]
He gained Sir William Browne's gold medal for the Greek Ode in the
summer of that year. It was on the Slave Trade. The poetic force and
originality of this Ode were, as he said himself, much beyond the
language in which they were conveyed. In the winter of 1792-3 he stood
for the University (Craven) Scholarship with Dr. Keate, the late
head-master of Eton, Mr. Bethell (of Yorkshire) and Bishop Butler, who
was the successful candidate. In 1793 he wrote without success for the
Greek Ode on Astronomy, the prize for which was gained by Dr. Keate. The
original is not known to exist, but the reader may see what is probably
a very free version of it by Mr. Southey in his Minor Poems. ("Poetical
Works", vol. ii, p. 170.) "Coleridge"--says a schoolfellow [1] of his
who followed him to Cambridge in 1792, "was very studious, but his
reading was desultory and capricious. He took little exercise merely for
the sake of exercise: but he was ready at any time to unbend his mind in
conversation; and, for the sake of this, his room, (the ground-floor
room on the right hand of the staircase facing the great gate,) was a
constant rendezvous of conversation-loving friends. I will not call them
loungers, for they did not call to kill time, but to enjoy it. What
evenings have I spent in those rooms! What little suppers, or "sizings",
as they were called, have I enjoyed; when Aeschylus, and Plato, and
Thucydides were pushed aside, with a pile of lexicons and the like, to
discuss the pamphlets of the day.
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