Coleridge's account of the school. 'Never was a friend or schoolfellow
more fondly attached to another than Lamb to Coleridge. The latter from
his own account, as well as from Lamb and others who knew him when at
school, must have been a delicate and suffering boy. His principal
ailments he owed much to the state of his stomach, which was at that
time so delicate, that when compelled to go to a large closet (shoe-bin,
its school name,) containing shoes, to pick out a pair easy to his feet,
which were always tender, and he required shoes so large that he could
walk in them, rather than with them, and the smell, from the number in
this place, used to make him so sick, that I have often seen him
shudder, even in late life, when he gave an account of it. In this note,
continuing an account of himself at school, he says,

"From eight to fourteen I was a playless day-dreamer, a 'helluo
librorum', my appetite for which was indulged by a singular incident:
a stranger, who was struck by my conversation, made me free of a
circulating library in King Street, Cheapside."

The incident, indeed, was singular: going down the Strand, in one of his
day-dreams, fancying himself swimming across the Hellespont, thrusting
his hands before him as in the act of swimming, his hand came in contact
with a gentleman's pocket; the gentleman seized his hand, turning round
and looking at him with some anger, "What! so young, and so wicked?" at
the same time accused him of an attempt to pick his pocket; the
frightened boy sobbed out his denial of the intention, and explained to
him how he thought himself Leander, swimming across the Hellespont. The
gentleman was so struck and delighted with the novelty of the thing, and
with the simplicity and intelligence of the boy, that he subscribed, as
before stated, to the library, in consequence of which Coleridge was
further enabled to indulge his love of reading.