CURRENT LITERATURE.
COLEREDGES.
The Story of a Devonshire House. By Lord Coleridge, K.C. (T. Fisher Unwin. 15s.)—Lord: -Coleridge has given us an admirable and delightful book which deserves to be taken as a model by every member of a, family of high character and distinction who desires to perpetuate in convenient form the honourable traditions of his house. It is impossible within the limits of a newspaper notice to speak individually of all the members of all the genera- tions who figure in this Story of a Devonshire House. They pass before us in a noble prooession, and each one lingers just long enough on the page or pages to make the impression proper to his or her particular importance. But a peculiar interest attaches to the early chapters, which tell of the eight sons and one daughter of the Rev. John Coleridge, Vicar of Ottary St. Mary and Master of the King's School of that parish,—the father, as the world chiefly thinks of him, of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In the year 1781, when the good but eccentric Vicar died, Samuel was the least important of his children,—only nine years old, and the occasion of much generous anxiety on the part of the heroics brother John out in India, who bestirred himself to help his widowed mother. The letters of John to his people at home carry us into the world of men and manners that produced Colonel Newcome. Couched in the old style of elaborately worded phrase, high-flown sentiment, and formal expression of filial duty, we might dismiss them as the stilted productions of a prig of the first water, if there were not evidence within and without the letters of the genuineness of the affection they express, and the solidity of the accompanying remit- tances. John went out in 1770 at the age of sixteen to seek his fortune in the Indian Army, and he had succeeded in making it when his father died in 1781. He was able at once to send home remittances of £200, and very soon the figure became £1,000. But he did not merely send money. He was full of counsel for the brothers at home,—James, for whom by and by he bought a commission; Luke, who meant to be a doctor. And he was especially solicitous about the little sister Anne, the only girl of the family. Means were so straitened at home that there was an idea of putting Anne to business,—that is to say, of apprenticing her to a trade or getting her a place in a shop. Upon this John wrote to his brother :—" Dear James, let me request that you will (should my sister be now in Exeter) urge everything that lays [sic] in your power for her being recalled back to her Mother, where she may improve herself in every accomplishment that ought to adorn the fair Sex. By my honour, James, I would rather live all the rest of my days on Bread and Water than see my sister standing behind a Counter where she is hourly open to the insults of every conceited Puppy that may choose to purchase a Yard of Ribbon from her, horrid Idea! Chucked under the chin, etc., etc., too bad to mention, for God's sake get her back, don't let her go to destruction." And to Anne herself he writes a little later :—" Yes, my very much beloved Nancy, your letter has convinced me that you are everything I maid wish. I do not flatter you when I inform you that you have not only made me happy, but that I pride myself on being possessed of a sister that bears so beautiful a mind." And then he begs her not to go on addressing him as her "Brother unknown," but to try to conceive that she is personally acquainted with him, "equally as much so as with James or any other of my Good Brothers that have the happiness of seeing and conversing with you." For, " when I was about to leave Europe, you was an infant, and many is the time, my Nancy, I have had you in my arms and gazed at you with pleasure and affection, though at that period people in general thought I was an obstinate, hard-hearted boy that had neither feeling nor affection, but I think I may modestly say they judged without their Host." The writer was twenty-one at this time, and his useful life was cut short two years later. But by this time his place as the family benefactor was taken by a younger brother, Francis Syndercombe. A charming episode is that of the meeting of Francis, the boy officer of thirteen, with the important but affectionate elder brother; and the letters of Francis to his mother and sister are as good in every respect as those of John. Something of the spirit and the precocious style of these two seems to revive again a generation later in the sons of "Colonel James,"—John, the Judge (father of the Lord Chief Justice), and Bernard Frederick, the Midshipman, who died at sea in 1805 after a short but heroic career. His letters are vivid, racy, and full of evidence to character and affectionateness. But the most wonderful letter of all is the epistle which his brother John wrote to him from Eton when he made up his mind to enter the Navy. John was thirteen and Frederick eleven at this time. The letter would well become a father of forty. Other brothers of the poet who showed themselves wiser than himself in the things of this world without being deficient in literary and philosophical tastes were Edward and George, who both became clergymen and schoolmasters. Edward lived to old age, dying in 1848 at eighty-three. George died in 1828. It was of him that "poor Sam," the poet, and, if not quite black, at least very grey sheep of this most respectable family, wrote :
He is a man of most reflective and elegant talent. He possesses learning iii a greater degree than any of the family, excepting
myself. His manners are grave, and hued over with a tender sadness. In his moral character, he approaches nearer perfection than any man I ever yet knew. He is worth us all." But it was the third son, Colonel James, who bought Samuel Taylor out of the regiment in which he so disastrously enlisted in the course of his College career. And James Coleridge is to be remembered for much besides. The sketch of him by the hand of his grand- son brings before us a man of singularly fine and balanced character. After his marriage he left the Army, bought the Chanter's House at Ottery St. Mary, and there lived out his days, and had the six sons and one daughter who in various ways of life carried on with honour the honourable traditions of the house. Attractive as this volume is as a family history, it is extremely interesting also as giving graphic pictures of English life daring the last hundred and fifty years. The numerous portraits add greatly to its charm, and a very clear genealogical table helps the reader of weak memory and halting power of attention to realise the relationships of the various members of the clan.
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