St. Mary, Devonshire, the 21st October, 1772. His father, the Rev. John
Coleridge, was vicar of Ottery, and head master of Henry VIII Free
Grammar School, usually termed the King's School; a man of great
learning, and one of the persons who assisted Dr. Kennicott in his
Hebrew Bible. Before his appointment to the school at Ottery he had been
head master of the school at South Molton. Some dissertations on the
17th and 18th chapters of the Book of Judges, [1] and a Latin grammar
for the use of the school at Ottery were published by him. He was an
exceedingly studious man, pious, of primitive manners, and of the most
simple habits: passing events were little heeded by him, and therefore
he was usually characterized as the "absent man".

Many traditional stories concerning his father had been in circulation
for years before Coleridge came to Highgate. These were related with
mirth in the neighbourhood of Ottery, and varied according to the humour
of the narrator.

To beguile the winter's hour, which, however, was never dull in his
society, he would recall to memory the past anecdotes of his father, and
repeat them till the tears ran down his face, from the fond recollection
of his beloved parent. The relation of the story usually terminated with
an affectionate sigh, and the observation, "Yes, my friend, he was
indeed an Israelite without guile, and might be compared to Parson
Adams." The same appellation which Coleridge applied to his father will
also, with equal justice, be descriptive of himself. In many respects he
"differed in kind" from his brothers and the rest of his family, but his
resemblance to his father was so strong, that I shall continue this part
of the memoir with a sketch of the parent stock from which he sprung.

The Rev. John Coleridge had been twice married; his second wife, Anne