Coleridge

Abstract

Lamb has too long been thought of as the humble clerk far removed from the currents of world affairs, with which he did not concern himself. In fact he took a substantial interest in politics in so far as they turned upon permanent questions of good and evil, justice and injustice. It would, for example, be hard to outdo for virulence his first known newspaper epigram — that on James Mackintosh.¹ Nor did he mellow politically as long as he engaged in journalism; his sonnet to Matthew Wood of 1820 is equally bitter about George Canning. Such attacks proceed from strong feeling. The strong feeling, proceeding to political convictions, began, with Lamb as with everyone, in adolescence, through the strong radical bent of his Christ’s Hospital friends, especially those who went on to Cambridge University. The most influential of these was Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

I cannot think a thought, I cannot make a criticism on men or books, without an ineffectual turning and reference to him. He was the proof and touchstone of all my cogitations. He was a Grecian … at Christ’s Hospital, where I was deputy Grecian; and the same subordination and deference to him I have preserved through a life-long acquaintance. Lamb on Coleridge’s death, 1834 (Misc., 351)

‘An idea starts up in my head,’ he explained to Godwin; ‘away I follow it thro’ thick & thin, Wood & Marsh, Brake and Briar.’ E. L. Griggs, Introduction to Coleridge’s Collected Letters (p. xxxv)