Every morning, immediately after breakfast, Lady Patteson read the
Psalms and Lessons for the day with the four children, and after
these a portion of some book of religious instruction, such as 'Horne
on the Psalms' or 'Daubeny on the Catechism.' The ensuing studies
were in charge of Miss Neill, the governess, and the life-long friend
of her pupils; but the mother made the religious instruction her
individual care, and thus upheld its pre-eminence. Sunday was
likewise kept distinct in reading, teaching, employment, and whole
tone of conversation, and the effect was assuredly not that weariness
which such observance is often supposed to produce, but rather
lasting benefit and happy associations. Coley really enjoyed Bible-
reading, and entered into explanations, and even then often picked up
a passage in the sermons he heard at St. Giles's-in-the-Fields from
the Rev. J. Endell Tyler, and would give his home-oracles no peace
till they had made it as clear to his comprehension as was possible.

The love of his home may be gathered from the fact that his letters
have been preserved in an unbroken series, beginning from a country
visit in 1834, after a slight attack of scarlet fever, written in the
round-hand of a boy of seven years old, and finished off with the big
Roman capitals FINIS, AMEN, and ending with the uncompleted sheets,
bearing as their last date September 19, 1871.

The boy's first school was at Ottery St. Mary, in Devonshire, of
which his great-grandfather and great-uncle had both been head-
masters.

There was much to make Ottery homelike to Coley, for his grandparents
lived at Heath's Court, close to the church, and in the manor-house
near at hand their third son, Francis George Coleridge, a solicitor,