then at
Bath Grammar School, next at a private school at Winkfield, Wilts, and
in 1801 he was sent to the Manchester Grammar School, from which he ran
away, and for some time rambled in Wales on a small allowance made to him
by his mother. Tiring of this, he went to London in the end of 1802,
where he led the strange Bohemian life related in _The Confessions_. His
friends, thinking it high time to interfere, sent him in 1803 to Oxf.,
which did not, however, preclude occasional brief interludes in London,
on one of which he made his first acquaintance with opium, which was to
play so prominent and disastrous a part in his future life. In 1807 he
became acquainted with Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Southey, and soon
afterwards with C. Lamb. During the years 1807-9 he paid various visits
to the Lakes, and in the latter year he settled at Townend, Grasmere,
where Wordsworth had previously lived. Here he pursued his studies,
becoming gradually more and more enslaved by opium, until in 1813 he was
taking from 8000 to 12,000 drops daily. John Wilson (Christopher North),
who was then living at Elleray, had become his friend, and brought him to
Edinburgh occasionally, which ended in his passing the latter part of his
life in that city. His marriage to Margaret Simpson, _dau._ of a farmer,
took place in 1816. Up to this time he had written nothing, but had been
steeping his mind in German metaphysics, and out-of-the-way learning of
various kinds; but in 1819 he sketched out _Prolegomena of all future
Systems of Political Economy_, which, however, was never finished. In the
same year he acted as ed. of the _Westmoreland Gazette_. His true
literary career began in 1821 with the publication in the _London
Magazine_ of _The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_. Thereafter he
produced a long series of articles, some of them almost on the scale of
books, in _Blackwood's_ and _Tait's_ magazines, the _Edinburgh Literary
Gazette_, and _Hogg's Instructor_. These included _Murder considered as
one of the Fine Arts_ (1827), and in his later and more important period,
_Suspiria De Profundis_ (1845), _The Spanish Military Nun_ (1847), _The
English Mail-Coach_, and _Vision of Sudden Death_ (1849). In 1853 he
began a _coll._ ed. of his works, which was the main occupation of his
later years. He had in 1830 brought his family to Edinburgh, which,
except for two years, 1841-43, when he lived in Glasgow, was his home
till his death in 1859, and in 183