on 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