write this Ode; but this is not the fact. Many stories were afloat, and
many exaggerations were circulated and believed, of his great want of
attention to College discipline, and of perseverance in his studies, and
every failure, or apparent failure, was attributed to these causes.
Often has he repeated the following story of Middleton, and perhaps this
story gave birth to the report.

They had agreed to read together in the evening, and were not to hold
any conversation. Coleridge went to Pembroke and found Middleton intent
on his book, having on a long pair of boots reaching to the knees, and
beside him, on a chair, next to the one he was sitting on, a pistol.
Coleridge had scarcely sat down before he was startled by the report of
the pistol. "Did you see that?" said Middleton. "See what?" said
Coleridge. "That rat I just sent into its hole again--did you feel the
shot? It was to defend my legs," continued Middleton, "I put on these
boots. I am fighting with these rats for my books, which, without some
prevention, I shall have devoured."

There is an anecdote related of Coleridge while at College, and which I
have heard him frequently repeat, when called upon to vouch for its
truth. His fellow students had amused themselves, when he was in
attendance at Lecture, by stealing a portion of the tail of his gown,
and which they had repeated so frequently, as to shorten it to the
length of a spencer. Crossing the quadrangle one day with these remains
at his back, and his appearance not being in collegiate trim, the Master
of Jesus' College, who was ever kind to him, and overlooked all little
inattentions to appearances, accosted him smartly on this occasion--"Mr.
Coleridge! Mr. Coleridge! when will you get rid of that shameful gown?"
Coleridge, turning his head, and casting his eyes over his shoulders, as
if observing its length, or rather want of length, replied in as