sensibility himself, he never failed to engage the hearts of his readers, and amidst the nicest attention to the harmony of his numbers he always took care to express with propriety the sentiments of an elegant mind. In all his writings his greatest difficulty was to please himself. I remember a passage in one of his letters, where, speaking of his love-songs, he says, 'Some were written on occasions a good deal imaginary, others not and the reason there are so many is that I wanted to write one good song and could never please myself." It was this diffidence which occasioned him to throw aside many of his pieces before he had bestowed upon them his last touches. He died A. D. 1763.

to say, he had very few equals. Of great | of Robespierre," a poem, and spent the remainder of the year in lecturing on revealed religion, he having become a Unitarian. Southey and he afterward married two sisters of the name of Fricker. Coleridge also established a periodical called The Watchman, which, however, soon became defunct, from his incurable unpunctuality. He was at this time put to many shifts to obtain a living, though his family and friends were most anxious to help him. In 1798 appeared his fascinating tale of "The Ancient Mariner," "The Foster-Mother's Tale," etc., and about the same time he was by the liberality of the Messrs. Wedgewood, who settled one hundred and fifty pounds a year on him, enabled to proceed to Germany to complete his education. On his return, in 1800, he went to reside with Southey at Keswick; at this time his Unitarian views underwent a change, and he became a firm believer in the doctrine of the Trinity.

R. DODSLEY.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

TH

HIS gifted thinker and poet was the son of the Rev. John Coleridge, vicar of St. Mary's Ottery, Devonshire, and was born on 20th October, 1772. He received his educa- | tion at Christ's Hospital, where, without desire or ambition, his talents and superiority placed him ever at the head of his class. In 1791 he entered Jesus College, Cambridge, where he remained till 1793. But, having contracted some debts, in a fit of despondency he enlisted as a soldier in the Fifteenth Light Dragoons. Here his education soon made his position in society known, and his friends, to his great satisfaction, as he made but a sorry dragoon, bought him

off.

In 1794, Coleridge became acquainted with Southey and formed a friendship which affected his future history. In conjunction with him he wrote and published "The Fall

The same year Coleridge issued his translation—or, rather, transfusion-of Schiller's Wallenstein," into which he has thrown some of the choicest graces of his own fancy.

He obtained also employment as an occasional contributor to the Morning Post, his unbusinesslike habits making regular contributions impossible. In 1804 he went to Malta to recruit his health, which was suffering was suffering greatly from his addiction to opium; he obtained there the post of secretary to the governor, but he held the situation only nine months. On his return he took up his abode at Grasmere, and in 1816, at the recommendation of Byron, he published Christabel, "a wild and wondrous tale." This was written many years before, but it appears to have been Cole

ridge's custom to retain his poems for come an actor or a painter. The failure of years before publishing them.

Coleridge now began to reap the fruits of his genius; he obtained considerable sums from his poetical and prose works, which had a very wide circulation. Fortunately for his after-life, he was able to give up the use of opium, which was proving so pernicious to his health. In 1816 he took up his residence with Mr. Gilman, a surgeon, of Highgate Grove, to whose care and skill he was indebted for the comparative ease and comfort of his later days. He died at Highgate, July 25, 1834.

ROBERT INGLIS.

SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE.

his father in 1779, when he was but ten years old, brought the task of supporting the family upon little Tom. This he did by making crayon portraits at Oxford, and afterward at Bath, for a guinea and a half each. In 1784 he received a prize for some crayon studies of portions of Rafael's "Transfiguration," and was soon able to aspire to better things. In 1787 he repaired to London and became the pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds, at that time the most distinguished portrait-painter in the world. On the death of Sir Joshua, in 1792, Lawrence succeeded to his station in public favor. In 1794 he was elected a Royal Academician and became the fashionable portrait-painter of EngHE art of painting made but slow land. progIn 1815 he was knighted by the ress in England from the time of the Crown. In 1818 he was called to Aix-laRenaissance until the middle of the eigh- Chapelle to paint the sovereigns assembled teenth century. Foreign artists had been there, and before he returned he visited. induced to come over by the wealth and Vienna and Rome, where he was received smiles of royalty. Among these were Hol- with great distinction. In the year 1820, bein, Rubens, Van Dyke and Sir Peter Sir Benjamin West died, and Lawrence was Lely, whose works form the staple of Eng- at once elected president of the Royal Acadlish galleries until the age of Benjamin West emy; he held this distinguished office until and Sir Joshua Reynolds. It is greatly to his death, on the 7th of January, 1830. He the credit of Sir Thomas Lawrence that never married, although he was always very as the pupil of the latter and the succes- courteous and gallant to women. sor of the former in the presidency of the Royal Academy he sustained the rising reputation of English artists and advanced English art.

THE

Thomas Lawrence was the son of an innkeeper, and was born in Bristol, England, on the 4th of May, 1769-the birth-year of both Napoleon and Wellington. At six years of age the boy was quite a prodigy; he declaimed pieces and drew heads, and it was early a question whether he should be

As to the character of Lawrence's art, it may be said that he makes flattering ideals rather than real pictures; and so strongly typical are his portraits that they all seem like one man's children, with large eyes, waving hair and a "conventional grace, in which they are enveloped by the painter as in a garment. Among the best of them is the double portrait entitled "The Brothers," whose aristocratic bearing is well set off by the donkey's head as a foil.