Endowed with an intellect of the first order, and an imagination at once delicate and splendid, C., from a weakness of moral constitution, and the lamentable habit already referred to, fell far short of the performance which he had planned, and which included various epic poems, and a complete system of philosophy, in which all knowledge was to be co-ordinated. He has, however, left enough poetry of such excellence as to place him in the first rank of English poets, and enough philosophic, critical, and theological matter to constitute him one of the principal intellectually formative forces of his time. His knowledge of philosophy, science, theology, and literature was alike wide and deep, and his powers of conversation, or rather monologue, were almost unique. A description of him in later life tells of “the clerical-looking dress, the thick, waving, silver hair, the youthful coloured cheek, the indefinable mouth and lips, the quick, yet steady and penetrating greenish-grey eye, the slow and continuous enunciation, and the everlasting music of his tones.”
SUMMARY.—B. 1772, ed. Christ’s Hospital and Camb., enlists 1794 but bought off, became intimate with Southey, and proposes to found pantisocracy, settles at Clevedon and Nether Stowey 1795, and became friend of Wordsworth, began to take opium 1796, writes Ancient Mariner, and joins W. in Lyrical Ballads, became Unitarian preacher, visits Germany 1798, pub. translation of Wallenstein 1800, settles at Greta Hall and finishes Christabel, goes to Malta 1804, lectures on Shakespeare 1808, leaves his family and lives with W. 1809, and thereafter with various friends, latterly with Gillman at Highgate, returned to Trinitarianism, pub. various works 1808-1825, d. 1834.