CHAPTER II.

COLERIDGE'S FIRST ENTRY AT JESUS' COLLEGE.--HIS SIMPLICITY AND WANT OF
WORLDLY TACT.--ANECDOTES AND DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS OF HIM DURING HIS
RESIDENCE AT COLLEGE INTIMACY WITH MIDDLETON--WITH SOUTHEY.--QUITS
COLLEGE FOR BRISTOL.


At Cambridge, whither his reputation had travelled before him, high
hopes and fair promises of success were entertained by his young friends
and relations. He was considered by the "Blues," as they are familiarly
termed, one from whom they were to derive great immediate honour, which
for a short period, however, was deferred. Individual genius has a cycle
of its own, and moves only in that path, or by the powers influencing
it. Genius has been properly defined 'prospective', talent on the
contrary 'retrospective': genius is creative, and lives much in the
future, and in its passage or progress may make use of the labours of
talent.

"I have been in the habit," says Coleridge, "of considering the
qualities of intellect, the comparative eminence in which
characterizes individuals and even countries, under four
kinds,--genius, talent, sense, and cleverness. The first I use in the
sense of most general acceptance, as the faculty which adds to the
existing stock of power and knowledge by new views, new combinations,
by discoveries not accidental, but anticipated, or resulting from
anticipation."

'Friend', vol. iii. p. 85, edit. 1818. [1]