Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Introductory essay on the man and his life.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Born on October the 21st, 1772, in Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire; died on July the 25th, 1834, in Highgate, near London. Poet, philosopher and critic, Coleridge stands as an influential figure of his time. William Hazlitt wrote that 'his thoughts did not seem to come with labour and effort; but as if borne on the gusts of genius, and as if the wings of his imagination lifted him from off his feet', and …

…is country of the spirit of philosophy, within the bounds of traditional opinions. He has been, almost as truly as Bentham, 'the great questioner of things established'; for a questioner needs nor necessarily be an enemy." (John Stuart Mill, from Coleridge, 1840) A happy ending, then, for the brilliant opium addict described by Ivor Panin as 'A huge pendulum attached to a small clock'. He is buried in the aisle of St Michael's Church, Highgate, London.