Coleridge was two years or more younger than Wordsworth, having
been born in 1772. He was the thirteenth child of his father,
who was a clergyman. As a boy he was sensitive and lonely,
liking better to day-dream by himself than to play with his
fellows. While still a mere child he loved books. Before he was
five he had read the Arabian Nights, and he peopled his day
dreams with giants and genii, slaves and fair princesses. When
he was ten he went to school at Christ's Hospital, the Bluecoat
School. Here he met Charles Lamb, who also became a writer, and
whose Essays and Tales from Shakespeare I hope you will soon
read.
At school even his fellows saw how clever Coleridge was. He read
greedily and talked with any one who would listen and answer. In
his lonely wanderings about London on "leave days" he was
delighted if he could induce any stray passer-by to talk,
especially, he says, if he was dressed in black. No subject came
amiss to him, religion, philosophy, science, or poetry. From
school Coleridge went to Cambridge, but after a time, getting
into trouble and debt, he ran away and enlisted in a cavalry
regiment under the name of Silas Tomkyn Comberback.
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