proceeded a few miles, he sate him down on the side of the road, so
overwhelmed with painful thoughts that he wept audibly. A gentleman
passed by who knew him, and, inquiring into his sorrow, took him home
and gave him the means of maintaining himself by placing him in a
school. At this time he commenced being a severe and ardent student. He
married his first wife, by whom he had three daughters, all now alive.
While his first wife lived, having scraped up money enough, he at the
age of twenty walked to Cambridge, entered himself at Sidney College,
distinguished himself in Hebrew and Mathematics, and might have had a
fellowship if he had not been married. He returned and settled as a
schoolmaster in Southmolton where his wife died. In 1760 he was
appointed Chaplain-Priest and Master of the School at Ottery St. Mary,
and removed to that place; and in August, 1760, Mr. Buller, the father
of the present Judge, procured for him the living from Lord Chancellor
Bathurst. By my Mother, his second wife, he had ten children, of whom I
am the youngest, born October 20th,[1] 1772.

These facts I received from my Mother; but I am utterly unable to fill
them up by any further particulars of times, or places, or names. Here I
shall conclude my first Letter, because I cannot pledge myself for the
accuracy of the accounts, and I will not therefore mingle it with that
for the truth of which, in the minutest parts, I shall hold myself
responsible. You must regard this Letter as a first chapter devoted to
dim traditions of times too remote to be pierced by the eye of
investigation.

Yours affectionately, S. T. COLERIDGE.

Feb. 1797. Monday.