without Reproach: By the Loyal Servant_.
In September 1829 at Crosthwaite church, Keswick, after an engagement of
seven years' duration, Sara Coleridge was married to her cousin, Henry
Nelson Coleridge (1798-1843), younger son of Captain James Coleridge
(1760-1836). He was then a chancery barrister in London. The first eight
years of her married life were spent in a little cottage in Hampstead.
There four of her children were born, of whom two survived. In 1834 Mrs
Coleridge published her _Pretty Lessons in Verse for Good Children; with
some Lessons in Latin in Easy Rhyme_. These were originally written for
the instruction of her own children, and became very popular. In 1837
the Coleridges removed to Chester Place, Regent's Park; and in the same
year appeared _Phantasmion, a Fairy Tale_, Sara Coleridge's longest
original work. The songs in _Phantasmion_ were much admired at the time
by Leigh Hunt and other critics. Some of them, such as "Sylvan Stay" and
"One Face Alone," are extremely graceful and musical, and the whole
fairy tale is noticeable for the beauty of the story and the richness of
its language.
In 1843 Henry Coleridge died, leaving to his widow the unfinished task
of editing her father's works. To these she added some compositions of
her own, among which are the _Essay on Rationalism, with a special
application to the Doctrine of Baptismal_ _Regeneration_, appended to
Coleridge's _Aids to Reflection_, a Preface to the _Essays on his Own
Times, by S. T. Coleridge_, and the Introduction to the _Biographia
Literaria_. During the last few years of her life Sara Coleridge was a
confirmed invalid. Shortly before she died she amused herself by writing
a little autobiography for her daughter. This, which reaches only to her
ninth year, was completed by her daughter, and published in 1873,
together with some of her letters, under the title _Memoirs and Letters
of Sara Coleridge_. The letters show a cultured and highly speculative
mind. They contain many apt criticisms of known people and books, and
are specially interesting for their allusions to Wordsworth and the Lake
Poets. Sara Coleridge died in London on the 3rd of May 1852.
Her son, Herbert Coleridge (1830-1861), won a double first class in
classics and mathematics at Oxford in 1852. He was secretary to a
committee appointed by the Philological Society to consider the project
of a standard English dictionary, a scheme of which the _New English
Dictionary_, published by the Clarendon Press, was the ultimate outcome.
His personal researches into the subject were contained in his
_Glossarial Index to the Printed English Literature of the Thirteenth
Century_ (1859).
COLET, JOHN (1467?-1510), English divine and educationist, the eldest
son of Sir Henry Colet (lord mayor of London 1486 and 1495), was born in
London about 1467. He was educated at St Anthony's school and at
Magdalen College, Oxford, where he took the M.A. degree in 1490. He
already held the non-resident rectory of Dennington, Suffolk, and the
vicarage of St Dunstan's, Stepney, and was now collated rector of
Thurning, Hunts. In 1493 he went to Paris and thence to Italy, studying
canon and civil law, patristics and the rudiments of Greek. During his
residence abroad he became acquainted with Budaeus (Guillaume Bude) and
Erasmus, and with the teaching of Savonarola. On his return to England
in 1496 he took orders and settled at Oxford, where he lectured on the
epistles of St Paul, replacing the old scholastic method of
interpretation by an exegesis more in harmony with the new learning. His
methods did much to influence Erasmus, who visited Oxford in 1498, and
in after years Erasmus received an annuity from him. Since 1494 he had
been prebendary of York, and canon of St Martin le Grand, London. In
1502 he became prebendary of Salisbury, in 1505 prebendary of St Paul's,
and immediately afterwards dean of the same cathedral, having previously
taken the degree of doctor of divinity. Here he continued his practice
of lecturing on the books of the Bible; and he soon afterwards
established a perpetual divinity lecture, on three days in each week, in
St Paul's church. About the year 1508, having inherited his father's
large wealth, Colet formed his plan for the re-foundation of St Paul's
school, which he completed in 1512, and endowed with estates of an
annual value of L122 and upwards. The celebrated grammarian William
Lilly was the first master, and the company of mercers were (in 1510)
appointed trustees, the first example of non-clerical management in
education. The dean's religious opinions were so much more liberal than
those of the contemporary clergy (whose ignorance and corruption he
denounced) that they deemed him little better than a heretic; but
William Warham, the archbishop, refused to prosecute him. Similarly
Henry VIII. held him in high esteem despite his sermons against the
French wars. In 1514 he made the Canterbury pilgrimage, and in 1515
preached at Wolsey's installation as cardinal. Colet died of the
sweating sickness on the 16th of September 1519. He was buried on the
south side of the choir of St Paul's, where a stone was laid over his
grave, with no other inscription than his name. Besides the preferments
above mentioned, he was rector of the gild of Jesus at St Paul's and
chaplain to Henry VIII.
Colet, though never dreaming of a formal breach with the Roman Church,
was a keen reformer, who disapproved of auricular confession, and of the
celibacy of the clergy. Though no great scholar or writer, he was a
powerful force in the England of his day, and helped materially to
disintegrate the medieval conditions still obtaining, and to introduce
the humanist movement. Among his works, which were first collectively
published in 1867-1876, are _Absolutissimus de octo orationis partium
constructione libellus_ (Antwerp, 1530), _Rudimenta Grammatices_
(London, 1539), _Daily Devotions_, _Monition to a Godly Life_,
_Epistolae ad Erasmum_, and commentaries on different parts of the
Bible.
See F. Seebohm, _The Oxford Reformers_; J. H. Lupton, _Life of John
Colet_ (1887); art. in _The Times_, July 7, 1909.
COLET, LOUISE (1810-1876), French poet and novelist, was born at Aix of
a Provencal family named Revoil, on the 15th of September 1810. In 1835
she came to Paris with her husband Hippolyte Colet (1808-1851), a
composer of music and professor of harmony and counterpoint at the
conservatoire. In 1836 appeared her _Fleurs du Midi_, a volume of verse,
of liberal tendency, followed by _Penserosa_ (1839), a second volume of
verse; by _La Jeunesse de Goethe_ (1839), a one-act comedy; by _Les
Coeurs brises_ (1843), a novel; _Les Funerailles de Napoleon_ (1840),
a poem, and _La Jeunesse de Mirabeau_ (1841), a novel. Her works were
crowned five or six times by the Institute, a distinction which she
owed, however, to the influence of Victor Cousin rather than to the
quality of her work. The criticisms on her books and on the prizes
conferred on her by the Academy exasperated her; and in 1841 Paris was
diverted by her attempted reprisals on Alphonse Karr for certain notices
in _Les Guepes_. In 1849 she had to defend an action brought against her
by the heirs of Madame Recamier, whose correspondence with Benjamin
Constant she had published in the columns of the _Presse_. She produced
a host of writings in prose and verse, but she is perhaps best known for
her intimate connexion with some of her famous contemporaries, Abel
Villemain, Gustave Flaubert and Victor Cousin. Only one of her books is
now of interest--_Lui: roman contemporain_ (1859), the novel in which
she told the story of her life. She died on the 8th of March 1876.
COLEUS, a genus of herbaceous or shrubby plants belonging to the natural
order Labiatae, chiefly natives of the tropics. They are very ornamental
plants, the colour of their leaves being exceedingly varied, and often
very brilliant. They are of the easiest culture. The cuttings of young
shoots should be propagated every year, about March, being planted in
thumb pots, in sandy loam, and placed in a close temperature of 70 deg.
After taking root shift into 6-in. pots, using ordinary light loamy
compost, containing abundance of leaf-mould and sand, and keeping them
near the light. They may be passed on into larger pots as often as
required, but 8-in. pots will be large enough for general purposes, as
they can be fed with liquid manure. The young spring-struck plants like
a warm growing atmosphere, but by midsummer they will bear more air and
stand in a greenhouse or conservatory. They should be wintered in a
temperature of 60 deg. to 65 deg. The stopping of the young shoots must
be regulated by the consideration whether bushy or pyramidal plants are
desired. Some of the varieties are half-hardy and are used for summer
bedding.
COLFAX, SCHUYLER (1823-1885), American political leader, vice-president
of the United States from 1869 to 1873, was born in New York city on the
23rd of March 1823. His father died before the son's birth, and his
mother subsequently married a Mr Matthews. The son attended the public
schools of New York until he was ten, and then became a clerk in his
step-father's store, removing in 1836 with his mother and step-father to
New Carlisle, Indiana. In 1841 he removed to South Bend, where for eight
years he was deputy auditor (his step-father being auditor) of St Joseph
county; in 1842-1844 he was assistant enrolling clerk of the state
senate and senate reporter for the _Indiana State Journal_. In 1845 he
established the _St Joseph Valley Register_, which he published for
eighteen years and made an influential Whig and later Republican
journal. In 1850 he was a member of the state constitutional convention,
and in 1854 took an active part in organizing the "Anti-Nebraska men"
(later called Republicans) of his state, and was by them sent to
Congress. Here he served with distinction from 1855 until 1869, the last
six years as speaker of the House. At the close of the Civil War he was
a leading member of the radical wing of the Republican party, advocating
the disfranchisement of all who had been prominent in the service of
the Confederacy, and declaring that "loyalty must govern what loyalty
has preserved." In 1868 he had presidential aspirations, and was not
without supporters. He accepted, however, the Republican nomination as
vice-president on a ticket headed by General Grant, and was elected; but
he failed in 1872 to secure renomination. During the political campaign
of 1872 he was accused, with other prominent politicians, of being
implicated in corrupt transactions with the Credit Mobilier, and a
congressional investigation brought out the fact that he had agreed to
take twenty shares from this concern, and had received dividends
amounting to $1200. It also leaked out during the investigation that he
had received in 1868, as a campaign contribution, a gift of $4000 from a
contractor who had supplied the government with envelopes while Colfax
was chairman of the post office committee of the House. At the close of
his term Colfax returned to private life under a cloud, and during the
remainder of his lifetime earned a livelihood by delivering popular
lectures. He died at Mankato, Minnesota, on the 13th of January 1885.
See J. C. Hollister's _Life of Schuyler Colfax_ (New York, 1886).
COLIC (from the Gr. [Greek: kolon] or [Greek: kolon], the large
intestine), a term in medicine of very indefinite meaning, used by
physicians outside England for any paroxysmal abdominal pain, but
generally limited in England to a sudden sharp pain having its origin in
the pelvis of the kidney, the ureter, gall-bladder, bile-ducts or
intestine. Thus it is customary to speak of renal, biliary or intestinal
colic. There is a growing tendency, however, among professional men of
to-day, to restrict the use of the word to a pain produced by the
contraction of the muscular walls of any of the hollow viscera of which
the aperture has become more or less occluded, temporarily or otherwise.
For renal and biliary colic, see the articles KIDNEY DISEASES and LIVER,
only intestinal colic being treated in this place.
In infants, usually those who are "bottle-fed," colic is exceedingly
common, and is shown by the drawing up of their legs, their restlessness
and their continuous cries.
Among adults one of the most serious causes is that due to
lead-poisoning and known as lead colic (_Syn._ painters' colic, _colica
Pictonum_, Devonshire colic), from its having been clearly ascertained
to be due to the absorption of lead into the system (see
LEAD-POISONING). This disease had been observed and described long
before its cause was discovered. Its occurrence in an epidemic form
among the inhabitants of Poitou was recorded by Francois Citois
(1572-1652) in 1617, under the title of _Novus et popularis apud
Pictones dolor colicus biliosus_. The disease was thereafter termed
_colica Pictonum_. It was supposed to be due to the acidity of the
native wines, but it was afterwards found to depend on lead contained in
them. A similar epidemic broke out in certain parts of Germany in the
end of the 17th century, and was at the time believed by various
physicians to be caused by the admixture of acid wines with litharge to
sweeten them.
About the middle of the 18th century this disease, which had long been
known to prevail in Devonshire, was carefully investigated by Sir George
Baker (1722-1809), who succeeded in tracing it unmistakably to the
contamination of the native beverage, cider, with lead, either
accidentally from the leadwork of the vats and other apparatus for
preparing the liquor, or from its being sweetened with litharge.
In Germany a similar colic resulting from the absorption of copper
occurs, but it is almost unknown in England.
The simplest form of colic is that arising from habitual constipation,
the muscular wall of the intestines contracting painfully to overcome
the resistance of hardened scybalous masses of faeces, which cause more
or less obstruction to the onward passage of the intestinal contents.
Another equally common cause is that due to irritating or indigestible
food such as apples, pears or nuts, heavy pastry, meat pies and
puddings, &c. It may then be associated with either constipation or
diarrhoea, though the latter is the more common. It may result from any
form of enteritis as simple, mucous and ulcerative colitis, or an
intestinal malignant growth. The presence of _ascaris lumbricoides_
may, by reflex action, set up a very painful nervous spasm; and certain
forms of influenza (q.v.) are ushered in by colic of a very pronounced
type. Many physicians describe a rheumatic colic due to cold and damp,
and among women disease of the pelvic organs may give rise to an exactly
similar pain. There are also those forms of colic which must be classed
as functional or neuralgic, though this view of the case must never be
accepted until every other possible cause is found to be untenable. From
this short account of a few of the commoner causes of the trouble, it
will be clear that colic is merely a symptom of disease, not a disease
in itself, and that no diagnosis has been made until the cause of the
pain has been determined.