He was growing into the regular tastes of the refined, fastidious Eton boy; wrote of the cut of his first tail-coat that ’this is really an important thing;’ and had grown choice in the adorning of his room and the binding of his books, though he never let these tastes bring him into debt or extravagance.  His turn for art and music began to show itself, and the anthems at St. George’s Chapel on the Sunday afternoons gave him great delight; and in Eton Chapel, a contemporary says, ’I well remember how he used to sing the Psalms with the little turns at the end of the verses, which I envied his being able to do.’  Nor was this mere love of music, but devotion.  Coley had daily regular readings of the Bible in his room with his brother, cousins, and a friend or two; but the boys were so shy about it that they kept an open Shakespeare on the table, with an open drawer below, in which the Bible was placed, and which was shut at the sound of a hand on the door.

Hitherto No. 33 Bedford Square had been the only home of the Patteson family.  The long vacations were spent sometimes with the Judge’s relations in the Eastern counties, sometimes with Lady Patteson’s in the West.  Landwith Rectory, in Cornwall, was the home of her eldest brother, Dr. James Coleridge, whose daughter Sophia was always like an elder sister to her children, and the Vicarage of St. Mary Church, then a wild, beautiful seaside village, though now almost a suburb of Torquay, was held by her cousin, George May Coleridge; and here the brothers and sisters climbed the rocks, boated, fished, and ran exquisitely wild in the summer holidays.  Christmas was spent with the Judge’s mother at Ipswich, amongst numerous cousins, with great merriment and enjoyment such as were never forgotten.

Colonel Coleridge had died in 1836, his widow in her daughter’s house in 1838, and Heath’s Court had become the property of Mr. Justice Coleridge, who always came thither with his family as soon as the circuit was over.  In 1841, Feniton Court, about two miles and a half from thence, was purchased by Judge Patteson, much to the delight of his children.  It was a roomy, cheerful, pleasantly-situated house, with a piece of water in the grounds, the right of shooting over a couple of farms, and all that could render boy life happy.

Feniton was a thorough home, and already Coley’s vision was, ’When I am vicar of Feniton, which I look forward to, but with a very distant hope, I should of all things like Fanny to keep house for me till I am married;’ and again, when relating some joke with his cousins about the law-papers, of the Squire of Feniton, he adds:  ’But the Squire of Feniton will be a clergyman.’